I wish I hadn't fallen again after I promised You I'd change. That I wouldn't do it anymore. I wish I hadn't wronged You again. I wish I hadn't crucified You for the thousandth time. I wish that, when I promised to obey You – remember? –, when I lay stretched out in Your palm on a bed of warm weeping, under the canopy of Grace, barely able to breathe from so much love, whispering on a single exhale Peter's word: “Lord, it is good for me to be here” (cf. Matthew 17:4), when the gills of my soul inhaled so much freedom flying through the living water of Your embrace, that I would have permanently given up even my grandmother's apple pie, just so I wouldn't lose this grip of Yours, when, immersed in the seas brimming with longing for You that poured through my eyes but sprang from beyond them, drunk with You, I ardently, fervently, overwhelmingly, like a madwoman, begged You: never to let me leave here, from this state, because I'll do anything, I promise, I'll do anything, I'll obey You, from now on I'll only do what You say, just don't let go of me from this joy, keep me at least a little longer so close to You! Please, I implore You, stay here longer, stay like this longer, keep me exactly like this! – with the sweet stubbornness of a child, mumbled with their nose buried in their mother's shoulder, from whose arms they don't want to get down – You know, Lord, I wish I had kept the word I gave You...
In those moments, I don't know in exchange for what, You gave me to taste a spoonful of Paradise, a monstrously large and undeserved quantity, but with which I joyfully delighted myself as if it were my due, because, truthfully, I couldn't have resisted, it would have been pointless even to try – I don't know if anyone could resist You (that's just to justify myself a little, as if I hadn't done enough already). An unequal exchange and painfully unfair, to Your disadvantage... Because "love is injustice – injustice in favor of the beloved person" (quote from another gardener father of my heart).
Because You knew. You knew then that I would fall again. That I wouldn't keep my word. And yet, You gave Yourself to me... Do I deserve it? Do I deserve everything You give me?, as Aurelian Andreescu said. You knew I would shout in chorus with Your murderers: “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”, You knew I would forget that I owe You everything, You knew I would turn my back on You as soon as You loaded my cart with bags of Give me, Lord..., You knew my gratitude would expire at the first bite of a glittering lie waved under my nose, because all that glitters is gold, right?! You knew I would sell You for less than 30 pieces of silver, that at the first temptation I would throw You away as quickly and easily as I rushed to promise You loudly and clearly, again with Peter's words, that “Even if all are made to stumble because of You, I will never be made to stumble. And even if I must die with You, I will not deny You” (Matthew 26:33-35). You knew. All the knives I was going to plunge into Your back, You foreknew...
But You also knew what rivers of bitter tears my eyes would shed after the rooster crowed. You knew how my heart would be torn with a scream in my chest as soon as I realized that I had given You up again, leaving You gazing blue behind me. You knew I would huddle, trembling, again beside my good friend Peter, and that our tears would intertwine in the mournful doina of the betrayer, which we would sing to You at a tempo of sighs, following the score of the most lucid sincerity, under the loving baton of directing pain. You knew You were barely waiting to forgive us...
That all the missteps were still given out of love, out of our lame and premature love, pubescent and as changeable as the weather of our becomings. Out of this love that desperately wants to love You, but can't, damn it!, because it doesn't know how... And yet “yes, Lord, You know that I love You, You know everything. You know that I love You” (cf. John 21:16-17).
Teach me, teach us, Lord, to love You!
And yet You loved me. Even from the moment You knew beforehand that I would sin against You, and even more so in the second I was sinning against You. You gave me everything. And You still love me and give me everything, always breaking off pieces of Your interminable infinity, like with sets of numbers, an infinity included in another infinity, as if one infinity could be greater than another infinity... Only You play with these things, Lord!
You await me thus, always meekly shattering Yourself, crucified, You wait for me to rise after each fall (ah, but there are so many, Lord!), in the hope that from each death I rise more convinced of the steadfastness of Your love. Of its unshakeability. Of its unconditional nature. Of Your super-logical reserves of love, which the more You give, the more they multiply – like You did long ago with the loaves and fish, remember?
For “He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy” (Psalm 102:10-11). Your mercy, Lord. Your love, Lord. You are fabulous, Lord of an infinity more infinite than infinity! You have utterly amazed me and taken me beyond every journey's end, only You know how...
I enrolled in courses of celestial mathematics. I'm going to learn what it means “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13).
Ana Bănică