A Threefold God totally lets go of any boundaries for the sake of the Other, and then receives them back from Another. It is a nonstop waterwheel of Love. Each accepts that He is fully accepted by the Other, and then passes on that total acceptance. Thus indeed, “God is Love”! It’s the same spiritual journey for all of us, for it takes most of our life to accept that we are accepted—and to accept everyone else as a result.
Most can’t do this easily because internally there is so much self-accusation (self-flagellation in many cases) and self-preservation at work. Most are so convinced that they are not the body of Christ, that they are unworthy, that they are not in radical union with God, and so they live in an economy of scarcity and self-protection. The Gospel announces a worldview of abundance, and the church is supposed to use every means to convince us of this inherent safety and dignity, which is why it is called “good news.”
The good news is that the question of union has already been resolved once and for all. We cannot create our union with God from our side. It is objectively already given to us by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us (Romans 8:9, for one). Once we know we are that grounded, founded, and home free, we can then stop protecting ourselves and pour ourselves out (2 Timothy 4:6) just as Father does to Son, Son to Spirit, and Spirit to Father in a “fountain fullness” of generosity and abundance.
~Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Shape of God: Deepening the Mystery of the Trinity (CD)
The mystics, and those like Moses (Exodus 33:12-23), Jesus (John 5:19-20), and John the Divine (1 John 1:1-3) who personally claim to know God, are always aware that they have been let in on a big and wondrous love secret. Anyone not privy to an inner dialogue, that is, some kind of I-Thou relationship, would call such people presumptuous, emotional, foolish, or even arrogant. How could they presume to claim an actual union with the divine? But this is without doubt “God’s secret, in which all the jewels of wisdom and knowledge are hidden” (Colossians 2:2-3). The insiders know that “anyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Anyone who fails to love can never know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:7-8). Such an amazing, but seldom-quoted, line lets you in on the big secret and also makes it universal and available to all.
~From Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond: The Search for our True Self
We have put our emphasis on trying to love God, which is probably a good way to start—although we do not have a clue how to do that. What I consistently find in the mystics is an overwhelming experience of how God has loved them. God is always the initiator, God is the doer, God is the one who seduces us. All we can do is respond in kind and, exactly as Meister Eckhart said, “The love by which we love God is the very same love with which God has first loved us.”
The mystics’ overwhelming experience is this full-body blow of the Divine loving them, God radically accepting them. And they spend the rest of their life trying to verbalize that experience, and invariably finding ways to give that love back through forms of service, compassion and non-stop worship. But none of this is to earn God’s love; it’s always and only to return God’s love. Love is repaid by love alone.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Following the Mystics through the Narrow Gate: Seeing God in All Things (CD)
