​In the light of what I said about the meaning of my personal identity as a living relationship with God, I can revisit the earlier words on the nature of sin. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were created in a state of complete openness to God. They remained before him in trusting and childlike dependence, receiving in gratitude and freedom the gift of his love, and the gift of their own existence cradled within this love. In a word, they dwelt in the authentic truth of original solitude: in the inner sanctuary of the heart where they were united to God in trust and love, in an intimate filial relationship. They received the gift and lived it as it was meant to be lived, in a profound relationship with the Giver. Indeed, as I have said, the gift itself is precisely this relationship to the Giver.

But when the serpent comes and tempts them, he makes them believe that what flows from God’s creative hands is not a pure gift of love, but rather a burdensome and arbitrary responsibility. He tempts them into believing that God is an autonomous and power-hungry taskmaster, rather than a Communion of Persons: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit united in the joy of eternal self-giving. Adam and Eve therefore, when they yield to the lies of the devil, fall into believing that God is withholding things from them in a selfish and arbitrary authority, in a domineering attitude which is the opposite of love and self-giving. Indeed, they come to believe that dependence on God and relationship with him is a hindrance to their being, a limitation of their freedom, rather than its safeguard and the place where alone it can fully blossom. They want to “be like God” by grasping for power, pleasure, and possession as their own, and through the strength of their own autonomous will. But this is precisely not who God is or what he does!

Rather, God is a Family of Love in eternal intimacy. When Adam and Eve were created, they were created in the image and likeness of precisely this God of love—this God who is Love, as Saint John writes in his First Letter! (Cf. 1 Jn 4:8, 16.) This means that they were fashioned on the very “model” of the eternal Son of the Father, whose very existence is to receive the gift of the Father’s love and to abide in intimate relationship with him. The Son’s unique Personhood is identical with his relationship to the Father, with his belovedness before the Father. And he is free in his personal mystery precisely because he never seeks to separate himself from the Father whose Beloved he is. He lives eternally in communion, in relation, in the bond of intimate love. The same is true of the Father and the Holy Spirit, each in their own proper way of relating to the other Persons of the Trinity. In God, to be a Person is to be in relationship. And precisely because the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are totally and eternally in relation with one another, they have all things in common: they share one being, one substance, one life, one endless joy. When the gift is totally given and totally received, and totally given back in love, then those who share are united together in the most perfect way.

This is what it means to live like God. This is the mystery in which each one of us has been created to participate. As Saint Paul writes in his Letter to the Ephesians: “Be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Eph 5:1). We were made to share in the very openness, mutual self-giving, and perfect intimacy of the Trinity’s life! But sin is directly opposed to this: for it is the closure of the heart, the refusal to receive and to give, and the isolation that results from this. When Adam and Eve turned away and grasped for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they fractured human existence away from its union with the Creator. It is as if, before sin, humanity was united to God like the threads of a seamless fabric; but through sin this fabric is violently torn apart. Now there is an ugly tear, a lack of communion and communication between God and humanity. The human heart has now become closed in upon itself and no longer lives in a vivid and dynamic relationship with God. Yes, it has lost the fundamental bond of communion with the Trinity which is grace.

We can see the fundamental difference between these two attitudes—love and sin—in the Prologue of John’s Gospel. He separates them radically from one another, calling the first openness to the light and the other the darkness. He uses two different Greek words to exemplify the difference between these two attitudes, and their corresponding effects. In 1:5, he writes: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome (κατέλαβεν) it.” And then later, in verses 9 through 13: “The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received (παρέλαβον) him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

The root word that he uses in both cases is lambano (λαμβάνω), which means to actively take or receive. But in each case he uses a different augmenting beginning to change the implications of the word. In the first case, in verse 5, the word translated as “overcome” is katelaben (κατέλαβεν). Kata (κατα) means “down” or “according to,” and as modifying lambano it means: to take tight hold of, to overtake, and in this case, to grasp possessively, reducing to one’s own size. This, we see, corresponds exactly with the attitude of sin we spoke of above. On the other hand, the word translated as “receive” in verse 11 is parelabon (παρέλαβον). Para (παρα) means “from close to,” or “alongside.” Therefore, the meaning here is: to receive in such a way that I let myself be drawn into relationship with the Giver.

In the first case, when I try to grasp possessively for the gift apart from the Giver, I find myself collapsing into narrowness and isolation. I find myself remaining in the darkness and unable to comprehend the light. In the second case, when I open myself to welcome the gift and let myself be drawn into relationship with the Giver, then I am illumined by the light and expanded in love. Indeed, I pass over into the light, as verses 12 and 13 say: I become a “child of God” by letting myself be irradiated with divine grace. I allow God to establish me in a living relationship of love with himself—a relationship made possible not by any human means—“not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man”—but by God’s gracious gift given in Christ.

I let myself be inserted into the filial relationship of the Son with his Father, this relationship in which, from the very beginning, I was created to participate. This is what is made clear in the next verses: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; and we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten Son from the Father” (1:14). We have turned away in sin and refused to remain in loving relationship with God, and because of this we find ourselves immersed in the darkness. Even though the Word is “in the world” (1:10) as the very creative Wisdom of God, we do not recognize him and receive him. And so he comes to us in the flesh, as a human being. In this way he can penetrate into our loneliness and isolation, into our enclosed hearts, and re-open them from within. And he does this by unveiling to us, in himself, the ineffable Beauty of the Father: “we have beheld his glory.” “No one has ever seen God; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known” (1:18).
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Yet this intimacy is not a mere external beholding, since beholding gives way to touching, and touching allows a profound abiding to flower between Lover and beloved. For as the Son is always turned toward the bosom of his Father, abiding in his most intimate embrace, we are invited to turn toward the incarnate Son and to recline against his bosom. God wants it to be said of each one of us: “One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was lying close to the bosom of Jesus” (cf. 13:23). In the heartbeat of the Son, against whose breast we rest, we can hear the heartbeat of the Father, and indeed of the entire Trinity. And by gazing upon the Son in love, we can see the unspeakable Beauty of God, who created us to share in his own life of intimacy and joy for all eternity. It is only necessary that we open ourselves to receive this gift pouring from the open Heart of Jesus, to welcome it with open hands and open heart…and that we trust him enough to surrender ourselves to him in return, so that he may take us up into his care, carrying us back into the eternal embrace of the Trinity.

​Everything that I have said above about our original experience of love and communion hopefully provides a foundation for understanding the words of the Gospel more deeply. My goal in trying to “make contact” with our original experience was to cast light on what it really means to be a person, to be created in the image and likeness of God. To be a person is not to be an isolated and autonomous subject, closed in on oneself. Rather, it is to be essentially in relationship. We come into existence from another; our existence is a gift from another. And it is in and through a relationship with the other that we awaken to full personal consciousness and also grow to maturity.

This inherent relation that lies at the core of our personal being, however, does not mean that we do not exist in our own right and for our own sake. There is a space in our interior being where solitude and communion are indeed inseparably united—where our personal uniqueness and our relationship to another are inseparable. We see this in the fact that the necessary relationship that we have with our parents (and with others) points its way back to our foundational relationship with God himself, which transcends all external relationships while also making them possible and being the ground of their authenticity. It is in our relationship with God that we touch the true substance of our personal being. Here we come to the innermost truth of our identity. And this identity is not a mere accumulation of external characteristics or personality traits, nor a mere accumulation of our experiences and our life story, nor is it merely even our subjective consciousness, our awareness of our “I.” Rather, the identity of each one of us is the unique and unrepeatable person whom God sees when he looks upon us. This is what, most fundamentally, makes us a person: to be seen, known, and loved by God, created as someone who bears his own image and likeness.

The very “root” of my personal being is therefore even deeper than my conscious awareness. I cannot grasp it and comprehend it fully, for it is my very relationship with God who unceasingly holds me in existence in his love. And God, as Saint Augustine says, is more interior to me than I am to myself, while also being higher than my highest self (interior intimo meo et superior summo meo).i To enter into the authentic truth of who I am means to enter into his presence, to enter into the place where I am essential relation to him. Said in a less philosophical way: to be a person is to be in a relationship of childhood with the heavenly Father in Christ. It is to be a child before God. Who am I, therefore, in my deepest identity? Who am I in that sacred place at the depths of my being, that place that no one can destroy, but which is instead sheltered by God? I am a beloved child of God.*

This profound interior mystery of my identity, the truth of my personhood in the eyes of God, is what Saint John Paul II points to in speaking of “original solitude.” This solitude is a fundamental element of my original experience of life, abiding at the core of my existence and my being. In a real way it is the fundamental element. But did I not earlier say that our most fundamental experience is not of solitude, but of communion? Yes I did. Original solitude does not mean that my most basic identity is isolation or aloneness. Rather, it means that my most basic identity, rather than a “horizontal” relationship with another human person, is my “vertical” relationship with God, who unceasingly holds me in existence. It is precisely this vertical relationship with God that enables all of my other horizontal relationships, and from which they flow and to which they return.

Each one of us is deeper than any of our concrete relationships within this world, for we come directly from the loving hand and heart of God himself. The very reality of the conception of a child bears witness to this. When the man and the woman come together to share themselves with one another, the moment of a child’s conception that follows is something hidden, secret, and silent. It is a moment that is known to God alone, and is indeed the direct work of God's own creative touch. It is he who brings into being an immortal soul and unites it with the body in the mother’s womb. This is not a merely biological process, but a direct act of God, and expression of his “ordinary miracle working” in the midst of world history. This moment is a reflection, an expression, of his own eternal love, and the first act of his concrete love for the child, in which he looks upon me and wills me absolutely. “You are my son, today I have begotten you,” says Psalm 2:7. Though these words are most perfectly applied to Christ, who is begotten of the Father in the “Today” of eternity, they also apply to each person in the unique “today” of our creation. My being finds its ultimate origin not in my parents alone, but in the direct and loving action of God, who wills me—me uniquely and unrepeatably—to be his precious and beloved child.

What does this mean for the way that I live my life? For the way that I experience myself and my personal identity in this world? First of all, it means that I cannot know myself as I am merely by looking through the eyes of others, nor “navel-gazing” at myself and all my qualities, those I like and those I don’t like. I can only truly experience who I am when I open myself before God and allow him to gaze upon me. When I look trustingly into his loving gaze upon me, I will come to see reflected in his eyes the authentic truth of who I am. This is because, as I said, my very identity is my foundational relationship with him. Further, what God sees is always the truth. To see as he sees, to let him look upon me and unveil before me his vision, is to see myself as I really am.

But let me say more. God always sees the truth. But it is also the case that for God to look is also for God to love. And for God to love is for God to give himself. These are all, for him, really identical. My being, therefore, is not merely a static and enclosed substance (though it is most definitely a substance!), but a ceaseless communication of the generosity of the Father. Here there is a paradoxical union between the “gift-already-given” and the “gift-always-being-given.” It is sometimes said that God is always creating the world at every moment, because if he was not then it would cease to exist. There is much truth to this. My being ceaselessly flows from God’s love at each and every moment. To live my being fully, therefore, is to accept this gift that is being given to me: a gift which is simultaneously my own existence and also the Father’s love for me.

On the other hand, the nature of a gift is that it is completely given in such a way that it cannot be taken back by the giver. It is delivered over entirely, in love, to the recipient. In this sense, my being subsists in itself as something that is my own, something that has been placed within my own hands. It is entrusted into the care of my own freedom. But does this entail that I can live it without reference to the Giver, without reliance on the One who ceaselessly gives me life and sustains me in his love? Obviously not. For it is a gift fully given, yet a gift that is, in its inner nature, a relationship. To refuse the relationship is to fracture the gift at its very root, in its most essential meaning.

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NOTES
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*Here also we can see beautifully the continuity between nature and grace. My natural humanity is not closed in upon itself and autonomous, but by its very constitution relational, a living relationship with God (ontologically and existentially speaking, even if I am not aware of this). And because of this, it is innately openness to grace, that is, openness to the redeeming and re-creating gift of the Trinity’s love, and to participation in his life. Thus the life of grace given in Baptism, and pouring into me in every moment of life when I open myself to it, is not something super-added on top of my humanity, but rather my humanity’s true remaking beyond all the wounds and estrangement of sin, and its fulfillment in abiding communion with God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In a word, nature is ordained towards grace, and grace alone fulfills the deepest longings and aspirations of nature itself.

i. Confessions III, 6, 11.

​We can at last come full circle in our reflections. We spoke of the original experience of a child in her mother’s arms, and how this is an image of the mystery of the Trinity. It is a glimpse of our ultimate destiny and an invitation to live from love, within love, and for love—to find ourselves and our happiness within the all-enveloping embrace of love and communion. But this primal experience of being held in the bosom of our mother, in the bosom of love, is fractured in so many ways in this world. How can it be restored, definitively and fully—not by a broken and limited human heart, but by Love himself?

Saint John writes in the beginning of his Gospel: “No one has ever seen God; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known” (Jn 1:18). Yes, here we have the answer. This verse, after our reflections, jumps out to us with a new and profound meaning. The Son, resting and playing eternally in the bosom of his Father, in the shelter and joy of his Love, comes into our world as a man among us. He is born of a human mother; he grows in human maturity. He experiences, with us and for us, our own original experience, not only in the heart of his divine life in the Trinity, but as an infant in his mother’s arms.

He has the same intuition of Love as we do, and yet this is but the transposition of his eternal experience as the beloved Son of the Father into time…into a human mind and heart. In other words, when his human consciousness awakens to the mystery of Love, which he first encounters in the loving face of Mary, he immediately recognizes it as the all-enveloping Love of his heavenly Father. Further, as he awakens to self-consciousness, he knows who he is: the beloved Son of such a loving Father. Therefore, his being cradled in the arms of his mother is but an expression of his being cradled forever in the arms of his heavenly Father. Here the “image” and the “Reality,” human love and Trinitarian Love, meet and intersect in the most profound way. Here Love himself is held in the arms of Love, and mediating this encounter between Love and Love, between Father and Son, is a humble woman, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

By coming to us in this awesome way, Jesus not only experiences our own humanity, our own life experience, but he does so precisely so that he can journey with us through everything. He becomes our Friend and Companion through every stage of our life, and in every experience—those full of beauty and light, and those full of sorrow and darkness. Further, he loves us in the place where we find ourselves—in the place where he unites himself to us—in the midst of our brokenness, our fear, our sin.

He loves us as the One who knows himself to be infinitely loved by the Father, who rests always in his Love, and who speaks and acts only from and within this Love. He loves us as the One who is utterly secure in the love of his Father. “The Father has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him… As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love” (Jn 8:29; 15:9). Precisely by loving us in this way, Jesus can re-open our own hearts to recognize the face of the Father, and, yes...to recognize that we too are his beloved children. Jesus loves us as the beloved Son, and so reveals to us that we have been created to be beloved children of the Father, to be sheltered in the cradling arms of his Love forever. Christ takes us up, in our fear, in our pain, in our hope, into his own loving embrace, and he holds us close to his compassionate Heart.

Yes, this movement of his love for us reaches its climax in the mystery of his Cross and Resurrection. From the depths of his own unbreakable intimacy with the Father, and his complete openness in love and trust, he pierces into the narrowness of our fear and isolation, our suffering, our loneliness, our pain—in order to break it open again from the inside. He grants us to experience anew this “original experience” that has been so threatened, so broken by the rupture of sin and evil. And yet we experience it, this all-enveloping Love, in an infinitely deeper and stronger way than ever before. For now Love has come to us in the very depths of our brokenness, our darkness, our fear, our isolation, and has enveloped us in his embrace.

In this way he reopens our heart to welcome his tender and generous gift. He enables us to recognize, by looking into his tender gaze upon us, the depths of his love for us, and our own unique identity in his eyes. And, touched by this Love, this breathtaking Love revealed in the Heart of Jesus Crucified, we can allow ourselves to surrender, to be taken up by the movement of Love that sweeps us up in its ardent desire to unite us to itself.

We can be carried, beyond the barriers of fear, beyond the boundaries of sin, suffering, and death, into the everlasting and unbreakable light and joy of the Resurrection. Here there is only love, only the intimacy of hearts bound together in perfect communion through the vulnerability of their mutual acceptance and self-giving. Yes, the Risen Jesus carries us every day of our lives—if only we allow him to carry us—through the passion of this world and into the endless joy of the next. Indeed, he implants the seeds of hope, joy, and freedom—of deep and abiding intimacy—into our hearts and our lives even here and now in this world.
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He is already close to us, already holding us. And in this closeness, he carries us unceasingly, moment by moment, toward the consummation that awaits us in the new creation. There we will be immersed forever, with him, in the tender bosom of the Father. We will rest and play, as beloved children within the beloved Son, within the all-enveloping embrace of perfect Love. We will breathe with the Father and the Son their single breath, their Spirit, of endless and eternal joy.

​We said in the previous reflection that the relationship between mother and child is a sanctuary that God has preserved in the midst of creation. In this space God provides a safe place in which we can grow; he also gives us a foundational intuition of the mystery of Love and of our deepest vocation to intimacy. Finally, as we said, this encounter of love is an image of the very inner life of the Trinity itself.

From this sacred space of the relationship with her mother, the child will naturally grow into a healthy sense of her own individuality and into loving and trust-filled relationships with others. However, as we know, there are also many things that militate against this natural development. The world we live in is profoundly broken, and what God has joined together has been rent asunder by human sin. We need to think only of the tragedy of abortion, in which the womb that was meant to shelter becomes the most unsafe place. Or we think of the wounds that are so often left by adoption—which in itself is a gift of loving acceptance and desire by the adoptive parents, but which takes time to be understood by the adopted child, who often has the ingrained sense that one has been rejected by one’s biological parents and is therefore unwanted. In a word, healing and liberation comes when the face of Love and its sheltering embrace is rediscovered as stronger even than the limitations and failures of one’s parents. We think also of neglect or abuse. If you are someone who has suffered from any of these, you have probably found the above meditations very difficult. I only ask you to persevere…for there is a powerful and beautiful answer.

God created us out of the abundance of his pure love and generosity; he fashioned us to be as a little child in his arms, receiving and reciprocating his smile, his look, his embrace. We are born from the communion of the Trinity’s life and invited to return at last into the fullness of the Trinity’s perfect embrace…into the beauty of the communion shared eternally by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. However, from the first sin of Adam and Eve until now, the human heart has been tempted to tear apart the inseparable union between “You” and “I.” It has been tempted to refuse to be dependent on Another, to receive oneself as a gift from Another, to belong to Another in vulnerability and love.

The temptation of the serpent was precisely this, wasn’t it? Let us read the account:

Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” (Genesis 3:1-10)

The serpent tricked Adam and Eve into believing that they were not safe and sheltered in God’s love, that they were not loved and desired for their own sake. Rather, he deceived them into believing that God was withholding things from them, jealous of his own “prerogatives.” He also insinuated that God was a Taskmaster who imposed arbitrary burdens in order to enslave his creatures to himself. He made them think that the communion that enfolded them, the all-enveloping embrace of the Father, was constricting them from being their true selves, and that in order to be free and “mature” they needed to rebel and go their own way. Rather than abiding in childlike playfulness within the enveloping security of the Father’s love, in the joy and peace of being infinitely and unconditionally loved, they wanted to be in “control” and to go their own way. In this desire for a false autonomy, they were tempted to create from within themselves what could only come as a gift from the outside.

In truth, they were a gift from Another, and in simply accepting this gift they had everything else as well. The Father’s Love enfolded and protected them, and as long as they consented to remain rooted in this Love, to remain always within this Love, they could exist and blossom fully in their own unique personal existence. Here “You” and “I” and “We” would be profoundly united, creating together a beautiful harmony of love and relationship: the intimacy for which the human heart was created and in which alone it can be at rest! Each human person would be united to God, the loving Father, as his precious child. And from this place of communion with God, they would also be able to relate to other human persons in freedom, confidence, and joy—since all of their relationships would spring from the Father’s Love within them and remain encompassed within this Love. In other words, because all would abide in the bosom of the Father, they would be able to share themselves with one another too, being united profoundly within the intimacy that God’s cradling Love makes possible.

But, as we know, Adam and Eve turned away… They chose the path of isolation rather than the path of communion. They refused to belong to Another—to the One who was the very Source of their existence and their only true Home. They refused to be vulnerable before the gift of his love, and to give themselves to him, and to one another, in return. Rather, they grasped the gift as their own possession and turned it away from the Giver. They wanted to master it, to make it merely their own (even though it was their own, precisely as his gift!). They wanted to bring forth from within themselves the fulfillment of their desires—desires which only unceasing acceptance of God’s free gift can satisfy.

And now the whole history of our world, and every human life, is marked by the rupture that this first sin caused, and which is perpetuated in every sin committed since. Now we see that, corresponding to the “original experience” of enveloping Love, there is an “original rupture” which seeks to cut off the human heart from this Love, to close it in upon itself. Rather than expanding on the touch of Love, being wide-open and vulnerable in trusting acceptance and reciprocal surrender, the heart is tempted to collapse into narrowness in fear and shame, crying out with Adam: “I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.” Every sin, indeed, can be understood as a way of “hiding from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” A way of seeking to cover over one’s vulnerability with partial and fading things. A way of seeking fulfillment in what cannot satisfy.

We saw earlier that, in her experience of her mother’s love, the little child spontaneously desires to receive this love ever more deeply and to give herself back in return. The same was true of Adam and Eve before the fall—in relationship with their loving Father. But after sin, the very face of Love was fractured for them, since they could no longer see, their trust in the goodness of the Father having died in their hearts. Because of this, the ardent and life-giving desire that springs spontaneously from loving encounter—from that shared smile of recognition—is submerged under the fear of being unsafe, unsheltered, and unloved. The human person now begins to live out of fear rather than out of desire. He or she sees life, vulnerable human relationships, and the commands of God, no longer as a liberating gift, as a pure expression of Love’s generosity, but as an external and arbitrary burden, constricting the heart. One thinks that one must now “measure up” and attain through one’s own efforts to what was meant only to be a pure gift, received, interiorized, and lived in joyful freedom.
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Rather than living from Love, within Love, and ever deeper into Love, the person now feels that it is necessary to live toward Love…a Love that is inaccessible and absent and can only be found at the end of a long and lonely journey. This, of course, is a lie. God’s Love is just as present to us as it has always been; it still envelops us entirely on all sides; it still penetrates every fiber of our being. But we have become closed to its presence, and turned in upon ourselves. The living relationship that was meant to be ours with God has been ruptured by sin, by false independence, by fear. Our hearts have collapsed in upon themselves, and we are tempted to clothe ourselves with whatever we can find to hide our nakedness…since we are afraid to open ourselves to vulnerability, uncertain of whether or not authentic Love will be there to receive and shelter us.

By walking close to the beloved Son, Jesus Christ, during his own journey of life, we begin to realize that, in this Man, we are all enveloped and embraced. He takes all of us into himself through the power of the Spirit—and he takes us so completely that he bears us even through the Cross into the radiant light and joy of the Resurrection. And he does this so that he can free us from all that hinders us from receiving this gift of our Father’s love and from returning into the Father’s embrace. Uniting himself to us in our own pain, our own darkness, our own fear, Jesus holds us close to his merciful Heart, healing and transforming us by his gentle touch. And in this way, pressed close to his bosom, he carries us into the bosom of the Father, where we can feel and hear, with him, those beautiful and life-giving words: You are my beloved child, in whom my soul delights (Mt 3:17).

The Gospel of John is in a special way the Gospel of love and intimacy. It is the Gospel of “belovedness,” in which we are granted a particularly vivid insight into the immense love that God the Father has for his beloved Son, and (without any diminution!) for each one of us. The Son himself tells us at the Last Supper: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you” (Jn 15:9), which, if translated more accurately, would read: “With the very love with which the Father has loved me, so have I loved you,” meaning: “With the Father’s love, given first to me, I have loved you.” And he also soon adds: “The Father himself loves you” (16:27). During this supper, one of the disciples, the one “whom Jesus loved” (13:23), leans against the breast of Christ, reposing against his very bosom. This is a beautifully intimate moment, for at this meal Jesus opens his Heart vulnerably before those who are closest to him, before his Apostles. He speaks to them of the Father’s love, of the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and of the deepest desires of his own Sacred Heart. In their presence he addresses his heavenly Father in prayer, thereby drawing them into the ineffable bond of love and intimacy between the Father and the Son, with the breath of the Spirit ever passing between them in their ceaseless dialogue.

Here, in this intimate prayer, they hear the words that unveil Christ’s deepest desire for those who believe in his name, who welcome the gift of love from God, those words already quoted above. And this prayer culminates in Jesus expressing to his Father his yearning that we, his friends, may truly be drawn into the very heart of the Trinity’s life, as he says: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which you have given me in your love for me before the foundation of the world” (Jn 17:24). Yes, the only-begotten Son of God has come into the world to unveil before us the heart of our loving God, and to take us into himself, as “children within the Son,” so that we may share in the innermost life of the Trinity, a life of perfect intimacy and eternal joy.

It is precisely in this precious moment that the disciple whom Jesus loved is present, resting against the Heart of Christ, as he speaks of all of these things, as he shares himself, not only in words, in affection, but in the Holy Eucharist—his very Body and Blood given to those whom he loves. This disciple, whom tradition has come to call the “beloved disciple,” rests against the bosom of the incarnate Son, just as the Son eternally rests “in the bosom of the Father” (1:18). He listens to the heartbeat of Jesus, to this heartbeat ever surging with infinite love and tenderness, ever flowing with profound compassion and concern for each human being. The beloved disciple listens to this heartbeat, and he feels the joy of the Son himself in being loved by his Father, the ineffable security that the Son has in the embrace of his Father—a joy and security which enable him to lay down his life for the salvation of all, to lay down his life in order to take it up again (cf. Jn 10:17-18), and to bear those whom he has redeemed from the estrangement of sin and into the depths of his own intimacy with the Father.

Yes, the beloved disciple glimpses all of this; he experiences the enveloping Love of God spreading out from the Heart of Jesus and embracing him. And in this mysterious embrace, the beloved disciple’s eyes and heart are opened to recognize that the whole world indeed is, and has always been, cradled in the arms of Divine Love. The Light of Love enfolds the world and irradiates it with its presence; but, sadly, human hearts have turned away from this light and “preferred the darkness to the light, because their deeds are evil” (cf. Jn 3:19). The choice of sin is a choice to divorce oneself from the cradling arms of Love, and it brings into creation much evil and suffering, and the painful experience of loneliness and isolation. Turned away from Love as we are, closed in upon ourselves in fear and sin, Love had to come to us, to enter into our resistance to God’s touch, our closedness to the gift of loving relationship. And he did come; Love drew near to us and “was made flesh” (cf. Jn 1:14) in order to be with us in our brokenness, and by his touch to restore us to the relationship that we had lost. By his intimate presence with us, penetrating into our closed and walled-up hearts, he yearns to touch us, to heal us, and to gradually reopen us from within, so that we may abide in an intimate and living communion with Love once again.

This is what the beloved disciple felt; this is the Love that touched him and enfolded him from within the Heart of Jesus. And because this disciple allowed himself to be touched, cradled, and held in this way, he, alone of all the Apostles, was able to remain close to Jesus even through his Passion and death. He, with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, stood at the foot of the Cross in faithful love, receiving and reciprocating the gift of Christ. Finally, the beloved disciple was also the first to recognize and to believe in the Lord’s Resurrection, even before the Risen One had himself appeared to his Apostles in visible form. Love gave him a receptive heart, which was made soft by the gentle touch of God; and this receptivity, born of a filial trust, opened his eyes to see with a profound vision of faith and love. And then he spent the rest of his life trying to help others to see, trying to communicate to them the same vision of faith, the same deep intuition of love, which had healed and transformed his own life.

But why is all of this important for us as we begin these reflections on the Gospel of John? Who is this beloved disciple? His name is never given to us, for he hides himself in the shelter of Christ’s loving presence, simply referring to himself as “beloved.” Yet he refers to himself in this way for two reasons: both in gratitude and reverence for the unique love that he has received from Jesus, but also because he is inviting us to recognize that we are also, each one of us, the beloved disciple of Jesus. Despite his veiling of his own name, nonetheless, there is an indication of who he is at the high point of the Gospel: after Jesus entrusts his Mother into the care of the beloved disciple, he releases his life into the hands of the Father, and then a soldier pierces his side with a lance, causing blood and water to flow out. The writer of the Gospel then interrupts the narrative and says: “He who saw this has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth—that you also may believe” (Jn 19:35). Who could this eye-witness have been, if all of the other Apostles had fled, and the beloved disciple alone stood at the foot of the Cross? In these words, we see that this “disciple whom Jesus loved” is also the author of the Gospel!

But do we know the name of the author of the Gospel? Are we able to identify the man who concealed himself in the shelter of the love of Christ? The tradition of the Church has always understood, from the earliest days, that he is none other than the Apostle John. There is no reason to doubt this testimony, which was almost universally acknowledged from the earliest days of the Church (by those who would have known John himself!). Therefore, in all that follows, it will be taken for granted that John is the beloved disciple, the disciple who leaned against the breast of Jesus at the Last Supper and stood with Mary at the foot of the Cross.
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This is why this Gospel is called the Gospel according to John, for it comes from his own testimony, from the witness of his own heart, his own life, his own words.* Yes, in the words of this Gospel we can hear the heartbeat of the beloved disciple himself; we can hear him inviting us to enter into the depths of his own spiritual contemplation, his own encounter with the ineffable beauty of the Crucified and Risen Son, and of the Father and the Spirit to whom he is eternally united. In a word, through the heartbeat of the beloved disciple, we are invited to hear, to feel, and to surrender to the heartbeat of the beloved Son himself, who for his part always rests in the bosom of the Father, united to the eternal heartbeat of Love that throbs in his most tender paternal breast.

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NOTE
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*In the light of the mystery of inspiration, by which all the words and truths of the Bible ultimately come from God even if written through the human authors, we hear a beautiful blending in the words of the Gospel of the personality of John and the personality of God speaking through him—of the experience of the beloved disciple and of the experience of the Beloved Son, Christ, who drew John near to him and unveiled to him his Heart. We hear the true voice of Saint John in reading his Gospel, just as, even more importantly, in all of the Gospels we hear the true voice of Jesus Christ and see the true contours of his face and of his life. Indeed, and I want to emphasize this, I do believe in the literal authorship of the four Gospels by those to whom they have been attributed—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—who have in the entire history of the Church (and all the manuscript evidence that we have) been acknowledged as such. There has been much debate about this, but the arguments against such attributions are weak, and the internal and external evidence for the original denominations is strong and consistent. See Pitre, The Case for Jesus, 12-38.

​In the depths of our heart, each one of us longs to love and to be loved. We were created for communion, for intimacy, and our whole being cries out with longing until we find rest in the arms of another--yes, in the embrace of the One who loves us totally and unconditionally, and who is himself infinite Love. In him alone are our hearts at rest, and in him alone can we also draw near to others, our brothers and sisters, in the profound way that we most deeply desire.

The world has been born from Love and it returns to Love, and indeed it remains always enfolded and sheltered within Love. The mystery that is inscribed in every fiber of our world is precisely the mystery of love, the reality of gift ever flowing from the abundant generosity of God. In love alone, therefore, do we truly find ourselves—and not primarily as lovers, but as beloved. This is because we are infinitely, eternally loved by a God who is Love himself, indeed a God who is a Community of Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—in an unspeakably intimate embrace. In allowing ourselves to be loved by him, in allowing his love to penetrate into our hearts, to touch them, heal them, and transform them, we find our true liberation into the fullness of happiness that only love can give. Yes, we become possessed by Love—a Love that, in enveloping us, brings us a joy and fulfillment that surpass all that we could hope for or imagine.

You are my beloved. These are the words that echo unceasingly deep in the heart of each one of us, even if we are unable to hear them or decipher their meaning. And this is why God has spoken to us in our deafness, why he has made his voice audible in history. Throughout the Bible we encounter this voice continually approaching us as a word of love spoken to us—and indeed spoken to me, uniquely and unrepeatably, as a love-letter from the Lover who loves more deeply and passionately than any created lover can. The external words on the pages of Scripture speak more deeply than we could have expected. It is not so much we who read them, as they that read us. Or, rather, it is the One who has written these words of love who draws near to us again when we lay ourselves open to hear his voice. He speaks, and in speaking he provides a shelter in which we can open our vulnerable hearts, which for so long have been closed in fear, sin, and shame.

He speaks, and in speaking he throws a bridge which, in sheltering us, gives us the confidence to step out towards the One who calls, just as Peter stepped out onto the crashing waves to draw near to Christ his beloved. He speaks, and, yes, he often challenges, calls to conversion, and invites to transformation, but all because of his immense love for us and his desire to draw us from our estrangement and isolation and into the intimacy of his own Trinitarian embrace. And above all, he speaks simply to hold, to shelter, to cradle in his intimate embrace, both in this life, and, ultimately, in an eternity of perfect joy in the next.

Yes, God speaks through the words of Scripture. He speaks through the history of salvation which is recounted therein, and yet which is not a past history, only to be remembered, or studied, or even imitated. Rather, this is a living history in which the life of each one of us is totally immersed, and in which our own personal “salvation history” unfolds, knitted together as it is with God’s universal plan of love and salvation. We are both influenced by and influence others within the unity of the single Body of Christ, all of our hearts sharing in the undivided love of God that draws us together. We are, as it were, immersed in a single ocean of love, in which the ripples cast from each heart make contact with the hearts of all others, surging together in a profound reality of interconnectedness and unity.

We are living salvation history still, and thus the Scriptures are still living too. They are still living not only because of the perennial truth that they express, but because they are a love-letter of God which throbs with a never-dying heartbeat because it is ever being received, read, and re-lived in the heart of the Church which Christ himself founded. The Catholic Church is the primary recipient of the word of Scripture, and it is in her, sheltered by her guidance, her teaching, her tradition, her authority, her worship and Sacraments, that the individual can be secure in receiving the word, “not as the word of men,” narrowed by one’s own private interpretation, “but as what it really is, the word of God at work within you who believe” (cf. 1 Thes 2:13).

And yet God speaks, not only through the palpable word of Scripture, or through the proclaimed word of the Church, but also in the mystery of silence intimately touching the depths of the heart. This silence, however, is not opposed to such a proclaimed word, or in opposition to it, but rather lies at its very heart. It is that sense, that intuition, that touch of beauty, goodness, and truth upon the heart, which surpasses all expression in words even if mediated through them. In a way, it is like a prolonged gaze of two persons who—after one speaks to the other a word of deep understanding—simply remain, looking at one another, in a silence which is not a lack but a palpable fullness of mutual presence. Yes, silence is like the tears that come after someone has laid open their heart before the receptive and sheltering gaze of another person, a silent communication of emotion through the eyes, a form of surrender even deeper than words of explanation. And silence is like the embrace of the person who tenderly holds the other in their tears, gently wrapping their around them and holding them close to their heart. Silence is the impalpable vibration of the word as it becomes an interior resonance in the heart, a word which is deeper than all that can be expressed even as it will spontaneously seek expression in words anew, in order to become a gift to others and to create communion of mind, heart, and life among them. Silence is the “word made flesh,” a touch that simply is, without the need to justify or explain.

God also speaks in so many different ways--in our relationships, in the beauty and truth of his creation, in our authentic desires, in the unique story of our life. In every moment of our life, indeed, he is speaking. Throughout the dialogue which our life is, a dialogue of love and prayer with the Trinity who has created us for union with himself, all of these different ways of speaking seek to come together in a profound convergence, in a symphony of deep clarity and beauty. We need, and in this life will always need, the external word of Scripture, and the mediation of the Church’s guidance and teaching. We will always need (and who would wish otherwise!) the gift of the Sacraments to make present to us the fullness of the reality of Christ. It is precisely in this context, within this Home of the Church which Christ himself has founded, and which indeed has been born from his Heart opened upon the Cross, that we find our unique path sheltered to unfold in freedom and joy.

The Church is not meant to be a place in which each person is “anonymous,” immersed in the mass of the “collective,” but rather the very opposite. In her, the person and the community deeply intersect within the love of the Trinity which is both unspeakably unique and expansively universal. The Church is, after all, as Saint Cyprian said, “the community of those who are made one with the very unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” And where do we see the unique person more totally sheltered and affirmed within the embrace of the community than in the very heart of the Trinity? Where do we see the person more totally open, and more lovingly given for the good of the community, than in the very heart of the Trinity? The Church exists simply in order to make this unity of the Trinity present in the heart of every one of us and in our deep communion with one another; in this way she also makes visible before the eyes of the world that reality for which every human heart longs, and in which alone it will find enduring rest.
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This, indeed, was and is the deepest and most intimate aspiration of the Heart of Christ, which he expressed on the vigil of his Passion, when he prayed to his Father in the presence of his friends: “I pray that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, may they also be in us, that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory which you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (cf. Jn 17:21-23).