God desires to return us from our earthly life to our heavenly life through a high love, that is, gospel-living love. God plants this in our hearts and this needs to nurtured into a tree of love for Him. We call this in the Society: True Love. [Capitalization is used to emphasize the respect for the Divine]. We are first loved by God and this guides us our whole life to respond more and more as God’s true love [small text to emphasize our spiritual littleness before the Divine].
May all our hearts be steeped and overflowing with the True Love of God in our hearts and remember when God awoke us to His First Love of us. (God has always loved us and will always love us, and there are moments He awakens us to His love of Him, a conscious awareness).
For me, it was in the woods as little boy where this sense that the woods and everything around me was filled with a being, a love, a spirit that was embracing and living inside me, but everywhere around me. I have come to know that as God the Father revealing Himself to me, at least in a little way for my tiny creatureliness.
Over the years, I’ve reflected upon that and revisited spirtiually those places in time, as we do for the Stations of the Cross but in a little way of my life, and gained understanding and grace as to what occurred. Often, there is a bliss of peace afterwards, as if warmed by the fire of God’s presence there.
At another visit, I realized I was seeking to know, love, and serve God; and while He is infinitely beyond me, He was in some way revealing His gentle Spirit, as He desires to be known. Being innocent as a boy, I received His Spirit openly and realized the goodness of Him. Decades later, I realized this was God.
After sharing this with people, I’ve found others have experiences like this too, in their own way. Do you have a First Love experience to share?
Peace+