The more I study and meditate on the Scriptures, the more I am convinced that the 14th and 15th chapters of John’s Gospel are the interpretative key to properly understanding the entire New Testament.
In His Last Supper discourse, Jesus speaks of the intimacy of fundamental spiritual relationship, He and the Father, He and His followers, and the disciples of the Lord to one another.
Clearly, the fruit of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is this mysterious indwelling, whereby we abide in God and the Blessed Trinity, this divine “we” abides within us.
Often, Christianity is misunderstood as simply an ethical system, guiding us to know what to do.
Before our faith is about moral action, it is first and primarily about who we become in Christ.
The Church Fathers and many of the saints speak of this transformation as “divinization,” whose definition is “the transforming effect of divine grace.”
We do not become God (that is obviously not possible) but, rather, the Lord, through the grace of the Sacraments, beginning with Baptism — and an individual’s devoted life of faith, prayer, and virtue — penetrates and possesses a soul so profoundly, that such a person becomes a new creation, filled with the divine life.
The saints show us what this divinization looks like in reality.
The Father’s love for us
In John 15, the Lord uses the image of the vine and the branches to speak of the life-giving bond between Himself and His followers, and then He makes the astonishing statement in verse 9, “As the Father loves me, so I also love you.”
Ponder with me for a moment how the Father loves the Son.
This love is perfect, divine, and absolute, with no possibility of diminishment or end.
The Father gives the Son His identity, for it is only in relationship to the Father that the Son understands Himself.
He also entrusts the mission of the salvation of the human race to the Son so that the whole Christ event, from the Annunciation to Pentecost, is not only an expression of God loving and forgiving us but also of the Father loving and trusting the Son.
Finally, the Son receives both the Cross and the Resurrection as gifts of the Father, entrusted to Him so that they can be shared with every disciple of the Gospel.
That is how the Father loves the Son and how the Son loves us.
Jesus gives us this same absolute and unconditional love that He has received from the Father, bestowing upon us a new identity as beloved children of God, entrusting to us the mission of living and proclaiming the Gospel through the holiness of our lives, to become an extension of Him and His saving, merciful action in the world, and leading us to full participation in His death and resurrection.
This is how the Son loves us by sharing everything He has received from the Father.
The fruit of the Lord’s victory is our mystical life of union with the Blessed Trinity.
Finding glory from God
In John 14, Jesus says in verse 20, “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you.”
In verse 23, He promises, “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.”
This sanctifying grace, whereby God Himself comes to abide within us, I find overwhelming and astonishing!
How can it be that God, whom the entire universe cannot contain, chooses to take up His abode within the sinful and dusty confines of my minuscule existence?
This divine love is incomprehensible to the human mind, yet is the very truth, meaning, and purpose of our lives.
God passionately wants to live within us, so that this saving relationship will carry over forever into the light and glory of eternity.
How different our world would be if we all lived free from mortal sin and danced in the dizzying awareness that God lives within us through the wonder of sacramental grace, and that He reigns on the throne of our hearts!
How different our world would be if we all loved and served each other as temples of the indwelling divinity of the Trinitarian life!
The saints remind us that we are all called to mysticism, to so profoundly allow the Lord to live within us, that we are born again and become a new creation.
As fundamental as this divinization is to the practice of our Catholic faith, we seldom preach, teach, or proclaim the Lord’s desire to live within us.
Perhaps, it feels safer or easier if God keeps His distance and we are free to follow our own pursuits apart from Him.
Yet, the Good News of our Christian faith is that, in the person of Christ, God chooses us as His beloved and takes up His abode within our souls.
Only our sin can push Him out.
Seek the Lord in prayer. Receive the Lord in the Eucharist. Feel His mercy in Confession. Ponder His mysterious presence within you.
Know that God’s great desire is to live within you and to form such an inseparable bond, that you become one with Christ and the Church in a mystical fusion.
Such a life is not only for the canonized saints. We are created for such glory!