Death is strong, for it can rob us of the gift of life. Love too is strong, for it can restore us to
a better life.
Death is strong,
for no man can withstand it. Love too is
strong, for it can conquer death itself, soothe its sting, calm its violence,
and bring its victory to naught. The
time will come when death is reviled and taunted: O death, where is your victory?
Love
is as strong as death because Christ's love is the very death of
death. Our love for Christ is also as
strong as death, because it is itself a kind of death; destroying the old life,
rooting out vice, and laying aside dead works.
Our love for Christ
is a return, though very unequal, for his love of us. For He
first loved us, and, through the example of love he gave us, he became a
seal upon us by which we are made like him.
We lay aside the likeness of the earthly man and put on the likeness of
the heavenly man; we love him as he has loved us. For in this matter he has left us an example so that we might follow in His steps.
This
is why he says: Set me as a seal upon your heart.
It is as if he were saying:
"Love me as I love you. Keep
me in your mind and memory, in your desires and yearnings, in your groans and
sobs. Remember, man, the kind of being I
made you; how far I set you above other creatures; the dignity I conferred upon
you; the glory and honor with which I crowned you; how I made you only a little
less than the angels and set all things under your feet. Remember not only how much I have done for
you, but all the hardship and shame I have suffered for you. Yet look and
see: Do you not wrong me? Do you not fail to love me? Who loves you as I do? Who created and redeemed you but I?"
Lord, take away my
heart of stone, a heart so bitter and uncircumcised, and give me a new heart, a
heart of flesh, a pure heart. You
cleanse the heart and love the clean heart.
Take possession of my heart and dwell in it, contain it and fill it, you
who are higher than the heights of my spirit and closer to me than my innermost
self!
You are the pattern
of all beauty and the seal of all holiness.
Set the seal of your likeness upon my heart! In your mercy set your seal upon my heart, God of my heart and the God who is my
portion for ever! Amen. from a treatise by Baldwin,
bishop of Canterbury
And
Again, Amen!! kvs
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