One of the aspects of living out such a love is that each of the lovers must empty himself or herself and surrender completely to the other, trusting to the other's care of him or her, or else the other can never completely fill them. This cycle of exchange turns "mine" and "thine," "me" and "you," into "us" and "ours." God began His love for us with His eager calling us forth from nothingness, by His great desire to gift us with His very selfhood, and then He continued by "emptying" Himself of His Son and even the Spirit whom the Son lavishes on us as He fills us out of His richness. God has surrendered Himself to us utterly, in a way and to an extent that is hard for even faith to grasp or accept. In today's Gospel Jesus calls us, for our part in this exchange, to abandon our limited and limiting earthly ties in our attempt to turn absolutely everything over to the Father, even things that are very good, but because of the nature of God's love for us we receive father, mother, and all the rest of the good back at least a hundredfold from His loving hands. Then we no longer merely hold what we possess as individuals but constantly receive them anew in our exchange of love with God and hold all as brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, in common. This is not communism but a sharing in love which involves a permanent personal responsibility and stewardship over the gifts. God has given us the power to dispose of His gifts and their fruits; He does not do it only once or all at once. Neither can we make an absolute gift of ourselves to Him once and for all. It must be a constant part of our lives: marriage, indeed any personal relationship, but especially as regards God, is this way. This open-ended giving and receiving will be fully evident only in the fullness of the Kingdom, but for now we can at least glimpse a hint of this love and begin to live it in the freedom He offers us. |