It’s certainly no surprise that every single theological statement has the fact that God is Love as it’s source and at it’s center. From Holy Orders to the Communion of Saints, from moral theology to liturgiology, everything that Christians believe has “God is Love” as it’s root dogma. Therefore, the more we understand God’s Love, the more we understand God himself. This raises questions.
How do we understand God’s Love?
What does Love even mean?
To answer these questions, I’m going to turn to two theologically unlikely allies.
I really do like to read theologians who are described as “conservative”, such as Joseph Ratzinger, and theologians who are considered “liberal”, like Walter Kasper. It’s good for me to do so. I particularly like to look for their points of intersection and with the two theologians mentioned above, the point of intersection is with the understanding of the God of Love being the God of self-emptying.
Cardinal Kasper has said that being true to himself as self-emptying love, God had to become human. Again, in order to be true to his central identity as love, the human life of the incarnate God could only end in a death in which he surrendered everything he had emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
Similarly, Joseph Ratzinger speaks about the Father, for all eternity, being before the Son and emptying himself to the Son. In return, the Son empties himself before the Father. There is an infinite self-giving of one to another between the Father and the Son.
Now, I’m going to drop two New Testament Greek words here …bear with me! The first is kenosis. When we read in St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians that Jesus emptied himself and took the form of a slave, kenosis is the word for emptied. He held nothing back because he has never held anything back. That is who is for the Father. His love for the Father is complete and he holds nothing back. Similarly, his love for us is complete. He holds nothing back.
Here’s the second Greek word: katallage. It has been translated as reconciliation, my favorite word of Latin origin. If you have ever heard me speak …ever, you know that I break down the Latin roots of reconciliation during 80% of the talks I give. I simply love it. But it still doesn’t capture the fullness of the Greek word that lies behind it, katallage. This word means “exchange”. I do love words, but I also get frustrated by words and their limitation. Because the exchange that is being talked about is, as the ancient Greek theologians would say, “mutual penetration”.
This exchange makes room for another to enter. There is room for one to enter because one has emptied himself and in order to make room for another. Before there was time and before there was space, the Father emptied himself before the Son and made room for the Son to penetrate him. In the space created for the Son, the Son entered because the Son also emptied himself. Self-emptying and exchange. They are bound into a single act of perpetual, infinite Love.
If you have read this far, thank you! But now, I’m going to give another Greek word: koinonia. It means “share”. Again, words can become so familiar that they lose their meaning. A word that has come to be the ultimate virtue for toddlers contains all of the mysteries of the Christian life. Many know that the fellowship between believers that’s described in the New Testament is called koinonia. As important as this is, the ultimate koinonia, sharing, or fellowship we have is with Jesus as he shares his experience of having God as our Father.
“Our Father, who art in heaven …” We pray this because we have been placed within the person of Jesus. Now, his experience of the Father is our experience of the Father. The prayer is not, “Jesus’s Father, who art in heaven …” nor is it “His Father, who art in heaven …” Jesus has emptying himself and has made room for us to enter him. Kenosis, self-emptying, has allowed for katallage, the exchange, so that we have koinonia.
When we pray the opening words, “Our Father”, this is what we are praying. We stand in the same relationship with the Father that Jesus has. Not a similar relationship. The same relationship.
“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done …” This is the Kingdom that we pray to be our earthly and lived reality for everyone. To pray “thy kingdom come; thy will be done” is to pray that we experience the Love of the Father as Jesus experiences it. It is to pray that all people experience the love of the Father. It is also a prayer that we, too, empty ourselves and make room for another. We are to make room for the Father to penetrate us, dwell within us, inebriate us, and completely overwhelm us with an eternal experience of his Love. It is also a prayer that we will empty ourselves before others and allowing their lives to penetrate ours.
Going back to Joseph Ratzinger, he wrote this:
“[T]he individual’s salvation is whole and entire only when the salvation of the cosmos and all the elect has come to full fruition. For the redeemed are not simply adjacent to each other in heaven. Rather, their being together as the one Christ, they are heaven.” ( Ratzinger, Joseph. Easchatology: Death and Eternal Life. The Catholic University Press, Washington, DC, 1988. p. 238)
This is what we pray for when we pray the opening words of the Our Father. We call God Father because Jesus has emptied himself and made room for us to have his own experience of God as Father. Joining him, we empty ourselves because we are inebriate by the Love of God for us and by our love for God. We ask for this to be the experience of everyone and for each person to love and to empty themselves and making room for ever other person in the world in union with the Father. This is the Kingdom of God.