We believe that God was perfectly happy and content, not
in need of anything, before He created the universe and the human
race. Wouldn’t it make you wonder why on earth did God bother
to create us at all, since we have proved so much trouble? And
God would have known about all the trouble that it was going to
cause. So why did He create us?
Well this
is how it makes some sense to me. Think for a moment of some
time when you were deeply happy about something. Usually our
instinct is to share it. We want someone else to be a part of
that happiness. That’s why most people have a big party at
their wedding, because they want others to share in their happiness.
And that is one of the reasons why God created us, simply because in
his goodness he wanted others to share in his own happiness.
And so he created the spirit world, that we understand as the angels
and then He created the human race, in order that we could share in
his own happiness. The book of Genesis says that we were the
last thing that God created which is a biblical way of saying that we
were the most important thing, the masterpiece of God’s creation.
And we were created with the ability to love and reason.
But there was one ‘catch’ as it were. That is,
that in order for us to be able to love God we had to be free, so
that we could freely choose to love God, otherwise it wouldn’t be
real love at all. Real love has to be free, since you can never
force someone to love you. You can encourage them, but you
certainly can’t force them. Love has to be free. So God
had to make us free, and this meant that we would have the freedom to
love God and gradually find our way to happiness, or to reject God
which would ultimately mean we would lose that happiness that God had
intended for us. It’s a strange paradox. But in his
goodness He created us and gave us the freedom, even though He knew
that some of his own creatures would reject him.
I think the most beautiful image we are given of how God
loves us is in the story of the prodigal son. While the Son has
gone away and squandered everything his father is constantly waiting
and hoping that he will return. And when he does finally return
the father just celebrates. There is no giving out, no warning
that this must not happen again, just celebration and rejoicing.
The Lord knows how difficult it can be for us to make
the right choices and so He gives us people to guide us, the
commandments, the teaching of his Church, his own Word in the bible
and many other things to help us along the way, so that we won’t be
short of the direction and encouragement that we need. He also
sends us holy people every so often, like Francis of Assisi, Padre
Pio, Therese of Lisieux, Mother Theresa, and many others, because
they radiate God and they are a real sign to us of the Lord’s
presence among us. These people seem to radiate God and so many
people are drawn to them because they sense that presence. That
is why God sends us particular chosen souls every so often, to
inspire us and remind us that we are not alone. I know of
several people who worked with Mother Theresa and it completely
changed their life, because they met God through her.
The feast of the Holy Trinity is a celebration of love;
the Trinity is a community of Persons who share total love and joy
between themselves, and this Holy Trinity reaches out to us with that
same love and invites us to join them. If we respond to the
Father, the Son and the Spirit, then we are gradually drawn more and
more into that love. It starts in this world and it will be
fulfilled in the next.
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