Reflections from the Heart – April 9, 2023

Easter Sunday
by Fr. Ivan Olmo

“Everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”  From the very dawn of time, from the moment first light streams into existence, God already proved his love for you and for me.  Knowing that if he created and brought forth into existence humanity, his very creation would reject God as Creator and rebel against God as our heavenly Father.  Even knowing the depth of how much an envious angel out of hatred for beauty, goodness and truth would cause humanity to fall from God’s grace through sin, delusion, lies and deception, God still loves therefore God still creates.  Not that God creates us to fall or fail, rather God in his perfect wisdom and immense love desires freedom, free will, to freely share and freely respond to a life and a love with God.  Fashioning creation in a way that constrains its will and subjects it to slavery of love is not love but enslavement, not freedom but imprisonment.  God is the one who imprisons himself and subjects himself to the slavery of a faithful servant, so that by the humility of God, he may serve us, his precious creation in his love. In the very essence of his love, we can become through his grace, the beloved of his heart and the apple of his eye.  “The Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages” descends into our fallen state in a mission of the Father’s love to heal the broken hearted and to reconcile poor sinners to the Father’s grace once again.  The name given to God’s beloved Son is the essence of his sacred mission.  Jesus means he will save his people from their sins.  Jesus descends into death to bring forgiveness and pardon to sinners.  All sinners.  Those who sin just a little, those who think they do not sin at all and even those sinners who habitually sin and rebel against God.  God loves all sinners and desires correction and conversion of heart.  Jesus freely submits to the Father’s desire to restore all creation once again.  Jesus freely and lovingly suffers for us, dies for us and rises on the third day for us.  Jesus humbles himself to the point of death on a cross to renew and restore what was lost through sin and pride in order that humanity may love perfectly once again and so enter ever more freely into a loving relationship and friendship with God, as intended by God the Father and Creator from the very beginning.