O God, We Love Thee

The hymn O Deus Ego Amo Te (“O God, I Love Thee”) is attributed to St. Francis Xavier, the Spanish Jesuit missionary and student of Jesuit founder Ignatius Loyola, whose feast we celebrate each year on Dec. 3. Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., is among those who have provided English translations:

I love thee, God, I love thee—
Not out of hope for heaven for me
Nor fearing not to love and be
In the everlasting burning.
Thou, my Jesus, after me
Didst reach thine arms out dying,
For my sake sufferedst nails and lance,
Mocked and marred countenance,
Sorrows passing number,
Sweat and care and cumber,
Yea and death, and this for me,
And thou couldst see me sinning:
Then I, why should not I love thee,
Jesu so much in love with me?
Not for heaven’s sake, not to be
Out of hell by loving thee;
Not for any gains I see;
But just the way that thou didst me
I do love and will love thee.
What must I love thee, Lord, for then?
For being my king and God. Amen.

What a life we can live if we give it to God! And as our saint of the day might put it: woe to us if we do not give our lives to God. We don’t have to go to India (or even Indiana) — God calls us in different ways, in different places. Some of us may never have to travel a step to do His will. We may be needed as be missionaries to loved ones, neighbors, or the otherwise forgotten right in front of us.

How many people around us feel alone, unworthy of God’s love, exhausted, hurt, or confused?

Oh that St. Francis Xavier might intercede as we do the missionary work we are each called to do, wherever it happens to bring us!

This letter from St. Francis Xavier to St. Ignatius, from today’s Liturgy of the Hours is a quite beautiful reflection for this Advent memorial of his life of faith:

We have visited the villages of the new converts who accepted the Christian religion a few years ago. No Portuguese live here—the country is so utterly barren and poor. The native Christians have no priests. They know only that they are Christians. There is nobody to say Mass for them; nobody to teach them the Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Commandments of God’s Law.

I have not stopped since the day I arrived. I conscientiously made the rounds of the villages. I bathed in the sacred waters all the children who had not yet been baptized. This means that I have purified a very large number of children so young that, as the saying goes, they could not tell their right hand from their left. The older children would not let me say my Office or eat or sleep until I taught them one prayer or another. Then I began to understand: The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.

I could not refuse so devout a request without failing in devotion myself. I taught them, first the confession of faith in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, then the Apostles’ Creed, the Our Father and Hail Mary. I noticed among them persons of great intelligence. If only someone could educate them in the Christian way of life, I have no doubt that they would make excellent Christians.

Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians. Again and again I have thought of going round the universities of Europe, especially Paris, and everywhere crying out like a madman, riveting the attention of those with more learning than charity: “What a tragedy: how many souls are being shut out of heaven and falling into hell, thanks to you!”

I wish they would work as hard at this as they do at their books, and so settle their account with God for their learning and the talents entrusted to them.

This thought would certainly stir most of them to meditate on spiritual realities, to listen actively to what God is saying to them. They would forget their own desires, their human affairs, and give themselves over entirely to God’s will and his choice. They would cry out with all their heart: Lord, I am here! What do you want me to do? Send me anywhere you like—even to India.

Pope Francis talked in this spirit just the other day — about theologians getting on their knees — during one of his morning homilies. Don’t just know what’s in books, know the Lord!

God, help us come to You in humble prayer so that we may bring Your merciful love to everyone we are called to encounter in our lives.

St. Francis Xavier, pray for us.