“The Heart of God”
By Dorothy Ranaghan If God is love, why are a lot of Catholics I know cowering before him and his pending wrath? I’ve pondered and puzzled this for some time now, and, as sincerely as that viewpoint is held, I feel it might be based partly on some biblical misunderstandings. Is there a coming reckoning? Surely.
![]() We image God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as a community of persons, a community of love. God drew us into his very heart, his inner life of love, when we were baptized into his Son. In Jesus we have seen the Father. If we want to know what the heart of the Father is about, we would do well to reflect on this passage: When Israel was a child, I loved him and called him out of Egypt as my son. But the more I called to him, the more he turned away from me…They refuse to return to me, and so they must return to Egypt. War will…destroy my people…They will cry out because of the yoke that is on them, but no one will lift it from them…How can I give you up, Israel? How can I abandon you? Could I ever destroy you…? My heart will not let me do it! My love for you is too strong. I will not punish you in my anger. I will not destroy Israel again. For I am God and not man. I, the Holy One, am with you. I will not come to you in anger. (Hosea 11:1-9) In this fascinating text, God is really upset. He starts raging against the Israelites. “Back to Egypt with you! Be devoured by your enemies!” Then suddenly, almost mid-rant, God “changes” his mind. Even if Israel goes back on its liberation and election by God, God cannot. ![]() The Hebrew word hesed means the unconditional, everlasting, loyal, covenant love of God. In the New Testament, we find that God himself, in his Son, suffers the rejection that Israel was spared. God takes upon himself the punishment Israel deserved from a just God. God’s wrath is not greater than his love. He is his love. Jesus is the incarnation of the love of God. The once popular devotion to the Sacred Heart has all but disappeared in the modern church. I don’t necessarily recommend that we resurrect it. But with or without a specific form of devotion, we should try to enter more deeply into an understanding of the reality of the heart of God. It unlocks one of the secrets by which we are to act as Christ in the world today. ![]() “A day is coming when people will sing, ‘I praise you, Lord!’ You were angry with me, but now you comfort me and are angry no longer. Tell the nations what he has done! Tell them how great he is!” (Is. 12:1,4).We cannot afford to misunderstand the relationship between the mercy and anger of God. Jesus did not come to condemn us. He came to save us from our sin and from the Father’s wrath. That wrath is spent. The sword is no longer hanging over our heads. It has already pierced the side of Christ. A writer and retreat director, Dorothy Ranaghan and her husband, Kevin, live in South Bend, Indiana, and are members of People of Praise Community. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM Pentecost Today's July/August/September 2003 Volume 28 Number 39 |