POEM: If We
Only Knew
By: Eric Gajewski
"A new commandment I give unto you: That you love
one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another."
[John 13:34]
[John 13:34]
Please enjoy my latest poem from the work "Fortress of the Soul".
I hope your Lenten journey is fruitful.
Press play and listen as you read along...
If
you only knew,
This
much is true
I
would give thee the whole world
I
would fly to rest in thy Skies of blue,
If
you only knew,
If
man had only a clue
I
would attempt to give thee
All
that I could
I
would choose now to be numbered
Amongst
these stars above so few,
If we
only knew,
To
all those now safely found in His presence
Joined
forevermore, who assuredly do,
Wherest
on the front lines of Love,
I see
and meet My Beloved
With
Eyes of Fire,
And golden
Lips of Truth
Sweetly
speaking as the early Morning dew,
For
a once hardened seed was I
Which,
nurtured, by Thy Waters, only grew,
If
you only knew,
Is
heard throughout my soul replaying
As
Thy Gentle Hand within passes through,
A Heart
always ablaze
Which
makest all things new,
Stone,
no more, this heart, once found, alone, in self’s gravel
Was longing
and looking for a “better view”,
And so
I was taken away by Love’s breeze
Which
blew me away from this world
Straight
into the tender Arms of You
O’
if we only knew,
The
depths of thy Heart
The “One
of self-love” would run,
And
try to find this Fortress of Love’s Refuge
Which
has more than enough space for Two,
But
an eagle gazes to see the sadness
Of
so many souls who prematurely withdrew
Who
did not learn of His mercy
Who didn’t
realize that what sin did accrue
His
loving Heart could justly undo,
O’
if you only knew,
The busied
streets would empty
And
hearts would be found in silence upon the pews
For
the depths of His Love we knowest not,
His Selfless
Sacred Heart still raging for sinners, infinitely hot
A
God we ever neglect and yet His heart, for us, still pursues
If
we only knew….
#110: Augustine’s Love Sermon
“Love and do what you will.” Augustine (354-430). A sermon on love.
Source Material
The numbered paragraphs below correspond to numbered sections in the sermon.
6. …All who do not love God are strangers and antichrists. They might
come to the churches, but they cannot be numbered among the children of
God. That fountain of life does not belong to them. A bad person can
have baptism and prophecy. King Saul had prophecy: even while he
persecuted the holy David, he was filled with the Spirit of Prophecy,
and began to prophesy. [1 Sam. 19] A bad person can receive the
sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord, for is said, “All who eat
and drink unworthily, eat and drink judgment on themselves.” [1 Cor.
11:29] A bad person can have the name of Christ and be called a
Christian. Such people are referred to when it says, “They polluted the
name of their God.” [Ezek. 36:20] To have all these sacraments is, as I
say, possible even for a bad person. But to have love and be a bad
person is impossible. Love is the unique gift, the fountain that is
yours alone. The Spirit of God exhorts you to drink from it, and in so
doing to drink from himself.
7. “This is how the love of God is shown among us.” The reason why
the writer exhorts us, is so that we may come to love God. Could we love
him, unless he first loved us? Though we were slow to love, let us not
be slow to love in return. He loved us first. We do not even love in the
same way as he. He loved the unrighteous, but he took away the
unrighteousness. He loved the sick, but he visited them to make them
whole. Love, then, is God. “This is how the love of God is shown among
us: God sent his only Son into the world, that we may live through him.”
As the Lord himself said: “No one can have greater love than this: to
lay his down his life for his friends.” [John 25:13] This proved
Christ’s love for us, the fact that he died for us. How is the Father’s
love for us proved? By the fact that he sent his only Son to die for us.
As the apostle Paul says, “He who did not spare his own Son, but
delivered him up for us all, how will he not freely give us all things?”
[Rom. 8:32] Notice how the Father delivered up Christ, and so did
Judas. Does it not seem that they did the same sort of thing? … There
was a delivering up by the Father; a delivering up [of himself] by the
Son, and a delivering up by Judas. The thing done is the same, but what
is it that sets their actions apart? This: the Father and the Son did it
in love, but Judas did it in betrayal. So you see that we need to
consider not what a person does but with what mind and will he does it.
Why do we bless the Father and detest Judas for doing the same deed? We
bless love and detest wickedness. …
8. What I have said so far applies to actions that are similar. When
they are different, we find people made fierce by love; and by
wickedness made seductively gentle. A father beats a boy, while a
kidnapper caresses him. Offered a choice between blows and caresses, who
would not choose the caresses and avoid the blows? But when you
consider the people who give them you realize that it is love that
beats, wickedness that caresses. This is what I insist upon: human
actions can only be understood by their root in love. All kinds of
actions might appear good without proceeding from the root of love.
Remember, thorns also have flowers: some actions seem truly savage, but
are done for the sake of discipline motivated by love. Once and for all,
I give you this one short command: love, and do what you will. If you
hold your peace, hold your peace out of love. If you cry out, cry out in
love. If you correct someone, correct them out of love. If you spare
them, spare them out of love. Let the root of love be in you: nothing
can spring from it but good. …
10. “No one has ever seen God.” He is invisible, and must be looked
for not with the eye but with the heart. But just as if we wished to see
the sun, we should purge our eyes, wishing to see God, let us purge the
eye by which God can be seen. Where is this eye? Hear the Gospel:
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” [Matt. 5:8] But
do not imagine God according to the lust of your eyes. If you do, you
will create for yourself a huge form or an incalculable magnitude which
(like the light which you see with your bodily eyes) extends in every
direction. Your imagination lets it fill realm after realm of space, all
the vastness you can conceive of. Or maybe you picture for yourself a
venerable-looking old man. Do not imagine any of these things. If you
would see God, here is what you should imagine: God is love. What sort
of face does love have? What shape is it? What size? What hands and feet
does it have? No one can say. And yet it does have feet, those feet
that carry people to church. It does have hands, those hands that reach
out to the poor. It has eyes, those through which we consider the needy:
“blessed is the person,” it is said, “who considers the needy and the
poor.” [Ps. 41:1] It has ears, of which the Lord says, “He that has ears
to hear let him hear.” [Luke 8:8]
These parts of the body are not separated by different places: anyone
with love sees the whole at once. Inhabit, and you shall be inhabited.
Dwell, and you shall be dwelt in. After all, who loves what he cannot
see, my brothers? But why then do you call out “Amen!” to my praises of
love? What have I shown you? Have I produced a gleam of colors? Have I
been talking about something made from gold and silver? Have I dug out
jewels from hidden treasure? Have I shown anything like this to your
eyes? Is my face changed while I speak? No, you and I alike are in the
same forms as before. But love is praised, and you shout and applaud.
Certainly you do not see anything. But as it pleases you to praise love,
so let it please you to keep it in your heart. Pay attention to what I
say brothers. I urge you on, as God enables me, towards a great
treasure. If you were shown a beautiful little vase, inlaid with gold,
and it charmed your eyes and drew the eager desire of your heart, would
you not all say, “If only I had that vase!” And it would be pointless
for you to say it, because it would not be in your power to possess it –
although someone who wants to have it might think of stealing it from
another’s house. Love is praised to you. If it pleases you, have it,
possess it. There is no need to rob anyone, no need to buy it. It is
free. Take it, clasp it. There is nothing sweeter. If this is what it is
like merely to talk about it, what must it be like when one has it?
11. If any of you should wish to act out of love, brothers, do not
imagine it to be a self-abasing, passive and timid thing. And do not
think that love can be preserved by a sort of gentleness – or rather
tame listlessness. This is not how it is preserved. Do not imagine that
you love your servant when you refrain from beating him, or that you
love your son when you do not discipline him, or that you love your
neighbor when you do not rebuke him. This is not love, it is feebleness.
Love should be fervent to correct. Take delight in good behavior, but
amend what is bad. Love the person, but not the error in the person: God
made the person, but the person alone made the error. Love what God
made, not what the person made. If you love one thing, you remove
another. When you esteem one thing, you change another. But if you are
severe, let it be out of love, for the sake of correction. This is why
love was represented by the dove which descended upon the Lord. [Matt.
3:16] Why did the Holy Spirit, who pours love into us, take the form of a
dove? The dove has no bitterness, yet she fights with beak and wings
for her young; hers is a fierceness without bitterness. In the same way,
when a father chastises his son he does so for discipline. As I said
earlier, the kidnapper inveigles the child with bitter endearments, in
order to sell him; a father, for the sake of correction, chastises
without bitterness.
This is how you should act to all people. Let this be a great lesson
for you, brothers, a great rule. You all have children, or wish to have –
or if you have decided for certain to have no children, at least
spiritually you want to have children. Well, what father does not
correct his son? What son does not respect his father’s discipline? And
yet he seems to be fierce with him. It is the fierceness of love, a
fierceness without bitterness, in the way of the dove, not of the raven.
From this it occurs to me, my brothers, to tell you who the violators
of love are: they are the ones who have split away from the Church [i.e.
the Donatists]. As they hate love itself, so they hate the dove too.
But the dove convicts them: it comes from heaven, the heavens open, and
it rests on the head of the Lord. Why? That John may hear, “This is he
that baptizes.” [John 1:33] Away from here, robbers! Away, you who
invade of the possession of Christ! You have dared to ascribe to your
own things the ownership of God – although you insist on being lords
there. He recognizes and rules over his own possession; he does not
cancel the deeds, but enters in and takes charge. When any come to the
Catholic Church, their baptism is not cancelled, so that the ownership
of the Commander is not cancelled. What is done in the Catholic Church?
The Owner is acknowledged and enters in under his own title. But the
robber was enters in under a title that does not belong to him.
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