“And Cain said to Abel his brother: ‘Let us go forth abroad.’ And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and slew him. And the Lord said to Cain: ‘Where is thy brother Abel?’ And he answered, ‘I know not: am I my brother’s keeper?’ And he said to him: ‘What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to me from the earth.’”
You can only give the love that you receive. If you know not the love of God, how can you love with His love in turn? Cain turned away from love, stifling the voice of grace: “Extinguish not the spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19), turning instead to the voice of hate. O Cain, love knocked at your door, and you slammed it in His face, instead turning with a cold heart against a brother who acted in accord with love’s ways: “If he that hated me had spoken great things against me, I would perhaps have hidden my self from him. But thou a man of one mind, my guide, and my familiar, who didst take sweetmeats together with me: in the house of God we walked with consent” (Psalm 54:13-15). Ah, when love knocks, always follow His voice; to turn from Him is to reject Him, for here you can see the Lord Jesus in two ways: First in the voice of compassion, reaching out to Cain to bring him back to friendship with God, second in the figure of Abel, who is slain by one that does not love. When you turn from the sweet voice of the Spirit, you heed the malicious voice of Cain against Jesus. But o the infinite mercy of God! How many times do you turn from your sweet Lord every day, and how often does the voice of the Holy Spirit draw you back? “Father, forgive them, for they know now that they do” (Luke 23:34). For your Beloved looks into your lowliness and sees that “a just man shall fall seven times and shall rise again” (Proverbs 24:16). How many movements away from the love of Jesus does every person commit, and how lovingly does He come back, saying, “Where is thy brother, Jesus?” Will you say that you do not know, or will you run to your Abba, saying that Jesus is in your heart, and you in His? “In in them, and thou in me” (John 17:23). O Theophila, o spouse of God, o dove of Jesus, you have spilled the blood of Jesus by sin, and He has reconciled you to Himself: “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Romans 5:10). He has overcome your slaying of Him with love. His blood cries out from the ground of Calvary, saying, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge” (Acts 7:59). Run to your Jesus with eagerness then, “We will run after thee to the odour of thy ointments” (Song 1:3), for the merciful love of God surpasses all understanding, and no matter what you have laid upon your Beloved, He will bear it for love of you. “If God be for us, who is against us? He that spared not even his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how hath he not also, with him, given us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32). It is a debt you can never repay, but you can LOVE back with the love that has been given to you: “In this is love: not as though we had loved God, but because he hath first loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). What can you give back to Jesus but the heart that He has freed? What can you possibly return to Him but your entire self? For you are the desire of His heart, no matter how small your gift may seem, He will receive you with joy and thanksgiving: “And when he had commanded the multitude to sit down upon the grass, he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake” (Matthew 14:19). He has given you His whole Heart, overcoming the grave evils you have rendered to Him. Give yourself the same, that you may say with joy: “I to my beloved, and his turning is towards me” (Song 7:10).