“Love has three and only three intimacies: speech, vision, and touch. These three intimacies God has chosen to make his love intelligible to our poor hearts. God has spoken He told us that he loves us: that is Revelation. God has been seen: That is Incarnation. God has touched us by his grace: That is Redemption. Well indeed, therefore, may he say: “What more could I do for my vineyard than I have done? What other proof could I give of my love than to exhaust myself in the intimacies of love? What else could I do to show that my own Sacred Heart is not less generous than your own? If we answer these questions aright, then we will begin to repay love with love. Then we will return speech with speech which will be our prayer; vision with vision which will be our faith; touch with touch which will be our communion.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen (The Eternal Galilean)
Which exactly is why we must respond to God in the same way, If God comes with speech, vision, and touch. Should we not respond to him in the same way? Fully? Full body and soul? Speech (prayer and consecration), Vision (sacramentals, vestments, relics) and touch (sign of cross, holy water, laying on of the hands) .
To respond to God, we should respond not only to Jesus the incarnate, but the Father and Holy Spirit. To do this, we must listen, gaze, and reach out. Listen to the Father in prayer, gaze at the Jesus incarnate, and reach out our spirits to the Spirit. Simple speech and profession is not a response to the Cross! Even the demons know the cross.
Just as told in the parable of the talents, we are not just to receive the gifts, but do something with it!
The Parable of the Talents
14 “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants[a] and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents,[b] to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good andfaithful servant.[c] You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked andslothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A14-30&version=ESV
