PRAY TO KNOW THE LOVE OF JESUS

 

St. Paul,  in his Letter to the Ephesians in 3:17-19, says:

 

"that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;  that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

 

Pray that you may know the love of Jesus in your life;   Fr. S. Joseph Krempa,  writing  in DAILY HOMILIES in a commentary on this Ephesian passage today, has an important consideration for us to bring to prayer daily:

 

Paul is referring to our personal experience of Jesus Christ.  This is as critical for us as it was for Paul.  

 

When we put it into words,  we have the beginning of doctrine,   When we put it into symbol,  we have the beginning of liturgy.   When we put it in action,  we have the beginning of apostolate.   When we put it into structures,  we have the beginnings of a Christian community.   When we put it into buildings,  we have the beginnings of cathedrals.

 

Jesus Christ and our experience of His love are the molten core -- the magma -- of the Church.  

 

Remove our personal experience of the Lord and each of these things can become an idol.   Doctrine become ideology;  liturgy becomes ceremony;   apostolate becomes empire-building;  and a parish becomes an administrative unit.