Masterpieces of Divine Love

A Lenten Meditation – Margaret Steinhage Fenelon

I love taking my ten-year-old son, John, to swim class. Seriously. It’s one of the highlights of my week. But it’s certainly not the water I’m attracted to; I don’t know how to swim. I don’t even like being wet. No, I like to take him because they’re held in an intergenerational care facility. Every Wednesday afternoon, we pull into the parking lot and tuck the van into a slot. Then John grabs his swim gear and we head for the front entrance, which usually has a transport van or two idling in the half circle drive. We scoot past the exhaust fumes and wiggle our way around the attendants standing outside. There, just inside the electronic front door, is one of the most beautiful sights an eye can behold - a menagerie of wheel chairs and walkers filled with some of the most joyful, innocent faces I have ever seen. They belong to mentally disabled people.

I especially like to look into their eyes. They’re so pure, so loving, and so unpretentious. In them, I can see the face of God. These beautiful souls are incapable of committing serious sin, not like those of us with more sophisticated thinking patterns. We’re prone to the allures and ambitions of the culture around us. They can only give and accept love. Each one of those magnificent beings is a divine masterpiece.

Wouldn’t it be incredible if our hearts were as uncomplicated as theirs? We would never let our insecurities govern our actions and attitudes, we would never rationalize our disobedience to God’s will, we would never be deceitful or conniving, we would never be judgmental of others, we would not crave power or seek revenge. Instead, we’d live our lives in complete acceptance and simplicity, content to be living out God’s plan for us.

God's masterpiece: Mary

For obvious reasons, we can’t live in the exact same acceptance and simplicity as those who are mentally disabled. But we can look to another divine masterpiece who exemplifies pure, loving, unpretentiousness in a different way – our Blessed Mother.

In a sermon given on May 23, 1965, Father Kentenich called her "the unique masterpiece of infinite Divine Love." He explained that from all Eternity, the Heavenly Father had pictured the Blessed Mother with the great warmth of his heart and wanted to enter into a deep unity of hearts with her. She was so unassuming and untainted that she could open her heart unconditionally to the Father and his plan for her.

God's masterpiece: we

Father Kentenich also said that we ourselves are unique masterpieces of infinite Divine Love.

"If I also know what I look like as a masterpiece of Divine Love, I have a criterion, an intelligible criterion which I have only to apply to the relationship of love between the eternal God the Father and the Blessed Mother. One we begin to think, seek and to search, we might arrive at results which were no known to us so far, at results which give us an answer to many questions which we asked ourselves in the quiet moments but could not solve."

We experience such quiets moments throughout our lives, but particularly during Lent. During this forty-day "quiet moment," we attempt to descend to the very core of our beings and ascend into the heart of the Father. It’s the time to take a blatant look at the person who we truly are and the masterpiece of Divine Love we are intended to be from all Eternity.

We can only do this by putting aside our sophisticated thinking patterns and rejecting the allures and ambitions that can abound not only in the culture around us, but in our own communities, our own workplaces, our own homes, and our own hearts. Lent is the perfect time to pare down our minds and hearts so that they can function in complete acceptance, simplicity, and contentment in living out God’s plan for us and allowing God’s pan to unfold in the lives of those around us.

Then we’ll fully become unique masterpieces of infinite Divine Love. Our eyes will be pure, loving, and unpretentious and in them, others will see the face of God.