{"id":18315,"date":"2017-02-16T01:01:33","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T06:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/?p=18315"},"modified":"2017-01-16T15:41:36","modified_gmt":"2017-01-16T20:41:36","slug":"18315","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/2017\/02\/16\/18315\/","title":{"rendered":"Returning to Our First Love"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"topo-text\">\n<h1><span lang=\"en\">Back to first love<\/span><\/h1>\n<div class=\"entry-meta\" lang=\"en\">Sunday, 15<span class=\"de\"> of<\/span> January<span class=\"de\"> of<\/span> 2017, 5:27 pm<\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-meta\" lang=\"en\">Last modified: Monday, 16<span class=\"de\"> of <\/span>January<span class=\"de\"> of <\/span>2017, 10:28<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<article id=\"post-38035\" class=\"post-38035 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-pregacoes\">\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<ul id=\"share-buttons\">\n<li id=\"sh-facebook\"><\/li>\n<li id=\"sh-twitter\"><\/li>\n<li id=\"sh-googleplus\"><\/li>\n<li id=\"sh-pinterest\"><\/li>\n<li id=\"sh-email\"><\/li>\n<li id=\"sh-print\"><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span lang=\"en\">How can we return to first love?<\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"en\">Learn what it takes to get back to first love<\/span><\/h2>\n<div id=\"attachment_38038\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-38038\" src=\"http:\/\/img.cancaonova.com\/cnimages\/canais\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2017\/01\/269x329-Missa-com-Padre-Paulo-Ricardo.jpg\" alt=\"Padre Paulo Ricardo fala sobre o amor, a f\u00e9 e a esperan\u00e7a. Foto: Daniel Mafra\/cancaonova.com\" width=\"269\" height=\"329\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span lang=\"en\">Father Paulo Ricardo<\/span><br \/>\n<span lang=\"en\">Photo: Daniel Mafra\/cancaonova.com<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">The Jesus Revolution 2017 Retreat, which has as its theme &#8216; back to first love &#8216;, is coming to an end. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">At this point, we begin our normal walk in common time, it&#8217;s time to experience our baptism. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">But, going to the theme of the retreat, returning to the first love, we can bring up the the question: &#8220;How can we live our baptism, so that it can be a revival in the first love?&#8221;. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">It is therefore necessary to cultivate the growth of three theological virtues: faith (believing), hope (remember) and charity (love). <\/span><span lang=\"en\">When they grow, they grow all the other virtues, and so we&#8217;re back to first love.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">To better explain this process, I&#8217;m going to compare the stages of growth of these virtues (faith, hope and charity) with the growth of a normal love between a girl and a boy. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">Let&#8217;s assume that, first, the boy, seeing the girl, is surprised and immediately thinks: &#8220;this woman could be my wife and the mother of my children.&#8221; <\/span><span lang=\"en\">Okay, this is the first step: the desire of knowledge by means of intelligence. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">In relation to the virtue of faith,it \u00a0occurs something like: we know God by faith. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">In this initial process, the boy will get information and learn about the qualities of the girl. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">Similarly, by faith \u2013 which is a virtue connected to knowledge \u2013 we know best who is God, so that we can love him even better. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">The virtue of faith, therefore, is the virtue of intelligence illuminated by the grace of God.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">Meeting only is not enough to be a dating, in the next step (hope) there must be a mutual understanding. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">For her to fall for him, comes in the &#8220;memory&#8221; feature: he will be in touch with her more often, send messages, gifts and even do things her way. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">The message here is: no one falls in love with someone whom he or she doesn&#8217;t even remember. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">As anyone knows who&#8217;s in love.\u00a0<\/span><span lang=\"en\">When you remember that person all the time, you dream, make plans, design the future. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">This, therefore, is the virtue of hope: sure of what exists, but you still can&#8217;t see that someone one remembers that he or she loves. One is taken by the desire\u00a0to be with that person. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">Therefore, the desire\u00a0(hope) needs memory.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">The next step is the decision (will), which is linked to the virtue of charity. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">The girl and the boy decide freely to choose each other (or not). <\/span><span lang=\"en\">The charity, while virtue, is the decision of choosing to love your neighbor despite the degree of knowledge or memory. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">It is a decision, a choice. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">Love, therefore, resides in the will, feelings aside.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">In this way, the intelligence (faith), memory (hope) and will (charity) are the three steps to get back to first love with God. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">The love of God is the third floor of a building that has two other: If you don&#8217;t build the first two, the third will not exist. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">Without it, love looks like a straw fire, it wears off, walking tolukewarmness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\">Well, in short, to build concretely these three stories (faith, hope, and charity), we need:<\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">Faith \u2013 believe strongly in the love of God, which is revealed to us through Jesus Christ, who gave himself up on the cross, died, and rose again, and is with us all the time. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">Believe, above all, in dogmas and sacraments of the Church; <\/span><span lang=\"en\">not a devotional practice alone, but a close relationship through the practice of daily prayer. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">Believe what God said and not just on what we&#8217;re seeing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">Hope \u2013 remember\u00a0what God gives to us, he&#8217;s with us. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">When we remember that touch of the soul, that moment of prayer, we are taken by a desire to be with Jesus again.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">Charity-deciding, so concrete, to love Jesus in brother. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">As we are loved by God, we need to take advantage of all our opportunities of personal suffering to love one another as Jesus loved us on the cross.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en\">So, to get back to first love, we need to go through these three stages: believe in Jesus Christ, to remember him and love him. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">Even if it hurts, even if it&#8217;s uncomfortable, we must love him and surrender ourselves to Him. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">This is the way: our faith, hope and charity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Fr. Paulo Ricardo Azevedo, Jr<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/eventos.cancaonova.com\/pregacoes\/volta-ao-primeiro-amor\/\">Portuguese version<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back to first love Sunday, 15 of January of 2017, 5:27 pm Last modified: Monday, 16 of January of 2017, 10:28 How can we return to first love? Learn what it takes to get back to first love Father Paulo&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1121,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[141727],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18315"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18315"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18319,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18315\/revisions\/18319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}