“God did not join with humanity except in the bond of love, and love held him nailed fast to the cross—because we who were made of love are not drawn in any other way but by love.” (Saint Catherine of Siena, Letter T285)
What is love that we can be made of it? That we can be drawn by it? Love seems a strange thing of which to be made. Perhaps it makes more sense to consider that we are made by love, that we come from love. Or perhaps, both are true. Since it is easier to wrap our heads around, let’s look first at the idea that we are made out of love.
God created us out of love. There was no necessity in God, no duty, no obligation that required him to create us. Rather, God desired for us to exist. Love is that desire, that wanting. God loved us and out of that love we were made. And since God is unchanging, if he has once loved us, then he has always loved us and will always love us. God’s love for us is eternal since God is eternal and God is love.
Since we’re made in the image of God, that same love by which God made us is also in us. Love is an integral part of what makes us human. Love is part of us and not an unimportant part. Because of the love which God created in us, we desire, we long for the Good. No earthly good can satisfy this desire because no earthly good is perfectly good. God alone is Good. So we have a burning longing and an unquenchable thirst that is constantly reaching out for more. This love is what drives us throughout life.
Having made us out of love, God knows the workings of our hearts. Therefore, in sending his Son into the world to suffer and die on the cross, God draws us by love. Jesus responds to our thirst with his thirst. God loves us so that we can love him. Like the woman at the well, we are offered something that will eternally quench our insatiable thirst. Our burning desires that consume every earthly thing and always yearn for more are satisfied only by God. The divine love, on the other hand, burns without consuming. This was made manifest to Moses at the burning bush. Through the Holy Spirit, this fire of divine love is enkindled in our hearts.
There could be no greater love than the love which held Christ bound to the cross: the love with which Christ laid down his life, the love with which the Father gave his only-begotten Son to death. The love of God poured out from the cross draws us who are made of love into his heart. Through the cross we are brought into the peace of Christ. Due to our fallen nature, we love earthly things more than God. God, therefore, in order to attract our love gave to us something that was both earthly and divine. Through the death of Christ on the cross, we are drawn through love of Christ as man to the love of Christ as God. In this is peace, that we are once more able to love God with all that we are.
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Photo by Fir0002 (CC BY-SA 3.0)
