The greatest honor we can give to Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love. St. Thomas More

Sorrow for sin is indeed necessary, but it should not be an endless preoccupation. You must dwell also on the glad remembrance of God’s loving kindness; otherwise, sadness will harden the heart and lead it more deeply into despair. St. Bernard

From a very early age, most of us learn to be well behaved and quiet when entering a place of worship. I’ve even heard of a parent telling her child that they need to be quiet in Church so as to “not wake up Jesus”! Of course, respect for holy places is an important lesson; however, it seems to me that an overemphasis on a sense of “separateness” from the places we regularly inhabit can nurture of sense of God’s lack of presence in our everyday life.  

Sts. Thomas and Bernard remind us of one basic reality: God loves us—or more to point—God loves the particularity of each of us. Bernard tells us that without that critical “compass point”,  “sin” can become an “endless preoccupation” taking us into that darkness of “despair”. We humans walk through life with an (sometimes repressed) awareness of our limitations and ongoing “misses of the mark”. At the same time, we carry an inchoate sense of God’s presence.  What a difference it makes to trust that presence as one of divine love.

Someone once gifted me with a self-published book on a religious theme. In reading it, I began to experience some vague discomfort. It all came to a head when I read the about what was called God’s “throne room”.  Why? Because that room’s was cold and -distant, perhaps like the actual throne rooms of royalty in bygone days. To make the point, the author noted that there would be no children climbing all over the furniture and wanting to give hugs to God. In essence, he  was suggesting that God is quite the opposite of the one proclaimed by Jesus. The pure joy of young children had no place in the author’s conception of the Great Mystery. How very sad.

“Let the little children come to me…” (Matt 19:14)

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It is always springtime in the heart that loves God. St. John Vianney

I suspect that many hearts have been lifted by this metaphor for the experience of loving God.  After all, there are few people who do not welcome the arrival of spring. It has a way of quickening one’s spirit and reminding us of the regenerative power of life. Small wonder that at least four major world religions celebrate a major holiday during spring : Christianity (Easter), Islam (Ramadan), Hinduism (Holi), and  Baha’i (Naw Ruz).

There is an inherent joy to spring, and it seems that connecting that joy with its ultimate Source only enhances the experience. People celebrate the goodness of being alive and of beingness itself.  At one and the same time, there exists a yearning for life in its fullness beyond the horizon of the earthly plane. They are not separate:  the triumph of life we know and that of the heaven we await need to be integrated. To quote yet another Saint (Catherine of Siena): “It’s heaven all the way to Heaven…”

Alas, Springtime does not last. St. John is suggesting that those of who love God carry within them a ‘spring-like’ view of their world. Because they live in hope, there is a kind of positivity in these folks, but not a blind optimism. They know full well that life is not an endless series of high points; yet they trust that in ways beyond their understanding that the world remains in “Good Hands”. These pilgrims are people of hope for the fulness of all things and so experience ‘perpetual spring”. They are also people who trust in a Love that transcends earthly loves, yet at the same time recognize that love as the source of their earthly loves. At some deep level, they “know” that they are eternally loved and so can love authentically (no hidden agendas, no using another for one’s own purposes, and accepting another’s peculiarities)

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The soul of one who loves God always swims in joy, always keeps holiday, and is always in a mood for singing. St. John of the Cross

What would it feel like to “swim in joy”?  It seems that the feeling would be related to a sense of “being held” by joy, just as it is the water that holds up the swimmer. I imagine that an able swimmer trusts in the water’s paradoxical solidity, that beneath the tumult on the surface its capacity for support is unchanging. Joy is not equivalent to happiness: it exists in the calmness of the deep waters, while happiness varies according to surface conditions.

How does one learn to “swim in joy”?  St. John is quite clear—it is the love of God. When we choose to love God, we take that leap of trust in God’s love and can remain in that mysterious state of joy, even in the inevitable stormy waters of life. In  Mark 4: 35-41, Jesus calms the storm after the disciples wake Jesus, implicitly  questioning his love for them: “…do you not care that we are perishing?” Later he scolds them for their fearfulness while in his (loving) presence. Fear has a way of obliterating trust which is always intimately connected with love.

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As the bee draws honey from all plants and makes use of them only for the end, so the soul must draw the sweetness of love from all that happens to it. It makes all things subservient to the end of loving God, whether they are sweet or bitter. In all its occupations its joy is the love of God. St. John of the Cross

I find it interesting that the nectar which bees draw from plants is not consistently sweet: its sugar content varies from 3 to 80%! So, St. John’s comparison makes a lot of sense: not “all that happens to us “tastes sweet” at least while it’s happening. Yet through faith and trust, we need to persist in “drawing love from all that happens”. I think St. John is telling us to be open to the “lessons of love” that the events of life carry…even those have a very low “sugar content”.

I wonder what would happen if we were to take on the mind of a “student of love” as we live in the classroom that is our life? Examples abound: What do we do when someone “cuts us off” in traffic?  Can we remind ourselves that the person driving the car is, like yourself, a child of God? Are we able to offer silent prayers of “loving kindness” for people we may not necessarily like?  When receiving news of a dear friend’s passing, do we shake our fist to God in anger or thank him for the gift who was your friend? 

Another option might be to do what the Jesuits call an “exam” (of conscience or consciousness) before retiring from the day. Rather than beating ourselves up for our “missing the mark” (i.e. sinning), what would happen if you reviewed the day through the template of “lessons for love”? How did you manage the day’s experiences of bitter nectar? Were you able to trust that, despite its taste, you returned it to the “hive” of God’s love, knowing that it will be refined into a sweetness? Did you take time to rejoice and be grateful for the sweetness of the nectar of what you experienced?