Falling in Love with God

I was recently blessed to be at Bishop Robert Barron’s talk in Anaheim, California where he gave a very moving presentation entitled Beauty and Catholicism.  Towards the end of his presentation, he said something that deeply resonated with me:  “Read the Gospels as the stories of people falling in love with Jesus; read the Gospels as the stories of people drawn to the splendor of him.”

For me, this is a beautiful starting point for Church at its best:  A gathering place for us to go and hear love stories, love stories relating the history of how God has wooed those who came before us; to hear the unexpected and difficult journeys our spiritual ancestors were inspired to make out of love for him.  I think of Mary Magdalene, a woman who seems to have been living a very disturbed and dark life when she met Jesus and was healed by him.  She completely changed the course of her life after having met him.  Why?  Because her encounter with Jesus transformed her: God had pursued her, and she began living a love story that she embraced all the way to the Cross and beyond.  Behind every character in the Gospels is a love story.

And why not imagine that Church, at its best, is a place where we go to share our own God-love stories, and listen to the God-love stories of our community.  How wonderful to think that every person sitting in our parish has their own love story to share!

The very essence of the Eucharist is a God-love story, as we encounter a God who wants to touch us and be touched by us, who wants to give everything to us, and to help free us so that we are people who love God enough to give everything back to him.

This sense of church doesn’t just happen in the physical parish building, it happens wherever the people of God are gathered.  I’ve been blessed to live in vibrant fcJ communities during my short time as a religious sister, where dinner table conversation is often filled with the stories of God at work in our lives, with the stories of God wooing us.  I think of Sister Gertrude, a British fcJ sister, who would often travel on the red double decker busses in London.  At the time I knew her, she was in her 90s with a weak heart and a walker.  She’d come back from her Saturday travels, full of news about the man who’d helped her with her walker getting off the bus, the bus driver who’d had a friendly word, or the person at a nearby table who she’d struck up a conversation with.  This was a woman who knew that God was still wooing her, and she delighted in every moment of it.  And we delighted in hearing her tell us about it.

When Church is at its best, our faith leaders are in love with God.  When Church is at its best, our faith leaders understand that the Gospels must be read and proclaimed through the lens of the love story.  Why?  Because God love stories give us hope, they stir our hearts.  They feed us.  They give us the energy to go out into the world and be part of the God love stories for those around us.
I would like to end with a poem, written by Pedro Arrupe, a Jesuit General Superior.

Falling in Love

Nothing is more practical than

finding God,

that is, falling in love

in a quite absolute,

final way.

What you are in love with,

what seizes your imagination,

will affect everything.

It will decide what will get

you out of bed in the morning,

what you will do with your evenings,

how you will spend your weekends,

what you read, who you know,

what breaks your heart,

and what amazes you

with joy and gratitude.

Fall in love.

Stay in love.

And it will decide everything.

This entry was originally a talk that Michelle gave at an assembly of Women Religious in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Michelle fcJ
Edmonon, Alberta, Canada