Believing in God, the only One, and loving him with all our being has enormous consequences for our whole life.
It means coming to know God’s greatness and majesty: “Behold, God is great, and we know him not.”1 Therefore, we must “serve God first”.2
It means living in thanksgiving: if God is the only One, everything we are and have comes from him: “What have you that you did not receive?”3 “What shall I render to the LORD for all his bounty to me?”4
It means knowing the unity and true dignity of all men: everyone is made in the image and likeness of God.5
It means making good use of created things: faith in God, the only One, leads us to use everything that is not God only insofar as it brings us closer to him, and to detach ourselves from it insofar as it turns us away from him:
My Lord and my God, take from me everything that distances me from you. My Lord and my God, give me everything that brings me closer to you My Lord and my God, detach me from myself to give my all to you.6
It means trusting God in every circumstance, even in adversity. A prayer of St. Teresa of Jesus wonderfully expresses this trust:
Let nothing trouble you / Let nothing frighten you
Everything passes / God never changes
Patience / Obtains all
Whoever has God / Wants for nothing
God alone is enough.7
Job 36:26.
St. Joan of Arc.
I Cor 4:7.
Ps 116:12.
Gen 1:26.
St. Nicholas of Flue; cf. Mt 5:29-30; 16:24-26.
St. Teresa of Jesus, Poesias 30 in the Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, vol. III, tr. K. Kavanaugh OCD and O. Rodriguez OCD (Washington DC Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1985), 386 no. 9. tr. John Wall.