Hosea 2:16-18, 21-22
Psalm 123:2-9
Matthew 9:18-26
Hosea 2:16-18, 21-22
My Beloved, it boggles the mind when we consider how You who are God and who has absolutely no need of us, loves us. In these Scripture verses God uses the concept and imagery of marriage to reveal the spousal nature of His tender, self giving love for those whom He makes His own. There is no more intimate, loving and self-donating union as that between husband and wife. Here God portrays Himself as a Bridegroom who is prepared to go all out in wooing His unfaithful and unworthy bride. God is ready to do anything it takes to win us back to Himself. He invites us to come away with Him in solitude and there re-discover the wonder of belonging to Him and being loved to distraction by Him. He wants our undivided attention away from the chaos and cacophony of the world. We are so foolish with such short attention spans that He needs to woo us away from anything that would attract our silly attention and claim the place in our hearts that is rightfully His. He leads us to a place of quiet, peace and silence and there He speaks tenderly to us of His love.
He binds us to Himself with the indissoluble bonds that bind man and wife together in His justice and truth and this bond lasts even to eternity. Love and tenderness is evident in all He does. He is faithful as only God can be faithful in the midst of our treachery and evil. He is true to every vow He makes to us and desires that we in turn begin to fathom the true nature of His love and give Him back love for love.
Even though the measure of our love is infinitesimal He desires all of it anyway. He will in turn increase our capacity to love Him more and more each day.
Psalm 123:2-9
Verses 7-9
7 They will celebrate your abundant kindness,
and
rejoice in singing of your justice.
8 Compassionate and gracious is the Lord,
slow to anger
and abounding in love.
9 The Lord is good to everyone;
his mercy embraces all
his creation.
May my life be a celebration of Your Goodness, Your faithfulness,Your integrity, Your justice and above all Your abundant love for me. Unfailingly You have shown me only mercy, kindness and compassion despite the fact that I have often chosen to walk away from You in the past and indulged in the most sinful pastimes in defiance of all that I knew to be good and true. I have deliberately chosen sin and wallowed in it but You never gave up on me. You did not strike me in anger and allow me to ruin my soul eternally. Instead You have shown great restraint, mercy and love in wooing me back into a right relationship with Yourself. Thank You my Beloved.
Matthew 9:18-26
My Beloved, when sin caused me to die, the Father approached You and appealed to You to touch me and pour out Your life for me in order that I may live again. In obedient response to the Father's will, You left Your glory behind, came to earth taking on the likeness of men, who in turn lifted You up on the Cross. There You took upon Yourself my sins and my death and You nailed them to Cross. You suffered the agony, the passion and the death that was mine and in doing so You restored me to life again. I now live because the Father loved me so much that he appealed to You to help me come alive again.
Thank You my Beloved, my Love, for the wonderful Sacrament of Reconciliation. My sins rendered me unclean for so long. I had lost every spiritual grace and had become bankrupt. I knew that You were my only hope. I knew that You would have mercy and compassion on me. You were my last court of appeal and You did not fail me, You never do. My soul dragged through the dust as I crawled to You in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and I reached out trembling hands and touched Your garment of righteousness and once again I too was robed in garments of white. My sins which were once as scarlet are now washed clean in Your Blood. Thank You for raising my dead soul to life again.
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