Longtime readers of this space know well of my secular devotion to The Everly Brothers.
I’ve also been struck by the lovely and voluminous emails after any “hearing theological truths in ‘pop’ music’ posts.”I agree.
There is something special about realizing that the Divine Providence and the Divine Bridegroom finds His way into our lives, hearts and experiences even outside the Holy Liturgy.
He does not lock Himself inside His house like a misanthrope psycho cat lady. He is so in love with us as individuals that He manifests to us, low-key, in our daily lives. He is always peeking around the corner, that we might notice Him. Remember well what He said to St. Teresa of Avila, and realize that this applies to every human being EVER CONCEIVED.
“I would create the universe again just to hear you say that you love Me.”
Folks, that isn’t hyperbole. He means it. This is why possibly the highest and best prayer is “I love you, Jesus.” “Jesus, mercy” and, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, a sinner” are also essential all-day-every-day prayers. But the reason He created the universe (which the Hubble and James Webb telescopes keep demonstrating to us in knee-collapsing detail) is just so that YOU, individually, JUST YOU, could say, “I love You, Lord Jesus.”
God-hating apostates claim that this is ‘cultish’, that God is ‘needy’, and those especially far-gone into the abyss of lovelessness and narcissism think this is proof that God is therefore evil. What they totally fail to comprehend is that God is INFINITE and therefore is outside all human categories. When The Second Person of the Triune Godhead Himself says, “I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” it is because He can’t say anything else, because HE IS. You cannot apply the same standards or calculi to God that you apply to ANY man. Infinite Love requires a different metric, obviously.
When God, Infinite Love, says, “You have to love Me in order to be saved and be with Me forever in heaven (which is nothing less than in-dwelling in Me),” this applies in a way that DOES NOT APPLY to ANYONE else. Because He is God. This, it seems to me, is literally a few MINUTES of contemplation of the Triune Godhead, but so many miss it utterly and completely. They conflate men with God. If you’re in love, you could never mistake the one you love for anyone else, much less some random sodomite criminal apostate. Or even a GOOD priest!
When Infinite Love says that He loves the relative gnat, the gnat should listen, listen well, and believe. Because there is no incentive for the Infinite to lie or manipulate the gnat. The only POSSIBLE explanation is infinite, gratuitous LOVE. To reject this is… Luciferian. In the purest sense.
This is why I harp and harp, SCREECH even, about the absolute necessity of a PERSONAL relationship with Jesus Christ and, therefore, with His Bride, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, outside of which there is no salvation. And, obviously, this is why we love His Vicar on Earth, the Vicar of Christ, and why we fight and defend that Office, and its authority and jurisdiction – especially against SUBSTANTIAL ERROR in a juridical matter by the Holy Father himself. Especially. Because we are all living the catastrophic fallout of such error.
Well. That was a tangent. All from… The Everly Brothers? Absolutely.
Here is “Walk Right Back”, which I have always heard as God calling us to repentance, confession and most especially to THE EUCHARIST. To this day, when I approach the Communion Rail, after being shriven and appropriately fasting and preparing per my state in life, I hear this as I walk up the aisle of the nave, Our Eucharistic Lord, speaking to me.
Shut up. I ain’t cryin’. You cryin’.
I want you to tell Me why you walked out on Me
I’m so lonesome every day
I want you to know that since you walked out on Me
Nothin’ seems to be the same old way
Think about the love that burns within My Heart for you
The good times we had before you went away, oh Me
Walk right back to Me this minute
Bring your love to Me, don’t send it
I’m so lonesome every day
I want you to tell Me why you walked out on Me
I’m so lonesome every day
I want you to know that since you walked out on Me
Nothin’ seems to be the same old way
Think about the love that burns within My Heart for you
The good times we had before you went away, oh Me
Walk right back to Me this minute
Bring your love to Me, don’t send it
I’m so lonesome every day
I’m so lonesome every day
I’m so lonesome every day
Shut you cryin’. Y’all cryin’. I ain’t cryin’. You know you cryin’.
Go to confession.
Tell Him that you love Him, then go outside tonight, look up at the stars and know that’s it’s ALL for you, and all ever was for you. So that you could know Him and love Him. And then know, however how, that He incarnated, suffered, and died for you.
It’s funny- I watch so many video clips – Cosmology, Astrophysics, Joe Rogan desperately trying to answer his own questions; and the root answer is always exactly the same:
You cannot begin to understand ANYTHING until you realize that the answer to every question is… LOVE.
What holds every electron in the universe in its valence shell? LOVE
Why is Pi everywhere in the physical universe? LOVE.
Why are we made as we are? LOVE.
Why was I born to my parents, no matter how shitty they might have been? LOVE.
Why does my suffering persist if I’m ready to die? LOVE.
Why aren’t my (stupid and pious) prayers answered? LOVE.
What am I even chasing? What is the Beatific Vision? LOVE HIMSELF. Not a taste, not a mere encounter. Heaven is existence INSIDE the Holy Trinity, experiencing everything, everyone, every sweetness in Itself. Omne delectamentum in se habentem.
If you come up on a question about the One True Faith, ask yourself, “Is the core answer to this question… Love?”
Joe Rogan could tie up about three dozen open ends of scientific inquiry if he would just acknowledge the terrifying reality that he is loved beyond his comprehension by the Creator/Sustainer of the universe who incarnated and died for him.
THAT is the 42 answer. To everything. LOVE. Not the hippy sentiment, but the real, diamond-edged grinder pain-to-gain situation.
It almost always is. Including, why does God allow… X… Y… Z??? The failure to address and divinize human suffering through the Cross of Christ is 90+% of the moral/cultural problem.
We’ve lost the capacity to suffer meritoriously for the sake of LOVE. True love, charity. Not lust or bullshit girlish fantasies of the satanic zeitgeist.
Folks, y’all better find it. With a quickness.