Lectio
“Every act by which a person loves another… deepens the ability to give and receive yet more love in a widening circle of relationship that defines who we are.”
— Elizabeth Johnson, Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God
Meditatio
Every moment, every circumstance, and every interaction is an opportunity to either harden our hearts or to open them. We get to choose.
This choice, however, is not always a clear or easy one to make. While we are inwardly drawn by the Spirit’s quiet insistence toward the love of God that calls us to transcend all material, intellectual, and emotional attachments, we often do not know which decisions will carry us toward this horizon of infinite love and which will lead us away from it.
We require grace to lead us, and willingness to take us where grace leads. Grace we already have, as a gift from God, but willingness — the consenting to grace — must come from us.
And if we desire to submit to love’s transcendent call, we must begin practicing the opening of our hearts, beginning with the neighbor in front of us. It is here, in our everyday — often messy, demanding, and heartbreaking — relationships that our hearts learn to open. The more we practice loving the neighbor we can see, the greater our capacity becomes for the God we cannot (1 John 4:12) — and the closer we move toward the one who is nearer to us than we are to ourselves (Romans 8:38–39).
It takes practice not only because it is difficult to do, but because life gives us a near-limitless number of reasons and excuses not to. But the more often and the more consistently we choose to open our hearts, the greater our capacity for love becomes. The more we love, the more we can love.
We will make mistakes along the way. We will turn away from love, from God, and from neighbor, hardening our hearts sometimes even when we intended to open them. This is the human condition, and it is why we require grace and salvation.
Only Christ, after all, lived with a heart completely open to love. Only Christ lived a life of perfect yes to God’s will. And only Christ transcended all temptation, all false worship, and all that is not-love — emptying himself out fully for our sake (Philippians 2:7–8). But his self-emptying did not remain his alone. It became the grace now poured into our hearts, the possibility of our own yes, self-communicated love through which, by his promise, we will do even more than we once imagined possible.
And so, with the Holy Spirit already dwelling within us (Romans 5:5), we can. We can do our best to choose love — to choose to live with an open heart. And we can pray for the willingness to continue saying yes — to remain open to grace — until we reach the horizon of God’s love that is, even now, mysteriously, our home.
Oratio
Grace —
draw me toward the horizon
where love shines
beyond the waters
of turmoil and suffering
open my heart to receive you
and to welcome others
into your ever-widening radiance
where none are left in darkness
and all become all
with the all in all
Contemplatio
Where in your daily relationships — where things get messy, demanding, and heartbreaking — is love asking you to open your heart a little wider today?
Related Scripture
“And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” — 1 Corinthians 13:13
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like He Loved Us First: God’s Prevenient Love and the Welcome That Never Ends, which explores how God’s self-communicating love is always prior to our response — the ground of grace that makes our own yes possible.
~Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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