God of Law

Your Church, O my God, has to be visible. And if she is to be visible … then she must express herself in commandments and customs …. And he who grasps all this with a believing heart and a vigorous love, enters through the narrow gate of the commandments into the broad expanse of your Spirit.

But … are you the God of these laws? … in the commandments which you yourself  have given … is the expression of your own Holiness and Goodness….

But it’s not like that in the case of laws originating from human authority. The prescribed cut of the clerical gown in itself has nothing to do with the Holiness of your Being …. Why then must I seek you in precisely this way, when  you could just as well be found in another?

Is it because the authorities you have placed over me have so ordered? Yes of course. But why must they order precisely this? Because the unbounded realm of the possible can be reduced to living actuality only by a more or less arbitrary choice? Because otherwise, if everyone were free to choose according to his own arbitrary judgment, there would arise disorder and hopeless confusion? Can all the laws and regulations of your Kingdom be considered merely as necessary ordinances insuring order and uniformity…? Are they only spiritual traffic laws?

… But what of the other laws which are not simply concrete expressions of your own Law…? What of these, which affect me interiorly, in my own personal being and its freedom?

I am not asking you whether I should obey these laws-the answer to that question is perfectly clear to me-but rather how can I obey them in such a way that I meet you in them.

I always feel that, if one is not careful, he can easily become a mere fulfiller of the law, doing what is commanded externally and quite apathetically. He can turn into a "legalist," an anxious, slavish worshiper of the letter of the law, who thinks he has fulfilled all justice before you when he has fulfilled the human ordinance.

I don't want to be a legalist, nor a mere servant of man, nor a servant of the dead letter. And still I must fulfill the demands of human superiors. I want to observe their ordinances with all my heart, but I can't see how I can give my heart completely to such an object. The inner man should obey such laws, and yet he should not be a slave of men.

Thus the only answer seems to be that, whenever I obey such a law, I must keep looking directly at you. … Obedience can be the expression of my seeking you alone in it.

If I look upon my obedience to these human laws as a demonstration of homage for your beloved free Will, which rules over me according to its own good pleasure, then I can truly find you therein. Then my whole being flows toward you, into you, in to the broad, free expanse of your unbounded Being, instead of being cramped within the narrow confines of human orders. You are the God of human laws for me, only when you are the God of my love.

Give me a ready and willing heart, O Lord. Let me bear the burden of the commands issued by your authorities in such a way that this bearing is an exercise of selflessness, of patience, of fidelity.

In no command do I belong to men, but to you, and he who belongs to you is free. You are not the God of laws because you will that we should serve the law: you are rather the God of the one law, that we should give our love and service to you alone.