In his commentary on the Song of Songs, the ancient church writer Origen has the Lover (Christ) saying to the Beloved (the Church; you and me): 'I adjure you: awaken the love which is in you, and after you have woken it make it rise up! When the Creator of all things created you, he planted in your hearts the seeds of love. But now in you love is asleep...'

Origen goes on to say that the Word of God is asleep in those who do not believe and in those of doubtful heart, while it is awake in the saints. It sleeps in those who are shaken by storms, but it awakes the moment they cry out - those who want to be saved and who are looking for this...

What I would like to say is this. Everyone wants to be loved. To give and receive love is the most wonderful exchange possible. Where love is given and received it is a source of joy and peace, even in the most difficult and troubling circumstances. It is possible to bear wars and poverty, tragedy, illness, old age, and approaching death - if only there is love. Where love is not given and not received there is only pain, a sort of hell, even in the midst of prosperity.

Love is like an oasis in the desert, an enclosed garden in a bustling city, a precious secret the joy of which is doubled by being shared.

Is it possible that this love is simply the product of biochemistry and biological imperative?

Everything we are given in the Church - the Mysteries, our worship, Scripture, prayer and the spiritual disciplines and opportunities - are given to us to awaken the love - the capacity to give love and receive love - that the Lord has planted deep in our inmost being. Our love needs to be wakened and re-awakend, for it is as if our distractions, and so often our fears and the hardness of heart that comes from fear, work as a narcotic, drugging our love of God and one another, putting our love into an unnatural and artificial, unrefreshing sleep.

The Coming of Christ - in the Incarnation and in our encounter with Him in our baptism, in repentance, in the eucharist, in the many spiritual renewals that make up our life in Christ - is the basic reality, the pattern and theme of this awakening of love. God loves us and has made us to be lovable and loving, in the image and likeness of His love. And when we fell away - and when we fall - and when our love was stilled - and is stilled - in an unnatural death-like slumber, He sent - and sends - His beloved Son to enter into our dreary unreality and the darkness of our dream-world, to awaken us, to renew love in us, to bring us into the light.