Bitter & Sweet

Fidelity - Activity - Morality - Spirituality

Newman claims:

No one really loves another, who does not feel a certain reverence towards the other (Christian Reverence, 23, I).

Our relationship with God is no different.

For it to develop, reverence and love must go ‘hand in hand’:

Not that reverence (fear) comes first, and then love. For the most part they will proceed together.

We must realise that Jesus speaks to us with affection and tenderness. At other times he speaks with a corrective tone:

The bitter and the sweet, strangely tempered, thus leave upon the mind the lasting taste of divine truth, and satisfy it.

Not so harsh as to be loathed, nor of that insipid sweetness which attends enthusiastic feelings and is wearisome when it becomes familiar.

God speaks with words that are bitter and sweet – so that reverence and love are aroused, and spiritual authenticity assured.

But often we ‘are afraid of the ridicule of others,’ and so we lose our reverence, ‘pretending to be worse in the eyes of others than we really are.’

Naturally enough, ‘this careless language affects our hearts’:

Through a false shame, we disown our faith with our lips, and then our words affect our thoughts.

Amen.