February Spiritual Reflection

IVC Spiritual Reflector and friend, Fr. Frank O’Connor, SJ offered the following reflection in a past edition of IVC’s newsletter “Love in Deeds of Service.”

Each of us, I suppose, has known moments of darkness when we feel unloved, unappreciated, disheartened, alone. If grace is God’s love for us, we can’t be unloved. Some lines of a poem I suggest to people in spiritual direction say it well:

Come as you are, that’s how I want you.
Come as you are, feel quite at home…
No need to fear, love sets no limits,
No need to fear, love never ends…

I came to bring peace, not to condemn.
Each time you fail to live by my promise
Why do you think I would love you the less?

Come as you are, that’s how I want you.
Come as you are, trust me again.
Nothing can change the love that I bear you.
All will be well, just come as you are.

Grace is God’s acceptance of us as we are. This love leads to gratitude in us. We desire to say “Thank you.” And this gratitude leads to action, doesn’t it? St. Ignatius Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises offers a helpful prayer often called “The Contemplation of God’s Love” or sometimes “Learning to Love as God Loves.” It is a prayer that invites us to recognize God’s love in the countless created gifts we have received; that is, in the grace God has given us in creation. God’s presence in creation is not a static, indifferent kind of presence by a very active, personal, dynamic presence. St. Ignatius suggests that God labors for us in the creation, in every tiny detail. And every tiny detail is the effect of God’s love – that is, grace.

St. Ignatius doesn’t stop there, however. He reminds us that authentic love is always mutual; it asks for a return of love. And true love is expressed not so much in words, but in deeds, in action. The grace, then, that is God’s love for us invites us to mutual and action-filled love. It is gratitude’s invitation to action.