Jan 3 Sat
Who loved me first?
- God loved me first.
My God, truly you alone are the Lord. Being with you is our salvation. To serve you is nothing else but to be saved by you!
O Lord, salvation is your gift and your blessing. What else is salvation but receiving from you the gift of loving you or being loved by you?
That, Lord, is why you wished that the Son at your right hand should be called Jesus, that is to say, Savior, for He will save his people from their sins, and there is no other in whom there is salvation. He taught us to love Him by first loving us, even to the point of death on the cross. By loving us and holding us so dear, Jesus stirred us to love Him who had first loved us to the end.
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.
In many ways, you spoke to our fathers through the prophets. Now in these last days you have spoken to us in the Son, your Word; by Him the heavens were established, and all their powers came to be by the breath of his mouth.
You did not spare your own Son but delivered him up for us all. He also loved us and gave himself up for us.
This, Lord, is your Word to us, this is your all-powerful message: while all things were in midnight silence (that is, were in the depths of error), He came from his royal throne, the stern conqueror of error and the gentle apostle of love.
Everything He did and everything He said on earth, even enduring the insults, the spitting, the buffeting – the cross and the grave – all of this was actually you speaking to us in your Son, appealing to us by your love and stirring up our love for you.
My God, you did not want to force your love on men’s hearts, since you created them; men must rather desire it. And this, for the further reason that there is no freedom where there is compulsion, and where freedom is lacking, so too is holiness.
You wanted us to love you, then, we who could not have been saved had we not loved you, nor could we have loved you except by your gift. So, Lord, you first loved us: you are first to love all those who love you.
Thus, we love you because you loved us first. You are the one supreme good and ultimate goodness. Your love is your goodness, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son! From the beginning of creation, He hovered over the waters – that is, over the wavering minds of men – offering himself to all, drawing all things to himself. By his inspiration and holy breath, by keeping us from harm and providing for our needs, He unites God to us and us to God.
Excerpts from William of Saint-Thierry