Three Most Powerful Words
and therefore a perfect mantra or breath prayer
“Whatever we can read in all the world is contained in that sentence of boundless meaning, "God is Love" [1 John 4:8].
This is the sum and substance of all that the sunshine utters, and all that is spoken by calms and storms of the mountains, and by what we call terrible earthquakes and furious torrents, and wild beating tones of the ocean.
All these manifestations are but forms of that one utterance: "God is love."—John Muir
After 57 years of life, 30 something years of pastoral ministry with 20 of those as a priest, and more than 20 years now of offering spiritual direction, this is one of the more troubling realities I’ve encountered often and still do. It’s we Christians (even those who appear quite mature) who are able say with great sincerity, “God loves me”, but this head knowledge doesn’t translate into heart knowledge. This “functional belief” contradicting one’s held theological belief manifests itself in a vast myriad of forms, for example in the sentiment, “I know God loves me, I’m just not sure if God likes me”. Or holding the unspoken maybe subconscious sense that God is waiting for me to get my act together to really love me. This disconnect between the head and the heart can manifest itself in a variety of certain behaviors, or the articulated and specific sharp question itself, or in the midst of deep crisis, a dark confusion, or very unsettling disorientation.
What to do?1
An Irish Jesuit, William Johnston (1925-2010), spent 50 years living as a priest in Japan and gives us a place to begin. And it’s only three words. It just so happens those three words contain everything, recalling John Muir’s words above, “Whatever we can read in all the world is contained in that sentence of boundless meaning.” As Johnston concludes below, “This is the mystery of mysteries, the mystery that lies at the heart of our Christian faith.”
From Being in Love:
Take the biblical phrase: “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Repeat it again and again in your heart. As you do so, savour it, relish it and you will find that it is sweet as honey in your mouth. “God is love . . . God is love . . . God is love.” Repeat it at your own pace and rhythm. After some time you may wish to stop repeating it and to be silent, without words and without thought. This is a rich silence, a sacred silence, a precious silence, a mystical silence. This is indeed the threshold of mystical prayer. So treasure that silence lovingly until after some time (perhaps after one minute or perhaps after ten minutes) you get all distracted, and then you return to your biblical words: “God is love . . . God is love . . . God is love.”
If you continue this solving practice for several weeks or months you may find that “God is love” keeps rising in your heart as you sit in the bus or stand on the train. It may fit into the rhythm of your body as you walk: your very footsteps and your breathing may be saying: “God is love . . . God is love . . . Gos is love.” The refrain may continue even when you are busily engaged in some apparently absorbing occupation. it will be as though there were two levels in the mind. At one level you are absorbed in washing dishes or sweeping the floor or teaching mathematics or whatever; and at another level the refrain goes on: “God is love . . . God is love . . . God is love.”
And then one day you may exclaim with a surge of ecstatic joy: “God is love! I never understood it before! For the first time in my life I know it is true; my whole being knows it and shouts out to the universe: God is love. Now my being is transformed and possesses the unshakable conviction that God is love. How could anyone deny it? if only the world knew! . . . God is love . . . God is love . . . God is love.”
But that is not the end. After a few months or years of repeating and savouring and relishing these words you may again cry out with sudden joy: “God is love! . . . I thought I understood it before, but I didn’t. My former enlightenment was only the beginning. Now I know that God is love.” And so you will go on and on and on, living this extraordinary message about the love of God. It can never be exhausted; you will never reach the end. For this is the mystery of mysteries, the mystery that lies at the heart of our Christian faith.
Alleluia and Thanks Be!!
If you live within an hour of Washington DC or Baltimore, you might consider doing our Coracle Spiritual Formation Fellowship. This common problem is the precise reason that our very first retreat is “God Loves You…No, Really!”.
To me, what you have shared, what you are communicating, is the heartbeat of God’s Gospel…God’s Good News that God So Loved the World, You and Me and Every Single Person!
This is what and why Jesus invites every single person to come and enter into the Kingdom of God…to come and enter into the reality of Trinitarian Union of Love….this is ALL so beautiful….
….(((this is one of the more troubling realities I’ve encountered often and still do. It’s we Christians (even those who appear quite mature) who are able say with great sincerity, “God loves me”, but this head knowledge doesn’t translate into heart knowledge)))….
….(((this “functional belief” contradicting one’s held theological belief manifests itself in a vast myriad of forms, for example in the sentiment, “I know God loves me, I’m just not sure if God likes me”. Or holding the unspoken maybe subconscious sense that God is waiting for me to get my act together to really love me. This disconnect between the head and the heart can manifest itself in a variety of certain behaviors)))….
For some mysterious reason, it took 53 years into my journey and walk with Christ, to break through this disconnect between “knowing in my intellectual mind, of God’s immeasurable and unconditional love for me”, to “truly knowing and believing in the marrow of my bones and in the depth of my heart and soul, of God’s Immeasurable Unfathomable Unconditional & Never Ceasing Love for ME”!
And sometime later, God reminded me that this Love He Has For ME, is for the sake of others!
How does this happen:)?? To me, it can only be explained as a gift from God….BUT, this is the reason that He created us…to have a never ceasing mutually intimate love relationship…and God can and will do this in us and for us.
I now know myself as always being a newbie pilgrim in this journey of life with God.
I also have come to realize now, more than ever before, one of the reasons God gifts us many years, longs years of living…is to give us the time that it seems to take to truly ‘come to know and believe the love that God has for us’. (I John 4:16)
And when that happens, then these most amazing and beautiful words you shared with us on May 6, in your post “Birth of a Mystic”, comes into sharp focus:
((((“Now I get it… When you see who He is, you only want to be with Him. When you see who He is, you look forward to quiet time with Him, intimate time with Him. To be with Him becomes the sweetest thing. This is not about knowledge, this is about sight. This is not about dogma and doctrine, this is about actual relationship, this is about Union. This is about love and affection, mutual love, and mutual affection. To simply be with Him is to be loved by Him, and simply to be with him, is to love Him.”7))))
GOD IS LOVE❤️🙌🙌❤️
Hallelujah!!
Bill, I’m grateful for the words you share with us! Thank you!!