The Font of Love from which We Flow

In today’s gospel, Jesus tells us: “Everything that the Father has is mine” (Jn 16:15).  In the following chapter, he will express this more intimately as he addresses his Father directly: “Everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine” (Jn 17:10).

I would like to reflect on this word with the help of John of Ford:
“We see how admirable and plenteous is the richness of love in the Blessed Trinity, and what a great river it is of the most sacred joy.  From the fullness of his joy the Father utters the whole of himself to the Son, and in the same way the Son, together with the Father, utters the whole of himself to the Holy Spirit, so that these Three are one single font of love.  The love of this unity will never slacken, for it is a unity of love that there holds blissful sway.  There is, of course, nothing within the indivisible unity of the most Holy Trinity, which is not to be praised and reverenced in the highest degree, but it is no cause for wonder of charity has a place of special privilege and power here at the very source and font of its own being.  God has the power of making those who are joined to God, one spirit with him.”

Here we have a description of the Blessed Trinity that focuses on the most fascinating quality of our God.  If “the Father utters the whole of himself to the Son, and in the same way the Son, together with the Father, utters the whole of himself to the Holy Spirit,” then at the source of all being, all life, there is a blissful, trustful giving and receiving of self in love.  What joy there is in being able to utter myself to another, even (as is the case with things human) in part.  To utter part of myself and to be received, partially, is a gift that points toward the fullness.  I feel more alive, more loved and loving, more at home in my humanity.

What makes this uttering so difficult for us is that life has taught us to fear rejection.  Our attempts at unconditional self-gift have not always been met with unconditional receptivity.  We feel vulnerable.  The very existence of this word ‘vulnerable’ makes clear that wounding is a possible outcome of opening up to another.  The wounds that result from failed encounters can make such opening up intolerable.  And so we close up in our safe-but-lonely fortress, which threatens to become the tomb of our humanity.  Or alternatively, we lay ourselves open too much and too quickly in a desperate grab for the intimacy which promises to make us whole.  But not all intimacy is wholesome.  We can end up not given and received but demeaned, diminished, used and cast off, loathsome to ourselves and estranged from the source of all love.

This is why the Son of God came to free the prisoner and befriend the prostitute.  Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Our Father.”  The Spirit teaches us to cry out “Abba, Father.”  From this Father we receive nothing but love: it is our very selves, embraced, washed, clothed and fed, that are returned to us who return to him.  If we could only believe what is said to us, that if our Father feeds the birds of heaven and clothes the lilies, how much more are we the object of his prodigal generosity.

The point is this: we are created in the image and likeness of this prodigal Father, this self-sacrificing Son, this Spirit of love poured out.  Our truest human nature is to be a receiver and giver of love.  No matter how wounded, how obscured, how twisted this nature has become, its fundamental identity remains that of a child of God.  Living this takes more than good will.  We are called to the hard work of living our vulnerability deeply, of honoring it in ourselves and in others.  We are called to accept our imperfect selves, so that we can accept others also.  Love your neighbor as you love yourself, we hear.  Earlier this year, Brother John Mark Falkenhain, OSB, underlined for us the stages of maturity in our affective life: self-knowledge, self-acceptance, self-gift.  Without the former, the latter is impossible or unreal.  And there is more: love as I have loved you.  Our task is to internalize God’s love by constant exposure.  We live under his gaze, under the deifying light, reminding ourselves daily that “God has the power of making those who are joined to God, one spirit with him.”

Today we worship and adore the font of love from which we flow.  And we pray that the likeness may be restored in us and in all God’s children.