Entering God's Love more deeply

"Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!" Rom 11:33

Often, when I was involved in community organizing in Boston, we would say that we had a broad influence in the community and had developed leaders in many churches and congregations, but we did not have sufficient depth. In other words, we could have influence in a particular issue but probably did not have the kind of power that would last. Those with power were not likely to ask our opinion or be concerned with our position. They would not have to worry about us unless we put down deeper roots and became a more integral part of the community’s consciousness.

St Paul reminds us that God’s love is deep, not just broad. God does not just love us as his children, but as Bernard Lonergan, the great Canadian theologian reminds us, God is in love with us. God’s love is active, powerful and transforming. God’s love is total, complete, everlasting and gratuitous. We cannot earn God’s love. God is in love with us as we are and calls us to love others as he loves us. Being in love with someone means that you have not settled for a good companion in life but are seeking to make the love you experience the foundation of everything you are and do.

Moreover, a love that is active grows. When we come together regularly as God's people to deepen our appreciation for the great mysteries of faith through study, reflection and celebration, we naturally go out in service of those most in need. Christians, despite our differences, have been spending the love of God in this manner for 2000 years. We cannot do otherwise. The love that God has for us is so deep that we are not afraid to give it away.

Like a well of pure water whose fullness has not even been plumbed, God’s love sustains and renews us and calls us to be life giving waters for others. If Jesus can multiply the loaves and fish so that everyone eats and there is plenty left over for tomorrow, we need not fear at all. The love of God is not just deep in us; it is the ground of our existence. We have only to remember this love, to keep it alive and to offer it as a pure gift to everyone to make the world a very different place. We will not have to talk about justice and peace as future goals because, as we grow more deeply in love with God and allow God to direct our every action, they will become a way of life that is natural, organic and full.

Today, ask God to draw you more deeply into the mysteries of faith and make you agents of lasting change in our church and world.