Second of Easter C
April 2007
From an article by Frank McAuliffe in 'Africa' magazine.
Believing in my heart that I am loved unconditionally is the crucial test of how deeply Christianity has touched my life. Having been brought up with a largely Old Testament understanding of God, many of us are not convinced of God's unconditional love -God is just and fair; but his very justice demands that his love must be deserved and won. If I keep God's commandments he will reward me; if I refuse he will punish me. The New Testament, however, tells us that we are members of God's family, daughters and sons of God. Prior to any good deeds, I am already rooted and established in the eternal love of God. A child doesn't ever need to give reasons for being loved; it doesn't need to prove its loveableness by actions. It is loved because it is; because it was born of these particular parents. Later on, it can reject that love. It can run away and disown its parents, but it never ceases to be loved. If this is so with good human parents, how much more so with our heavenly Father. God's love for me is absolute and unconditional. All I need do is receive that love. But I can find it so very hard to do this, to trust the sheer unconditionality of God's love. I wonder why? There is, possibly, our Old Testament upbringing, but there is also a more human element. In the early stages of a relationship, lovers are unsure of themselves; they feel the need to prove themselves worthy of being loved. This is how I often feel with God. If I have good deeds to show him, I feel more assured of his love. I needn't approach him as a child, with empty hands. This empty hands bit is so difficult; it demands so much trust. Virtues and merits give me some claim to a reward. I don't have the uneasy feeling of living on the sheer goodness of God, and his totally gratuitous love for me. And this leaves me more secure and independent. It buys me a kind of insurance. From this it is an easy step to saying that God is, in some ways, obliged to reward me for having been faithful. And that is exactly why this reliance on merit is so much against the spirit of the Gospel. The basic request the Gospel makes of us is unlimited trust, confidence, to the point of recklessness, in the unconditionality of God's merciful love. Fundamentally, the Christian life is not about what I can do to show my love for God, but what God has done to show his love for me. The focus of thinking is not inward; evaluating how deserving I am of God's love. It is outward; appreciating how deserving God is of my love. A life lived in the spirit of the Gospel is joyous and grateful. It is pervaded not by a nagging sense of failure in who I ought to be, but by a deep sense of gratitude for who I am.