The invitation to divine love
Jesus invites us into his self-kenotic love, the nature of which he has revealed most fully on the Cross. Deeper than a set of doctrinal formulations or moral maxims, Catholic Christianity begins with and always involves this encounter and offer with/from the Triune God, in the person of Jesus Christ.
The very love that God is and that has emptied itself in history for our salvation is the love that we are offered an opportunity to partake in, in the form of our own self-emptying, in full obedience to the Father, through power of the Holy Spirit. Such participation we can achieve not on our own, but only with the help of God’s grace.
All of us truly become theological persons insofar as we allow ourselves to die to our individualistic selves and open ourselves in love to the Father and his will, seeing and treating others around us in the manner that Jesus’ did, who fully identified with humanity in its entirety. We must thus see everyone as our brother or sister in Christ, regardless of his/her race, ethnicity, sex and even religion.
The important question is: can we really trust in such love as the center and be-all and end-all of our whole lives? In many ways, its nature and demands are terrifying. For one, we must reject wealth, power, fame, influence, and material security as our gods. And more importantly, we must look to and accept Jesus’ life as that which reveals to us what such love entails in our still-fallen world.
Are we prepared, for example, for total vulnerability; complete poverty of spirit; and a raw hunger and thirst for justice’s sake? The choice is ours.
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Mark, Everything you wrote I second. What is revealed in His life is His journey to those who were in foreign lands and those who were rejected by the authorities in the faith for being unclean.
It seems that He wants us to leave the known world and go to the unknown. Those who journey from their known will fill our place in our known.
It seems that we must go to the dark and find the light in the dark. Which takes me to Genesis when God separated the dark from the light and called it good. Hmmm?
As we both know, it is difficult to give up that individuality which seeks after itself, indeed, it is painful… and it’s the struggle we find ourselves in.
“It seems that He wants us to leave the known world and go to the unknown. Those who journey from their known will fill our place in our known.”
Ronald,
I get this sense too. I always go back to the “no place to rest your head” passage in the NT and give it a gloss in conjunction with what you say.
Additionally, this love shows (and is to show) its brightness in its constant descent into and transformation of the dark, whether this be intrapersonal or interpersonal.
Let me just say here that I constantly enjoy your contributions in the comboxes.
Thanks Mark for your kindness. My comments are not necessarily my thoughts but they are responses to the mystical nature of your posts and I love how the mystery of God surpasses the foundation of reason, whatever that means. That is where I am led with your writings. So, thank you.
Mark, I love the reference “no place to rest your head.” It seems that reason looks for a place to rest its head in the comfort and security of dogma. It frightens me and overwhelms me when I hear dogma or truth being pronounced under the influence of an underlying individualism which states that those who do not believe what the faith believes do so because they choose not to. This seems to be resting one’s head in a familiar place.