Undignified Love

As I was reading the Ragamuffin Gospel, I kept saying "Hey, mom, dad, listen to this...!" There was a lot of really good stuff in it. But this is something that really caught me, the idea of an undignified love.

I wish for you the awakening I experienced many years ago during a spiritual sojourn in the Saragosa Desert in Spain. One night I went to the chapel to pray. The world was asleep but my heart was awake to the Lord and I stood at the crucifix for a long time. Then in faith, I heard Jesus Christ say, "For love of you, I left my Father's side and I came to you, who ran from Me, who fled Me, who did not want to hear My name. For love of you, I was covered with spit and punched and beaten and fixed to the wood of the cross."

I figuratively saw the blood streaming from every wound and pore in Christ's body. And I heard the cry of His blood. "THIS ISN'T A JOKE! It is not a laughing matter to Me that I have loved you." The longer I looked, the more I realized that no man has ever loved me and no woman could ever love me as He does. I went out into the darkness and shouted into the night, "JESUS, ARE YOU CRAZY? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND TO HAVE LOVED ME SO MUCH?"

The day I joined the order, an old Franciscan told me, "once you come to experience the love of Jesus Christ, nothing else in the world will seem beautiful or desirable." That night I learned first hand what he meant.The nature of God's love for us is outrageous. Why doesn't this God of ours display some taste and discretion in dealing with us? Why doesn't He show more restraint? To be blunt about it, couldn't God arrange to have a little more dignity? Wow!

No, the love of our God isn't dignified at all, and apparently that's the way He expects our love to be for others. Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel