“God, who is rich in mercy, because
of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions,
brought us to life with Christ.” (Ephesians 2:4-5)
Let me pick up where I left off last week: as I finished distributing Holy Communion
last Sunday and sat down in my chair to meditate, for some reason I kept my
eyes open and starting looking out at all of you my beloved people. I saw all of you praying so intently, so
fervently. Most of you kneeling with
your eyes tightly shut. I asked the Lord
to listen to and grant your prayers. I
delighted in seeing all of you praying so hard, fully understanding the mystery
that we had just celebrated, and knowing that you were in the presence of your
Lord and King. This image stuck with me
all week as I went off on retreat for five days. I went to be alone with God, to better my
relationship with him, to recharge the spiritual batteries, as I like to say,
but every time I closed my eyes in prayer I kept seeing all of you. I can take a hint from God especially when he
hits me over the head in prayer: he wanted me to spend time praying for each of
you.
One of the themes that our retreat master kept bringing
up is how much our God delights in each of us despite our weakness. We may see flaws when we look in the mirror,
but God sees one of his beloved children.
As I prayed for all of you, I also delighted in the gift that all of you
have become in my life. Our retreat
master said during a talk: “No one will show [a priest] Jesus Christ better
than the people he serves.” And it is
true. You show me Christ every day, and
I delight and rejoice in the gift of all of you just as God delights in you.
As we continued this theme of God delighting and
rejoicing in us, I proceeded to spend an entire day meditating on three words
that seem so simple but are so profound and so difficult for us to comprehend
at times: “God loves you!” Think about
those words. Meditate on those
words. The moment we finally grasp and
wrap our minds and hearts on what those words truly mean then our lives
completely change. How much does God
love you? Just look at the cross and
listen to the gospel: “For God so loved
the world that he sent his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might
not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).”
God. Loves. You. He delights in
you. He rejoices over you. So look past your weaknesses because God
does. Look past your flaws, your warts,
your imperfections and realize that you are loved by a God who loved you so
much that he sent his Son to die for you so that you can spend an eternity with
him.
