Christianity is such a conglomeration of physical and social realities:
of cathedrals, churches, schools and cemeteries of hierarchies, feast days,
customs and practices; of Bibles prayer books, hymnals and missals; of
sacraments seminaries, symbols and synods. Yet none of such externals necessary
though they are to aid our human nature constitutes the essence of
Christianity. The essential reality the thing that really matters, is what God
does in our heart “The kingdom of God is within you”. (Luke
17:21). Since we are body as well as spirit, God meets us in images we can see,
hear and touch. But the end result of God’s action is an inner
transformation that heals and sanctifies even the body, from within.
We Christians express this belief by saying that we have received God’s Spirit. His Spirit lives in us. Through his Spirit we can think, feel, speak and act in a new way Through the presence of this Spirit in us we know God in a new and intimate way. We feel strengthened and comforted, ready to undertake difficult tasks or endure severe trials. The Spirit of God makes us happy, optimistic, positive in our dealings with others. The Spirit helps us to be kind, understanding and patient. The Spirit teaches us a whole new way of considering what is important and what is not.
The deepest roots of the Spirit in us lie in our created nature. If we reflect we will have detected in ourselves a longing for what is absolute, a reaching out to the infinite. Plato described this when he spoke of “eros”, that natural love in us which seeks beautiful things but which ultimately can only be satisfied by the highest good. (2) Others have called it “the human capacity for creative self transcendence”, (1) or “the unrestricted open-ended quest” (3) It is clear, both from mystical experience and philosophical analysis, that both the origin and the goal of this dynamic thrust are ultimate reality, that is: God.
The mystics of all ages, whether Taoist, Hindu, Sufi, Christian or whatever tradition they belonged to, agree on this universal experience of the “Spirit”. We have already spoken about this, though sometimes in different terms, in parts one and two of this book.
We Christians believe that Christ has brought us a heightened awareness of that same Spirit. Or rather: by re-creating us internally, Christ raised the activity of the Spirit in us to a higher level. This is sometimes expressed by saying that he gave us of his own Spirit. This spiritual activity, which is God’s love in us, is his new law and the inner judge, as we saw in chapter ten. This new presence of God in us is the substance of Christian life. Its distinctive sign is the love kindled in our heart.
When the New Testament speaks of “love”, it calls on the best in our human nature. Love means respect for the other, leading to selfless commitment. The love Jesus demands in the Gospel urges us to wash people’s feet, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, nurse the sick, welcome strangers, visit prisoners and serve rather than expect to be served. if you love people with Christ’s love, you tell the truth even if it embarrasses you; you forgive them for their failings; you turn the other cheek rather than take revenge; you pray for those who curse you and persecute you. Christ’s love opens our eyes so that we can love people for what they are; not for what we can get out of them. It requires us to make sacrifices, yes even to give our life if this be necessary.
“If you keep these commandments of my love,” Jesus assured us, “I will make myself known to you” (see John 14:21). By practising Jesus’s love we will have direct experience of him. (4) The love that we feel and practise is God’s own doing in us. Through his love we are in direct touch with God himself. It is God who fills us with his love; who manifests his love to others through us.
Love comes from God.
Whoever practises love is born of God and experiences God.
Whoever does not practise love has no experience of God.
God is love. (1 John 4:7-8)
No one has ever seen God.
But if we love one another,
God shows that he lives in us.
Yes, it is his love that flourishes in us.
By this we know
that God and we share the same life
because he gives us his own Spirit (of love). (1 John 4:12-13)
God is love.
He who lives full of love lives full of God
for it is God who fills him. (1 John 4:16)
The implication of these texts is absolutely clear. When we strive to be fair and loving; when we try to be kind to others, defend their rights, treat them with respect, are willing to help them at some cost to ourselves, are patient and forgiving rather than spiteful—in short, when we try to live Jesus’s commandment of love, we know that these feelings and actions flowing from us manifest the Spirit of God. We are not talking here of extraordinary deeds of self-sacrifice; we are speaking of our every-day efforts to be loving in our relationships. The remarkable message of sacred Scripture is that precisely such happenings in us disclose the presence of God to us.
God who created us in the first place, who gave us the capacity for transcending love to begin with, now through Christ strengthens our ability to be truly loving and constructive. Is it not a wonderful discovery to find out that this inner life in me, which I know so well because it is part of my every-day striving, is a tangible sign of God’s presence in me?
Many Christians will know what I am talking about —from their own spiritual experience. Some who have lacked proper instruction or who have lost their way in the maze of externals, may wonder if I am only proclaiming a limited and personal interpretation of Scripture. For their benefit, allow me to expose how what I have said is precisely the teaching of St Augustine of Hippo, that eminent Doctor of the Church who left us so many standard classics of Christian theology (A.D. 354-430). Let us hear what he has to say.
We know that God lives in us. How do we know it.? . St John tells us: “Because he has given us of his Spirit.” But how do we know that God has given us of his Spirit. . .? Search your heart. If it is full of love, you possess God’s Spirit! (5)
Perhaps, you will tell me: I haven’t seen God. Will you tell me: I haven’t seen a human person? Love your neighbour. If you love the neighbour you see, by this same act you will see God. For you will see love itself and God lives in love. (6)
Who doesn’t love his neighbour cannot see God. Why not? Because he does not possess love. If he possessed love, he would see God, for “God is love”. (7)
Who does not love other people, stays outside love and thus outside God for “God is Iove”. . . If instead of looking on people in a purely human fashion, you’d love them with spiritual love, you would see God who is love itself. You’d see him with an interior view which alone can make you see him.(8)
Augustine points out that we can know God precisely because we are aware of the love that exists in us. It is this experience itself: of our feelings towards others; our attempts to understand and reach out; our joy and excitement when making human contact; our desire to be honest and of use to others — in short: The actual experience of our every-day “loving” is the reality in which we know God. Let Augustine speak again.
Since we love other people through love, and “God is love”, it is through God that we love them. We can only love by first loving love itself through which we give love. Therefore love of God and love of other people include each other. (9)
What?! Does it follow from the fact that you love love itself that you love God? Yes, definitely! By loving love, you love God. Have you forgotten what has been stated in Scripture: “God is love”? If “God is love”, whoever loves love, loves God. (10)
Let no one say: I don’t know what I love. Let him love his neighbour, then he will love love itself. In fact he will know the love with which he loves better than the people he loves. Therefore, God—who is love— will be better known to him than his neighbour; better known because God is more present; better known because God is more interior; better known because God is more certain. (11)
Without any doubt, if love lives in a person, he or she is a temple of God. For God is love. (12)
The Holy Spirit who is himself God, once given to a human person enkindles in that person love for God and for other people because the Spirit himself is love. (13)
How could God be more interior to us? Our human energy, our spirit, turns out to be nothing less than a manifestation of God’s Spirit! Prompting us to a new level of loving, the Spirit of Jesus infuses new life in us. How can we respond to this?
How can we
more consciously live the Love
that is God in us?
I will make some suggestions about this in the final chapter.
1. Plato, Symposion, Prisma edition, Utrecht 1960.
2. M. Scheler, Vom Ewigen im Menschen, Cologne 1921; Die Stellung der Menschen im Kosmos, Berlin 1928.
3. W. Pannenberg, “The Question of God”, in Basic Questions in Theology, Vol. 2, Philadelphia 1971, pp. 216-27.
4. M. Blondel, L’Action, Paris 1893; K. Rahner, Spirit in the World, London 1968; B. Lonergan, Method in Theology, London 1972, pp.10, 105-11.
5. J. Wijngaards, Experiencing Jesus, Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame 1981, esp. pp. 9-28.
6. Augustine, Treatise on St John’s Letters 8, 12. 161. Ibidem 5, 7.
7. Ibidem 9, 10.
8. Augustine, About the Trinity 8, 12.
9. Ibidem 8, 12.
10. Treatise on St John’s letters 9, 10.
11. About the Trinity 8, 12.
12. Sermons 350, 1.
13. About the Trinity 15, 31. For a full exposition of Augustine’s teaching on love I recommend: D. Dideberg, “Esprit Saint et charité”, Nouvelle Revue Théologique 97 (1975) 97- 109; 229-50; and, by the same author, Augustine et la première Epître de Saint Jean, Beauchesne, Paris 1976.