“Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come.” – Song of Songs 2:10, New American Bible
Love on earth will always be a struggle. Even with a perfect Spouse, one does not get away with tears, for the imperfect one will often misunderstand the other. How does one ever begin to understand the Lover who gives and gives no matter the failings of the other?
Oftentimes, all we need to do is to accept everything with love and we cannot even do it! We feel ashamed, we back out, we focus on our woes instead of focusing on the One who loves us. Do we think that love is always counting the cost and demanding of us something for everything we are given?
Far from it! Love does not count its gifts. Love is happy in giving, and it is grieved whenever we block its course, thinking it is always an exchange, something we should deserve.
If I really want to deserve love, I need only to recognize its generosity, its kindness, its desire to satisfy the beloved. I must not lift myself high, but allow myself to bow down low. I am loved. My Lover desires to bestow light upon my darkness, joy upon all my misery, beauty upon all the unloveliness I see in me. Is it not enough to lean with trust and to receive with gladness all that is given me?
Be comforted, for He Whom you have chosen as your Spouse has every imaginable perfection; but— dare I say it?— He has one great infirmity too—He is blind! And there is a science about which He knows nothing— addition! These two great defects, much to be deplored in an earthly bridegroom, do but make ours infinitely more lovable. Were it necessary that He should be clear-sighted, and familiar with the science of figures, do you not think that , confronted with our many sins, He would send us back to our nothingness? But His Love for us makes him actually blind. – St. Therese of Lisieux
Find hope in your darkest hour.
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