William of Saint-Thierry (c. 1085-1148), a Benedictine abbot, theologian, mystic, and later Cistercian monk, beautifully wrote, “O Lord, salvation is your gift and your blessing is upon your people; what else is your salvation but receiving from you the gift of loving you or being loved by you? [emphasis added]…And this is clearly the reason: you first loved us so that we might love you—not because you needed our love, but because we could not be what you created us to be, except by loving you” (On the Contemplation of God). Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), abbot, doctor of the Church, and friend and contemporary of William of Saint-Thierry, similarly exclaimed, “[God] gives the occasion for love, he creates the affection, he brings the desire to good effect. He is such that love to him is a natural due…Our love is prepared and rewarded by His [emphasis added]…He bestows bounty immeasurable; he provokes thee to good, he preserves you in goodness; he comes before, he sustains, he fills thee. He moves you to longing, and it is he for whom you long” (On Loving God). And Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430), bishop and doctor of the Church, perhaps said it best when he simply and poetically affirmed, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you” (Confessions).

What each of these great figures of our Catholic tradition reveals is that our lives are wonderfully intended, of incalculable worth, and absolutely incomplete without the communion of love in God. To love and be loved by God is what gives us life. It is what the soul actually requires, like food for the body, to blossom and flourish in joy—to be fully alive! When we embrace holy love with the gift of our free will, we become “living icons” of the image and likeness of God, of Love Itself. But with that gift of free will is also the mysterious and radical possibility of “loving” or “attaching” to that which is “less than” the fullness of love, less than God, whether born of ignorance, human weakness, pride, or the deceptions of the Devil who is the very “anti-icon” of love. God gave us this “freedom” of will to honor our dignity as His beloved children so that our love would be freely given and authentic. We are called to be good stewards of the divinely bestowed gift of freedom to love rightly and justly. Recovery fellowship, living the Twelve Steps, daily prayer, recourse to the saints, formation in the Catholic faith, spiritual direction, and, above all, reliance on Christ in the sacraments are what heal us of disordered love and restore our dignity as beloved sons and daughters of God, as His precious “little ones” created by Love to love and be loved for the sake of Love.

Reflection Questions

• What do the words of Saint John the Apostle reveal to you about yourself as a person, as a beloved daughter or son of God, as a sinner, and as one in recovery? Does “knowing” that God loved you first give you hope and show you a path to freedom?
• How has your life in or around addiction demonstrated to you the propensity to “love” or “attach” to that which is “less than” true and fulfilling love? How are you becoming in recovery a “living icon” of love in your relationships with God, neighbor, and self?

Daily Mass Readings

First Reading: 1 John 4:19-5:4
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 72:1-2, 14 and 15bc, 17
Gospel: Luke 4:14-22

Reflection by Pete S.