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“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8)
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 18-19)
Commentary
God is love. How easily we say it; how often we hear it. How do we penetrate a phrase that is, in so many ways, a cliché? St. John reaches out to guide us toward a greater understanding of and openness to that love.
John tells us that the origin of all love is in God and that human love is a reflection of God’s love. He assures us that God’s love is a creative force, a love which has called into being all of creation—each one of us! We are invited to receive and to return love.
God’s love is an effective love. It changes us—our way of seeing and our way of responding. Although we cannot see God, we can see the effect of his love within the circumstances of our lives. His love becomes “visible” through an awareness of his caring for us in all those people who have loved us. It becomes visible in the realization of the many times we have been spared the consequences of our sin and foolishness.
Most of all, God’s love becomes visible when we feel the dissipation of our fears and our hearts expanding with love and concern for others. Even if our personal experiences of being loved have sometimes been disappointing, there is within the core of our beings, always alive, always yearning, the Spirit of love, the Spirit of God which continues to create and to hold us in being.
God is love; he has first loved us.
Suggested Approach to Prayer: A Window on God
Daily prayer pattern:
I quiet myself and relax in the presence of God. I declare my dependency on God.
Grace: I ask for an experience of God’s care, goodness, kindness, and faithfulness to me.
Method: My image of God has been formed by experience. My life reflects the image I hold in my heart. The image is not fixed; it is ever growing toward fullness.
In the quiet moments of prayer I don’t know that I have an image of God, but more of a presence at the times I am able to be truly present. Sometimes I have an experience of my heart being consumed with the love and comfort of God and other times I feel so far away as my thoughts drift from one thing to another. However, the Lord calls me back time and time again on my journey. I pray this gift of faith will bring me one day face to face with the one who loves me unconditionally.
Only in recent years have I found it easier to pray and meditate in the wee hours.
Some days I find my prayer time to be dry, but that is usually when I find myself over tired. There are times that I get great insight and other times when I just feel comfort.
My prayer time usually starts with scripture or formal prayer. I than find myself thinking about some point in scripture or I take one phrase or word from formal prayer and dwell on that.
I’m still a novice when it comes to prayer--for years it was only the prayers we memorize as children, or prayers I made up that for some crazy reason I thought should rhyme--but now I talk, really talk to God. I also begin often with reading Scripture, and I admit there are times when I will just open the Bible anywhere and read the first lines that draw my attention and begin praying based on the words there, but it has become such a part of me that even as I continue through out the day, my spare moments and thoughts are all drawn to Him.