Click here to read the daily readings from the USCCB website.
Well I had written out what I thought was a pretty great blog, but it got deleted... so I'm gonna maybe try it again.
This is the second half of my favorite passage from the bible, and I think that it is just so profound.
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you."
The Father loves Jesus as His very Self because They are One. As such, Jesus loves us as His very Self. What does this mean for us? The Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 460 says:
The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature": "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God." "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."
That's mostly a bunch of quotes from awesome saints saying the same thing. In Jesus we become "partakers of the divine nature." We become incorporated into the mystical body of Christ, we become friends of God, we even become children of God. We call it "divinization." That's why St. Athanasius said "God became man so that we might become God." This isn't some weird, new age, pantheistic ideology. This is one of the amazing mysteries and gifts of the Christian faith.
We must, must choose to accept this exalted identity. Jesus says, "I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete." But He also reveals the way that we find and keep this eternal joy:
"If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love."
That's why God asks us to keep His commandments, because to do otherwise is to reject our identify as beloved son or daughter. He loves us so much and knows what's best for us. Just as our earthly parents tell us not to play with fire, God knows that spiritual "fire" is sin and it can get us burned. To play with it is to be in near occasion to sin, and why give ourselves the opportunity to burn our house down?
At the end of the day remember,
"It was not you who chose Me, but I who chose you."
God invites you into His very life, into abundant joy. Remain in Him.
-Amanda Nobis, Director of Evangelization