Day Eight: God the Father and Lover, Part Three

God the Father is the Lover within the Trinity, as Augustine explains. The Son is the Beloved, and the Spirit is the Love between the Father and the Son. I get to the Son and the Spirit later. I simplify the Lover aspect of the Trinity for my students.

To create is an act of Love. God the Father is the one who Creates us because He desires us to experience what Authentic Love is. It is the same when we create in our life, I tell my students. In a simple way, when we create a work of art or a song or a cookie, we desire that creation to provide pleasure and Joy for someone else, or for ourselves if we are particularly selfish that day. When we create life, we Hopefully do so with the desire that we can share Love with our children. As a parent, God the Father Creates simply so we can encounter what Love is.

Simon of Cyrene Takes the Cross of Christ, Bl. Rupert Mayer Chapel, Regis Jesuit High School (Photo Credit: P. Smith)

But I go a bit further with my students. A True Lover also shows Mercy. That is, she or he Loves even when that Love is rejected. When talking about the Creative aspect of the Lover, I could easily read from Genesis and note how the first mention of humanity is before we are created. God desires to create us in His “image and likeness.” It is much more interesting, I think, to look for the subtle signs of God’s Mercy in the story of the Fall. And I am not talking about the so-called proto evangelium, the foreshadowing of Jesus defeating the Satan.

I am referring to the Mercy God has for Adam and Eve as they are leaving the Garden. As I wrote in the last blog, as they leave, God freely gives them garments made of leather. An act of Mercy. But there is more. When God calls to Adam and Eve and asks “Where are you?” obviously He is not ignorant of where they are, physically; He is God, after all. Indeed, here we see God offering Adam and Eve and opportunity to “confess”. To reorient themselves to God in humility. God preserves the free will of Adam and Eve, even though they have disobeyed Him. This question is a sign of Mercy.

Stations of the Cross, St. Joseph Lake, Notre Dame, Indiana (Photo Credit: P. Smith)

But my favorite sign of Mercy in the Garden is the tiny detail of when they sinned against God. It was the “breezy part of the day”. I ask my students if they understand when this means. Most do not know because they likely have never had to work an entire day outside. In the South, where I am from, we could do yard work or some sort of labor during the hot, humid summers, but around four o’clock as the sun is getting a little bit lower, the wind would start to pick up and we could get a few seconds of comfort from the heat. In Genesis, this detail shows itself as Adam and Eve are starting to hide from God In the bushes. In hiding from God in the bushes, they also shield themselves from the cool comfort of that breeze. It is almost as if there was Mercy built into the Garden in the form of the “breezy part of the day”, yet Adam and Eve hide from that Mercy.

I ask my students the rhetorical question: “How often do we hide from Mercy and forgiveness because of our own pride or ego?” It is a good reflection question. God constantly offers us Mercy, especially in the form Confession or any number of Sacraments. But our ego and pride causes us to leap into those bushes, away from His cooling breeze. The good news is that God also promises Adam and Eve that they will return to the dust from which they came. There is Hope.