THE SIXTY SECOND CATHOLIC: Love and movement from mind to heart.

As I sit here and reflect on Philippians 2:5 for my Lectio Divina meditation, my mind turns to  Jesus and the love he must have had for all humans to become corruptible humans. Love is at the center of what Jesus is about. Humans are so predictable in their thinking. They are lazy in their willingness to work for what they get. They want it easy. The Old Testament is all about God establishing the covenant of love between Himself and the Israelites, and the many ways that they break it. Read the First Reading from the Office of Readings for the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist.

From the book of the prophet Jeremiah
2:1-13, 20-25
The infidelity of God’s people

“This word of the Lord came to me: Go, cry out this message for Jerusalem to hear!

I remember the devotion of your youth,
how you loved me as a bride,
Following me in the desert,
in a land unsown.
Sacred to the Lord was Israel,
the first fruits of his harvest;
Should anyone presume to partake of them,
evil would befall him, says the Lord.
Listen to the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob!
All you clans of the house of Israel.

Thus says the Lord:
What fault did your fathers find in me
that they withdrew from me,
Went after empty idols,
and became empty themselves?
They did not ask, “Where is the Lord
who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
Who led us through the desert,
through a land of wastes and gullies,
Through a land of drought and darkness,
through a land which no one crosses,
where no man dwells?”

When I brought you into the garden land
to eat its goodly fruits,
You entered and defiled my land,
you made my heritage loathsome.
The priests asked not,
“Where is the Lord?”
Those who dealt with the law knew me not:
the shepherds rebelled against me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal,
and went after useless idols.

Therefore will I yet accuse you, says the Lord,
and even your children’s children I will accuse.
Pass over to the coast of the Kittim and see,
send to Kedar and carefully inquire:
Where has the like of this been done?
Does any other nation change its gods?—
yet they are not gods at all!
But my people have changed their glory
for useless things.

Be amazed at this, O heavens,
and shudder with sheer horror, says the Lord.
Two evils have my people done:
they have forsaken me, the source of living waters;
They have dug themselves cisterns,
broken cisterns, that hold no water.

Long ago you broke your yoke,
you tore off your bonds.
“I will not serve,” you said.
On every high hill, under every green tree,
you gave yourself to harlotry.
I had planted you, a choice vine
of fully tested stock;
How could you turn out obnoxious to me,
a spurious vine?
Though you scour it with soap,
and use much lye,
The stain of your guilt is still before me,
says the Lord God.
How can you say, “I am not defiled,
I have not gone after the Baals”?
Consider your conduct in the Valley,
recall what you have done:

A frenzied she-camel, coursing near and far,
breaking away toward the desert,
Snuffing the wind in her ardor—
who can restrain her lust?
No beasts need tire themselves seeking her;
in her month they will meet her.
Stop wearing out your shoes
and parching your throat!
But you say, “No use! no!
I love these strangers,
and after them, I must go.”

In the Old Testament, God says love is being trustworthy and keeping the commands. Does this ring a bell when you read Genesis 3? God tells Adam and Eve, all of this is yours to tend as a gardener, and all you have to do is one thing, don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Keeping the letter of the law is certainly the first step in proving one’s fidelity to the covenant. Love becomes entangled with the law.

Because of Original Sin, there is a default for all humans, one that allows us to choose what our animality and past collective experiences dictate without much thought. Human nature is, in essence, good but flawed in that we don’t always choose what we should that would be consistent with what our nature intends. Since God is the author of intelligent progress by means of a Word (John 1:1), there is a hidden DNA in reality that seeks fulfillment. This is the tug we feel when we realize that, in the words of St. Augustine, “…our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”