Not for ourselves alone are we born. ~ Cicero

No one becomes human, no one becomes oneself by oneself. None of us become who we have been created by God to be without others. Becoming human, let alone becoming oneself, involves and requires human connection, intercourse not merely as sex but as human relationship, renewing interaction, and human and holy communion.

This is one of the central though often overlooked truths revealed in each of the two creation stories in Genesis: it is impossible to come into the fullness of being, to grow and develop both as a human person and as the utterly unique, unrepeatable miracle that God has created, by ourselves.

The Marlboro Man, for those smokers and non-smokers old enough to remember, was and is a fallacy. There never was such a thing as the rugged individualist—at least not a healthy and whole one. The loner donning the cowboy hat leaning against the split rail fence taking a drag as if the personification of cool and collected masculinity to be emulated by young boys, was, in fact, the stunted male, the socially awkward, relationally challenged, and interiorly underdeveloped person. There never has been such a one as the self-made man or woman. To believe otherwise is to be either ignorant, arrogant, or both. The fullness of life is not something that happens in a vacuum. Nothing in nature ripens and comes to fruition all by itself. This basic human need also reveals to us one of our most important and privileged vocations: to support and encourage others to become the fullest expression of who they were created by God to be.

And why is this so that we cannot go it alone? Because we were not only made by Love but created for love. I do not mean merely created with the capacity to love–which we were–but with the intention to love. I am referring here not to the human intention to love—which is an integral dimension of a radical response to life and the gospel. I mean that we are each intended beings. To be a human person fully alive, totally functioning, and wholly developed is possible only because we were intended–or consecrated by God—for love. That is, to be loved and to love. And if it takes two to tango, it certainly takes two to love. We are necessarily and gratuitously relational beings. To be human is to be in relationship. This is the grounding presupposition of the spiritual or religious life—religion coming from the Latin re + ligare, meaning to bind back or to bond again with the source of our being.

To be intended–or consecrated by God—for love. First: to be loved. From a Christian perspective, this is the human person’s first and foremost raison d’être. How can we possibly wrap our heads and heart around this truth–both about ourselves and the Holy One we so casually call God? The God we identify as Trinitarian, that is, as the original Beloved Community, the interaction of vivifying Love, brings forth the Not-God for the sole purpose (or soul purpose) of knowing by experience what it means to be loved. If we can speak of a divine desire in the original act of creation, it was the desire to share with the Not-God the dynamic exchange of love who is God.

This, by the way, is why the four most important and implicating words gleaned from the sixteen documents from the Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) are found in the document on liturgy—the corporate prayer of the community of faith—namely, “full, active, conscious participation.” In other words, the purpose of the liturgy—to give thanks and praise to God in whom we live and move and have our being—reflects the purpose of life itself which is sheer gift: to be able to fully, consciously, and actively participate in the divine life which is the immediate, ongoing, and eternal exchange of enlivening love. Just as we are not to be spectators but participants in worship, so too in the liturgy of life we are not meant to be guilty bystanders but involved, responsible participants.

We can get a sense of this—if only a small one by comparison—because it resonates with our lives. When we experience something that is life-giving, joy-inducing, wonderful, delicious, delightful, profound, unforgettable, or life-changing like love, one of the first things we want to do is share this experience with others. Why would it be any different with God?

Second: to be made in the image and likeness of God is to be privileged with the opportunity, not just the capacity, to be loved and to love, to receive love and to give love. We love, the evangelist John says, [only] because God first loved us. That’s it. And that’s everything. Anything and everything that is important, crucial, and essential in life is traced back to this one central, undying truth. Anyone fortunate enough to experience what it is to be genuinely loved is likely to be an instrument of love as well. Love evokes love.

We were not created to be rugged individualists making our way through life alone. No. We were made for relationship. The healthiest and holiest of relationships are those consciously, selflessly, generously, gratefully, and joyfully enlivened by the awareness that the human person fully alive glorifies God, enhances the lives of others, and keeps faith with one’s truest self by participating in the exchange of love by reaching out to others in love. The only thing that guards against love becoming little more than a Hallmark card or quaint is by incarnating it.

The feast and season of Christmas when we give special attention and gratefulness in the form of celebration for the arrival of the Christ-child, the embodiment of the exchange of divine-human love is a recapitulation of the mystery and blessing of the inaugural act of creation which was the original expression and incarnation of love. Jesus is the living reminder of the self-giving nature and life-giving love of God. He is also the model of what it means to be fully human which, in response to being loved, involves the commitment to incarnate love day by day such that love becomes credible, we become its sacraments, and the divine becomes Emmanuel. This is poignantly and poetically expressed here by Howard Thurman.

♣ GOODPEOPLE ♣ ARE YOU INTERESTED IN SPIRITUAL DIRECTION ONLINE? Would you benefit from having a trustworthy companion to listen with you to your hopes, struggles, yearnings, burning questions? Someone who will hold space for you and pay attention with you to your quiet desire to cultivate a life of spiritual depth and meaning, as well as to deepen your connection to the One from whom all wonder, joy, and blessings flow? I am offering spiritual direction online. If you, or someone you know, are interested in beginning or returning to spiritual guidance CLICK HERE where you will find both practical information and explanations of spiritual direction. I’d be honored to hear and hold your unfolding story.