Take a Risk, Let Go by Fr. Herbert McCabe
This was in today's "Give Us This Day" reflection. Wanted to share it. Enjoy!
By Fr. Herbert McCabe, (1926 - 2001) an English Dominican theologian and philosopher.
Take a Risk and Let Go
The way of God's love is more like the motorway. It doesn't care whether it meets easy or difficult, uphill or downhill, good or bad. It doesn't care how important or unimportant we are. All those careful judgements we have to make...all that deciding who is good hearted and kindly and candid, and who is mean and self-seeking, who is virtuous and who is vicious, who is sinner and who is righteous - none of this counts with God's love. He cuts straight through all the mountains and valleys, the heights of sanctity and the depths of depreavity. He does not turn aside from anyone. His way is smooth and easy and swift. And it raches to sinners as well as saints.
God does not respond to this world. He does not adjust his reaction to suite good people or bad. You do not have to be good before God will love you; you do not have to be try to be good before God will forgive you; you do not have to repent before you will be absolved by God. It is all the other way around. If you are good, it is because God's love has already made you so; if you want to try to be good, that is because God is loving you; if you want to be forgiven, that is because God is forgiving you. You do not have to do anything, or pay anything, in exchange for God's love. God does not demand anything of you. Nothing whatever.
There is just one thing you need; you have to be ready to take a risk. You have to be ready to be destroyed, for all your security to crumble. You have to be prepared to let go of that faith in yourself that you have so lovingly built up, your faith in what belongs to you, your possessions of every kind. You have to be ready to be taken into the dark abyss of God's love. You have to have faith in his love; for you face dreadful danger of becoming good, of becoming yourself as loving as God is loving. And this is a frightening prospect. The motorway can do terrible things to the countryside as it spears through it. And God's love can do terrible things to you. It can make you kind and considerate and loving.
By Fr. Herbert McCabe, (1926 - 2001) an English Dominican theologian and philosopher.
Take a Risk and Let Go
The way of God's love is more like the motorway. It doesn't care whether it meets easy or difficult, uphill or downhill, good or bad. It doesn't care how important or unimportant we are. All those careful judgements we have to make...all that deciding who is good hearted and kindly and candid, and who is mean and self-seeking, who is virtuous and who is vicious, who is sinner and who is righteous - none of this counts with God's love. He cuts straight through all the mountains and valleys, the heights of sanctity and the depths of depreavity. He does not turn aside from anyone. His way is smooth and easy and swift. And it raches to sinners as well as saints.
God does not respond to this world. He does not adjust his reaction to suite good people or bad. You do not have to be good before God will love you; you do not have to be try to be good before God will forgive you; you do not have to repent before you will be absolved by God. It is all the other way around. If you are good, it is because God's love has already made you so; if you want to try to be good, that is because God is loving you; if you want to be forgiven, that is because God is forgiving you. You do not have to do anything, or pay anything, in exchange for God's love. God does not demand anything of you. Nothing whatever.
There is just one thing you need; you have to be ready to take a risk. You have to be ready to be destroyed, for all your security to crumble. You have to be prepared to let go of that faith in yourself that you have so lovingly built up, your faith in what belongs to you, your possessions of every kind. You have to be ready to be taken into the dark abyss of God's love. You have to have faith in his love; for you face dreadful danger of becoming good, of becoming yourself as loving as God is loving. And this is a frightening prospect. The motorway can do terrible things to the countryside as it spears through it. And God's love can do terrible things to you. It can make you kind and considerate and loving.
posted by Hank Louis Tierney at 2:26 PM
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