Why does man have to love, serve and praise God? Claret is asked. First of all, not only because God is infinitely good and loving; but also because Claret has been filled with God´s benefits. That is why he has to give unending thanks to God. We Christians know that the love of God is his highest benevolence towards the earthly beings. It is enough to read 1Jn 4: 16, “God is love”. But this affirmation awakens many questions in Claret; such as, if God is so great and so perfect, can he lower himself to love a small and sinful person? And if God lowers himself to love man, with what sort of love man must respond to this love? What is the relationship between the love of God and love of men?
The Bible which Claret knew so well, responds very clearly: God took the initiative of a dialogue of love with men, “he loved us first” (Jn 4:19). In the name of this love, he commits them and teaches them to love one another. Abraham, Moses, Hosea, Jeremiah, Ezequiel….. experienced the love of God in a privileged and exemplary manner. God loves his people as a friend, as a father, as a husband….with a passionate and zealous love, though sometimes it is responded to with infidelity. With the arrival of Jesus, God makes himself known in his Son.
Claret finds in Jesus Christ the great proof for the love of God to which there is no other way than offering one´s own life as he did. But at the same time we should not forget that love is to fulfill the will of God. “Obeying by loving and loving by obeying”, as Claret said. Our freedom consists in accepting joyfully the programme planned by him. The model of our freedom is the independence that Jesus had from his Father. Because God is simultaneously rock as well as house. It is a marvelous place to live in peace and to invite others to live in peace.