Holy love

“ Be ye holy, as I am holy.
Most Gracious God and Father! again do I thank Thee for that wondrous salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, which has made us holy in Christ. And I thank Thee that the Spirit can so make us partakers of the life of Christ, that we too may be unblameable in holiness. And that it is the Lord Himself who makes us to increase and abound in love, to the end our hearts may be so established; that the abounding love and the unblameable holiness are both from Him. ”

“ A great flame of love springs up in my heart, Father, when I clearly perceive, in the time of meditation, how the most holy Humanity of the Lord shows how much He deserves our love, by that which He bears to us, while He loves us even as He loves Himself. ”

“ We are to ‘worship Him in the beauty of holiness,’ ‘to sing praise at the remembrance of His Holiness;’ it is only in the spirit of worship and praise and joy that we fully can know God as holy. Much more, it is only under the inspiration of adoring love and joy that we can ourselves be made holy. It is as we cease from all fear and anxiety, from all strain and effort, and rest with singing in what Jesus is in His finished work as our sanctification, as we rest and rejoice in Him, that we shall be made partakers of His Holiness. ”

“ It finds prayer in every place, for it bears ever with it the place wherein God lives by grace, and where we ought to pray—that is, the house of our soul wherein holy desire prays constantly. This desire is uplifted by the light of the mind to be reflected in itself and in the immeasurable flame of divine love, which it finds in the Blood shed for us, which by largess of love it finds in the vase of the soul. ”

“ O MY God, trusting in Thy promises and relying on Thy infinite power and goodness I hope to obtain pardon for my sins, the assistance of Thy grace, and life everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer.
ACT OF LOVE
O MY God, I love Thee with my whole heart and above all things, because Thou art the Supreme Good and worthy of all my love. I am sorry for having displeased Thy infinite goodness by my sins. I desire to do Thy holy will and to love thee more and more. For the love of Thee I will love my neighbor as myself. ”

“ But remember, I beseech you, that this love of God is explained by our Apostle to be ‘in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Love illimitable, all-pervasive, eternal; yes, but a love which has a channel and a course; love which has a method and a process by which it pours itself over the world. ”

“ It yet lives, and is, from under His own hand, above, around, beneath us; and by it we may understand that holy mystery—how God is Love, and Love is God-like. And we feel, and know, that never again to us from out the shade of the years, can ministers of grace or glad ideals come, except through such sweet enchantment. ”

“ And as we begin to know Him in His infinite righteousness, in His fiery burning zeal against all that is sin, and His infinite self-sacrificing love to free the sinner from his sin, and to bring him to His own perfection, we shall learn to wonder at and worship this glorious God, to feel and deplore our terrible unlikeness to Him, to long and cry for some share in the Divine beauty and blessedness of this Holiness. ”

“ As such the Divine will manifests itself in two modes—in its pure love as Goodness, in its holy harmony as Righteousness. These two do not exist separately, but permeate each other in reciprocal immanence, just as God in His Holiness is love, and in His love is holiness. In goodness the Divine love shows itself as the pleasure in well-being. ”

“ Yet, alas! what sad seasons of darkness, doubts and fears come on till these clouds which come betwixt, are dispersed by some precious manifestation of love; the holy spirit creating in the mind some very precious exalted views of Christ, clear apprehensions of the love of God, his secret purposes, and decrees the glorious covenant of redemption, the gracious transactions of each adorable person in the Trinity, respecting the salvation of the church; the truth as it is in Christ producing holy meltings of soul, and filling it with all joy and peace in believing ”

“ There was a love in the primitive church that the very heathen noticed, and could not understand. Why was that? The Holy Spirit is the bond of union between the Father and Son; and that bond is love. The Holy Spirit is just the love of God come to dwell in the heart. When He dwells with me and my brother we learn to love each other. Though I be unloving naturally, and though I have very little grace, if the heart of my brother is full of the Holy Spirit he loves me through it all. You know love is a wonderful thing. ”

“ If we do this, God will open to us, and give us admission into that high state of uniting love, in which we shall be refreshed with all the treasures of God. And who can doubt that the God of mercy, the fountain of happiness, will fill the heart of man with greater and more substantial joys, than any which this perishing world can afford?
3. Whosoever, therefore, loves God, shall be loved by all the saints and holy angels. If I love God, then I share in the love of all the inhabitants of the city of God, a love that far surpasses the highest degree of worldly affection. ”

“ Our text to-day reveals a new and specially beautiful feature of the Divine Holiness in its relation to the individual. The High and Lofty One, whose name is Holy, and whose only fit dwelling-place is eternity, He looks to the man who is of a humble and contrite heart; with him will He dwell. God’s Holiness is His condescending Love. As it is a [p118] consuming fire against all who exalt themselves before Him, it is to the spirit of the humble like the shining of the sun, heart-reviving and life-giving. ”

“ And is not just this the lesson that many earnest seekers after holiness need? They know all that the Word teaches of the blessed Atonement, and the full pardon it has brought. They believe in the Father’s wonderful love, and what He is ready to do for them. And yet, when they hear of the childlike simplicity, the assurance of faith, the loving obedience, and the blessed surrender with which the Father expects them to come and receive the blessing, their heart fails for fear. ”

“ Blessed Lord! I adore the love with which Thou didst teach a woman, who had refused Thee a cup of water, what the worship of God must be. I rejoice in the assurance that Thou wilt no less now instruct Thy disciple, who comes to Thee with a heart that longs to pray in spirit and in truth. O my Holy Master! do teach me this blessed secret.
Teach me that the worship in spirit and truth is not of man, but only comes from Thee; that it is not only a thing of times and seasons, but the outflowing of a life in Thee. ”

“ What we mean by this (if it has not been sufficiently explained already) is, that we are saved from our sins, only by a confidence in the love of God. As soon as we behold what manner of love it is which the Father hath bestowed upon us, we love him, (as the apostle observes) because he first loved us. And then is that commandment written in our heart, that he who loveth God love his brother also: from which love of God and man, meekness, humbleness of mind, and all holy tempers, spring. Now these are the very essence of salvation, of Christian salvation, salvation from sin. ”

“ Although this we confess, (if we are fools therein, yet as fools bear with us,) we do expect to love God with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourselves. Yea, we do believe, that he will in this world so cleanse the thoughts of our hearts, by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit, that we shall perfectly love him, and worthily magnify his holy name. ”

“ Holy love to God is the fire by which all our offerings must be made; else they are not of a sweet savour to God. ”

“ And if we by our blindness and our wretchedness any time fall, we should readily rise, knowing the sweet touching of grace, and with all our will amend us upon the teaching of Holy Church, according as the sin is grievous, and go forthwith to God in love ”

“ Love 'shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto us,' love that answers to Christ's, love that is fixed upon Him who is pure and separate from sinners, will purify us and sever us from our sins. ”

“ But this marvellous homeliness may no man fully see in this time of life, save he have it of special shewing of our Lord, or of great plenty of grace inwardly given of the Holy Ghost. But faith and belief with charity deserveth the meed: and so it is had, by grace; for in faith, with hope and charity, our life is grounded. ”

“ AND in these three words: It is a joy, a bliss, an endless satisfying to me, were shewed three heavens, as thus: For the joy, I understood the pleasure of the Father; and for the bliss, the worship of the Son; and for the endless satisfying, [1] the Holy Ghost. The Father is pleased, the Son is worshipped, the Holy Ghost is satisfied. ”

“ This deed shall be begun here, and it shall be worshipful to God and plenteously profitable to His lovers in earth; and ever as we come to Heaven we shall see it in marvellous joy, and it shall last thus in working unto the last Day; and the worship and the bliss of it shall last in Heaven afore God and all His Holy [ones] for ever.
Thus was this deed seen and understood in our Lord's signifying: and the cause why He shewed it is to make us rejoice in Him and in all His works. ”

“ Here again, we are struck with wonder and admiration at her purity of conscience, and here again we breathe a prayer for light to see ourselves as God sees us; for grace to understand the malice of sin as the saints understand it. It is because their hearts are so pure, that the spiritual vision of the saints is so refined. "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they see God" and in the light of that eternal Sun of Justice, they discern minutest stains, invisible to souls obscured by the clouds of sin, or dimmed by the mists of self-love. ”

“ Blessed, we say, for Heaven has said it, blessed are they whose ministry of love is in that unquiet inner world; whose sympathies intertwine themselves with its strained, snapped fibres and ligaments; whose hand gently withdraws the barbed arrows of outrageous fortune, and into the ragged wound pours the oil of consolation and the balm of joy! Select, sacred, and heaven-ordained and anointed priests and priestesses they, of a God of love in a world of sorrow. ”

“ Yet another is, Their advance in holiness; holiness of heart and holiness of conversation: the latter naturally resulting from the former; for a good tree will bring forth good fruit. And all inward holiness is the immediate fruit of the faith that worketh by love. By this the blessed Spirit purifies the heart from pride, self-will, passion; from love of the world, from foolish and hurtful desires, from vile and vain affections. Beside that sanctified afflictions have (thro’ the grace of God) an immediate and direct tendency to holiness. ”

“ May the Lord direct me by his counsel and wisdom! May he overshadow me with his presence, that I may sit beneath the banner of his love, and find the consolations of his blessed Spirit sweet and refreshing to my soul.
“When I feel that I am nothing, and God is all in all, then I can willingly fly to him, saying, ‘Lord, help me; Lord, teach me; be unto me my prophet, priest, and king. Let me know the teaching of thy grace, and the disclosing of thy love.’ What nearness of access might we have, if we lived more near to God! What sweet communion might we have with a God of love! ”

“ Lord, if my heart had the love of all hearts, my conscience the purity of all angels, and my soul the beauty of all souls, so that by Thy grace I should be worthy of Thee, I wish to receive Thee to-day so affectionately, and so to bury and sink Thee to the bottom of my heart and soul, that neither joy nor sorrow, neither life nor death, could separate me from Thee. ”

“ By all manifestations of divine love, all mercies, providences, instances of long-suffering, gifts of the Spirit, blood of Christ, intercessions of Christ, guardianship of angels, by all this love past and present I pray Thee continue forth Thy loving-kindness. As Thou hast loved us in times past, as Thou art merciful unto us at this present time, so shew forth Thy love on the last day. ”

“ Let us return love for love to the great King of suffering, who was born for love of us, who died for love of us, and who, for love of us, remains ever with us in the Blessed Sacrament. Let us ask that our faith and love may persevere to the end; that loving and adoring Him here in the Blessed Sacrament of His love, we may be united with Him forever hereafter. ”

“ It is thus that we wait for entire sanctification, for a full salvation from all our sins, from pride, self-will, anger, unbelief; or, as the apostle expresses it, go on to perfection. But what is perfection? The word has various senses: here it means, perfect love. It is love excluding sin: love filling the heart, taking up the whole capacity of the soul. It is love rejoicing evermore, praying without ceasing, in every thing giving thanks.
II. But what is that faith through which we are saved? ”

“ By our sympathy, our prayers, our kindness, our gifts, may we make a way for the inflow of Thy love into needy and loveless lives. And so may we have that love which alone is the fulfilling of Thy law. Hasten the time when all men shall love Thee and one another in Thee, when all the barriers that divide us shall be broken down, and every heart shall be filled with joy and every tongue with melody. These gracious gifts we ask, in Jesus' name. ”