Dwelling in God's Love

Think of two people that you love. They dwell within you. Wherever you are so are they, dwelling within you. I think of my mother and father. They dwelt and dwell within me and I know I always dwelt within them. Death has made no difference – they are with me, I with them. It is eternity, heaven.

Jesus told the disciples that he must go so that he and the Father could come and dwell within them. It is the same truth: Jesus and the Father dwelling within each one of the disciples, each of the disciples dwelling in God. It is eternity, heaven. The indwelling of those we love and the indwelling of God come together: it is eternity, now.

Think of as many others as you want to. They are dwelling in you. If they do not know you, or know of you, are you dwelling in them? Not that they can know, but you can because you are choosing to be in them through your love, sympathy, sorrow, admiration. Refugees, terrified migrants, victims of war, violence, floods and fire – they dwell in you because you care about them (as God dwells in everyone because God cares about and loves us) but they don’t know unless someone tells them. Dwelling within, indwelling, is complete when mutual - but partial when only one knows and the other doesn’t. God knows and dwells within everyone and it is the mission of the Church to share that truth with the world. God’s indwelling is eternal because God is: ours is forever - waiting to become eternal when we know each other.

Think of two people that you detest. They dwell within you. You think of them as easily as of those you love. There is an indwelling of hatred as well as of love. Everyone we know or know of dwells in us. Every moment we have lived stays within us. We are each a wonderful world, capable of an unlimited number of loving friendships and of hateful relationships.

I always loved, shall always love, my mother and father and believe they would say the same. I knew eternity when they were here and I know eternity now they are there: but there is no here and there in eternity, nor then and now; eternity is now and here. I’ve been living in eternity since I began to live, and so have you. Parents’ love begins when they know the child is alive. God’s love was already awaiting the child. We began to live in eternity from our first moment. Does everyone?

Look honestly at the horrifying reality of the ways that men have abused women and children. Am I to see eternity there, God’s love there? If I can’t, what do I see? Some of the answers are too brutal to be put into words – but not all of them are: I might choose to say that God is present sometimes and not at other times; I might ignore the possibility of God’s being involved because what has happened is too ugly even to be human, so could not be divine; I might see all life-giving as accidental or incidental (one cruel father told his daughter she was a mere biological incident and didn’t need to call him father).   Life begins the same way for everyone and might be beautiful or horrifying. Do we dare say God’s love is always present? Can God be absent? Those who believe in God may find it easy to express love and faith when conditions are easy; but the truth of God has to be recognised in all circumstances, otherwise it is selective truth and only partial. We must face and speak the truth, not cosy inward-looking versions of it. Is God always there?

Fr John