VATICAN - The four “Acts” basic Christian prayers
The Act of Charity (I)
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - After reflecting during Lent on the Act of Contrition today we begin our meditation on the Act of Charity, or Act of Love.
Act of Love: O Lord God, I love you above all things
and I love my neighbor for your sake because you are the highest, infinite and perfect good, worthy of all my love. In this love I intend to live and die. Amen.
In fact for many people Charity calls to mind “a work of charity, almsgiving,” whereas the Act of Charity is a prayer, an Act of Love for God and neighbour. We love God because He is “the highest, infinite and perfect good, worthy of love”, and because we love God and for His sake we strive also to love all men and women.
The Act of Love as a point in common Act of Contrition. Because God is “so good”, we sinners repent and promise with the help of God grace never to sin again.
God who is “infinite and perfect good, worthy of all my love”.
Some people query how the terrifying and revengeful God of the Old Testament can be the same as the God of Love of the New Testament as revealed by Jesus Christ. However God reveals his love all through the Old Testament and fully in the New Testament, from the moment of the creation of the world and of the first man and woman especially “created in his own image and likeness” (cfr Genesis 1,26a), to the fullest expression with the Incarnation and Passion, Death and Resurrection of His only Son.
The Letter to the Hebrews tells us: “At many moments in the past and by many means, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our time, the final days, he has spoken to us in the person of his Son, …” (Hebrews 1, 1-2a), who is the Verb, the Word: “… the Word was God … the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us …” (Jn 1, 1c, 14a).
Two passages of the Old Testament suffice to express this infinite Love which God has for every man and every woman: “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yes, these may forget, yet I will not forget you” (Isaiah 49, 15); “My heart is turned within me, My compassion is aroused… for I am God and not man” (Hosea, 11, 8c, 9c).
The New Testament will speak of this Love, the Son of God who loves to the very end, even to death: “For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (Jn 3, 16) Jesus tells Nicodemus.
To give His only Son, to become incarnate, to assume human flesh, human nature, with all its weaknesses except sin, means to take on human nature to redeem it taking it up on the Cross. Jesus declares: “No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command you” (Jn 15, 13-14). And again: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd offers his life for his sheep” (Jn 10, 11).
The fullness of God’s freely given, undeserved Love for mankind is revealed then in the Incarnation of the Word of God, who came to redeem man from sin and death through his own Death on the Cross: «propter nostram salutem» (Creed), for us and for our salvation.
Saint Paul expresses this Love which drives the Word of God to humble Himself: “…, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be grasped But he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, becoming as human beings are; and being in every way like a human being, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a cross” (Philippians 2, 6-8).
Jesus says has he commends his spirit into the hands of the Father spirit: “consummatum est” (Jn 19, 30), all is accomplished. And the centurion who was standing there cried out: “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15, 39b). (to be continued) (J.M.) (Agenzia Fides 11/4/2007, righe 44, parole 685)
Links:
See Act of Love in various languages
http://www.fides.org/ita
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