…What God has prepared for those who love Him. St. Paul invites us to reflect on what God has prepared for us and how this should motivate us to love God as God loves us.
            What God has prepared for us is no less than a share in God’s own life. God shared fully in our humanity in Jesus so that we could share in God’s own divinity. Remarkable! How can any of us question the love of God for us when we remember that God shared fully in our humanity so that we could one day share in the fullness of God’s own divinity. We are creatures, but our God has a profound, personal love for us. This is first made manifest when God created us in God’s own image and likeness, giving us an inherent dignity that cannot be taken from us. As Christians, we believe that this inherent dignity, in which all persons share equally, was magnified when God took on our human flesh in Jesus. In doing this, God was showing us the way to participate in the divine life now so that we could live in the hope of one day sharing in the fullness of that divine life forever. The way to participate in God’s divinity now is to make the life of Christ our own, that is, to live lives of mercy, compassion, service and generosity.
            When we strive to live our lives in conformity to the life of Christ, then we show our love for God. We return to God some small measure of the love that God has showered forth so abundantly and undeservedly on us. Each day we have to recommit ourselves to lives of compassion, mercy, generosity and service so as to grow in our faithfulness to the life of Jesus Christ. As we grow in our faithfulness to the life of Christ, we manifest our love for God and that love grows within us as we are drawn more deeply into the life of God through Jesus Christ. Rather than being a burden to us, our efforts to live in faithfulness to the life of Christ are a blessing for us because they allow us to share even now in God’s own divinity. Each day, remember what God has prepared for those who love God and let that be what motivates you to manifest your love for God by your ceaseless efforts to live as Christ lived.   
                        Fr. Mark Hallinan, S.J