The Mystical Marriage and the Purifying Power of Parental Love

Some years ago I had lunch with friends in London. On my way out they introduced me to their father who was busy working in the garden. Without thinking I asked him what he was doing and he replied –“I do be digging the garden.” Some months later I met a nun who taught Irish in Dublin and I asked her about this expression that I’d never come across before. She explained that it was an English translation of what in Irish is called the present continuing tense. “Well what does it mean?” I asked, “What was he trying to say to me?” “Oh, what he was saying was this.” she said. “I have been digging the garden, I am digging the garden, and when you stop asking the obvious, I will continue digging the garden!” We haven’t such a tense in English, but the present continuing tense perfectly embodies the meaning of what St John had learned from studying the Old Testament, and from his own personal experience, of being personally loved by Jesus, both before and after the resurrection. When he said – God is love -   he meant that ‘God has been loving us, is loving us now, and will continue to love us.’ In short God is loving.   read on...