"A New Season"
"The Wound of Love"
In the previous teaching we spoke of
the "vehemence" of God's burning love, and how He "conquers" my heart through
an over abundance of love. God wants to stretch my
desire and thirst for Him, thus bringing forth a greater capacity for receiving
His love. More and more as my "soul is converted into the immense fire of love"
(Thomas Dubay, S.M. Fire Within, p. 47), God
begins to awaken an eternal "ache" within me to see Him face to face in what is
called the beautific vision (see Dubay
Fire Within, p. 47). He knows how to "awake the ache" in my heart:
"Come," says my heart, "seek God's face"; your face, Lord, do I
seek!" (Ps. 27:3).
St. Peter refers to the profound
offering of the Lamb of God on the cross when he says, "by his wounds
you have been healed" (1 Pet. 2:24). The pierced heart of Jesus is the
unique and perfect "wound of love". "Wounded love"--the holy and wholesome
wounded love of the obedient heart of the Lamb of God--saved the world. God
wills to "wound" my heart mystically with touches of His fiery love, increasing
my desire to behold Him 'face to Face': "What God has prepared for those who
love him" (1 Cr. 2:9). The Prophet Amos, before being called directly by God to
prophesy to Israel, was "a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore-figs"
(Amos 7:14). As a dresser of figs his "job was to puncture the immature
fruit to make it turn sweet" (Michael L. Barre. "Amos", in The New
Jerome Biblical Commentary, p. 209). The "wounding"--the piercing--of the
fruit serves the purpose of maturing it in sweetness. Likewise, my heart needs
to be "wounded" by the fiery touches of God's all-consuming love in order to be
healed and matured by His "sweet flames". My heart pines to the point of being
"pierced" by sweet and pleasant touches of His flaming love. St. Teresa of
Avila calls these " wounds of longing love" (St. Teresa of Avila.
Testimony, no. 3, p. 311).
God enkindles an "eternal insatiability" within me, a holy
"craving for Heavenly consummation". Yes, there is a sweet suffering, an
"insatiable ache", within a soul consumed by divine love. Yet, as St. Paul
reminds me:
"I consider the sufferings of
this present time as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for
us" (Rom. 8:18).
God desires
to share His glory with me. He wants me to be with Him forever. He rouses a
voracity within my heart for the eternal nuptials of the Lamb (see Rev. 19:9):
"My heart and flesh cry out for the living God" (Ps. 84:3).
St. John of the cross has written of this
paradoxical love of God:
"As often as the cautery of love
touches the wound of love, it causes a deeper wound of love, and thus the
more it wounds, the more it cures and heals. The more wounded the lover,
the healthier he is...and in the end the wound of love becomes so large
that the whole soul is turned into a wound of love" (St. John of the
Cross. Living Flame of Love, no. 7, p. 597; stanza II, p. 743).
As an
intercessor I can pray from this "wound of love" most powerfully for our
wounded world! The God who loves me is the God who "wounds" me with his love in
order to heal me with this same love: "He has struck us, but he will
bind our wounds" (Hos. 6:1).
Questions:
1) How
much do I long for my "heavenly homeland" ?
2) Do
I have a burning desire for the salvation of souls, and a heart for our wounded
world?
Scriptures:
Any scripture from the text; Psalm 24:6; Psalm 42:3; Hos.
6:1-3; Mt. 5:8; Rev. 22:4
