God is Love
by Pat Gohn in Faith on Thursday, May 20, 2010 6:00 AM
What is God’s innermost secret? Who or what is at the core of God?
For us humans, the revelation of one’s deepest self to another requires total trust and security in the knowledge that what is shared will be respected and valued. Now, imagine knowing that inner mystery about God! Do you wonder what that might be? And, if we knew what that innermost secret is, what would it mean for us?
Indeed, we find one such paragraph within the Catechism of the Catholic Church: CCC 221 reveals God’s innermost secret. More on that in a moment.
Let’s talk about God’s innermost secret in the context that the Catechism teaches it. The last few articles in this series have been devoted to the section of the Catechism that explains the first line of the Creed: “I believe in God.” By reciting the Creed a Christian assents to what the Church professes about God.
It is likely that you are familiar with the Scripture verse from 1 Jn 4:8,16: “God is Love.” It is at the very core of Christian faith. Let’s not let familiarity with this idea make us dulled to its full meaning. Within the Catechism, “God is love” is the paragraph heading wherein the Catechism proclaims this innermost secret about God.
(In our sound-bite-preferring world, it would seem unlikely that that an academically rigorous reference work like the Catechism would come up with pithy verbal gems. Yet, now and then it does.)
CCC 221 is worth memorizing:
God’s very being is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.
God’s innermost secret? That God is an eternal exchange of love. This phrase describes the all-encompassing mystery of the Trinity in its purest essence.
What’s more, did you catch the little corollary at the end? We are destined to share in that exchange.
So what does that mean?
Recall that the central mystery or truth of the Catholic Faith is the Blessed Trinity. Now also recall that in the very first paragraph of the Catechism, God never ceases to call us into relationship for “at every time and in every place, God draws close to man (CCC 1).”
Since the Trinity is “an eternal exchange of love” between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you could say that God’s primary action or reason d’etre is all about relationships. That means the relationship between the members of the Trinity themselves, as well as the relationships they have with us.
Furthermore, this exchange of love is the motivation behind all that God creates, and does. The creation of all things, seen and unseen, flows from this eternal exchange of love. God’s revelation of himself to his people, and his ultimate plan of redemption, flows from this eternal exchange of love. For God cannot deny Who God is at His most intimate core.
What does this mean for us?
Christians, baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are destined to share in that “eternal exchange of love”. Baptism is both a future promise of heaven, and of the relationship shared with God even now.
A Christian’s life is meant to be an eternal exchange of love between God and oneself, and between oneself and others. Christian vocations reflect this. And most certainly, marriage and family life are best described as an eternal exchange of love… an ongoing exchange of love now, and God-willing, one fine day in heaven.
In daily life, our love and communion with God and one another has the potential to reflect the love and communion of the Trinity. Albeit, we reflect this somewhat dimly compared to God since our sin and failures diminish this potential… yet… God’s plan for us far exceeds our own expectations and limitations. And God never stops calling us to grow in grace and in perfecting these relationships.
When we allow God’s innermost secret to become the innermost secret of our own hearts, we are motivated to change, so that “in him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).”
Jesus said, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him (John 14:23).”
It’s no secret that God desires to live with us and in us forever.
Want to read ahead?
Try CCC 260:
The ultimate end of the whole divine economy is the entry of God’s creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity. But even now we are called to be a dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity: [See John 14:23 (listed above).]
—Pat Gohn is a wife & mother celebrating 27 years of Catholic family life. Her Catholic writing, podcasting, and ministry life are found at PatGohn.com.
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