Thursday after Epiphany

“Beloved, we love God because he first loved us” (1 Jn. 4:19). “In the beginning, God [who is Love] created the heaven and earth” (Gen. 1:1). We exist because God, who is generative Love, made us. Because he loved what he created, God sent his Beloved Son into the world to draw us closer to the Father’s heart. Our existence starts with God as our creator, we live our lives in God who is our Sustainer, and we will return to Him who is the Goal of our life’s journey.

The life of faith and love is a life wherein faith and love are integrated into daily life. As children of the Loving Father and brothers and sisters of the Beloved Son, we are to incarnate love through compassion, forgiveness and selfless outpouring of self. It is impossible to separate love and faith. Faith reveals the object of love. Love is enflamed by the faith we profess.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” (Theodore Roosevelt).