Yesterday,
I read a really great piece on how the Word-becomes flesh in our relationships
with others. Like God is a loving relationship
between three persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) when we join relationships
we form community and bring to life a God that is visible to society and to one
another, our God becomes flesh. Baptism
initiates us into the family of God and we spend our entire lifetime trying to
live up to that call in community, “the reality is Trinity, God is shared life,
life in relationship. Church is the
communion of saints, family is both the beginning and the end.” God asks us to live together in one faith
because “God’s basic building block for self-communication is not the “saved”
individual… but precisely the journey and bonding process God initiates in
marriages, families, tribes, nations, peoples and churches who are seeking to
involved themselves in God.” The body of Christ, the spiritual family is God’s
strategy of attraction, “until and unless Christ is someone happening between
people, the gospel remains largely an abstraction. Until he is passed on personally through
faithfulness and forgiveness, through bonds of union, I doubt whether he is
passed on at all… a Trinitarian God is a God relationship. He both knows and is
known. He loves and is loved. He believes and is believed. We come to know through the same dialogue… We come into this world through a
relationship called marriage and family. We come into the kingdom through a set of
relationships called the church or spiritual family.” WOW!
One of the
fears introverts have is being pushy and yesterday as I wrote about initiating
relationships I thought that maybe I sounded too aggressive because one day I
speak about friendship and the next of relationships. When I got home I talked to God about all
these thoughts that were robbing my peace because my intention is never to put pressure
on others. After talking to Him for some
time, I picked up a book I have been reading and the chapter that I read dealt
very fittingly with how God made us to be in relationships. We shouldn’t feel shame for desiring marriage
and a family. God created us and asks us
to live in community because “the best teachers of Christ are without doubt
fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters.” Being part of families and communities is God’s
will for us because it is in relationships that God radiates His love. When communities are formed through faith, love
and trust in God, God invites us to participate in what is happening and as a
result we want to grow in trusting one another as together we trust in God. However,
so that we won’t feel overwhelmed in our relationships there’s a pattern of
intimacy that we must follow that reflects the pattern in which we fall in love
and encounter God.
When I had
my first encounter with God, I fell head-over-heels in love. I immediately wanted to give my life to
Christ by becoming a religious, but as the initial fervor and euphoria reached
stability I realized that I was not meant for that vocation. Then came a period of trial where I began to
see the challenges of leading a Catholic life and I began to feel unsure and question
whether God was really worth all the trouble.
Followed by a period of dryness, where I wasn’t getting spiritual consolation
for living a Christian life. Then came a
moment of grace where I knew that God was more than a feeling, where the truth
remained even if my emotions betrayed me.
This period is where real love begins, where we know and accept that our faith is beautiful,
but also difficult. Honest communication
begins here and true listening. Now God
and I are becoming family. The last stage is perfect listening, perfect
responsiveness and perfect love – which is the stuff saints are made of. Similarly, our relationships with others
follow this path, which I will try to describe better on Monday. The great thing is that we have begun a friendship
and from here we can build so much until we become (in the words of my nephew)
best friends forever.
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