What is the law really for? It’s not to make God love us. That issue is already solved, once and forever, and we are powerless to change it in one direction or the other. The purpose of spiritual law is simply to sharpen our awareness about who we are and who God is, so that we can name our own insufficiency and, in that same movement, find God’s fullness. That’s why saints like Francis are invariably saying, in effect, “I’m nothing. Everything I’ve done that’s good has come from God. The only things I can claim are my own sins.” He is not being overly humble, just truthful. In such people, the law has achieved its full purpose.
—from the book Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality by Richard Rohr, OFM
//Franciscan Media//