1. What does God’s love look like?
Each member of the Trinity has an especially “characteristic” form of love:
- The Father: His free and unconditional generosity in His love of the Son.
- The Son: His free and unconditional receptivity to the love of the Father.
- The Holy Spirit: His free and unconditional delight in the giving of the Father and the receiving of the Son.
How do we fit in?
- The Son is the perfect image of the Father.
- We are made in the image and according to the likeness of God.
- Since God is a Trinity, we are made in the image and according to the likeness of the Trinity.
2. What happens to us as a result of the Fall?
The Fall has damaged us and thus disordered various things within us:
- instead of exhibiting the generosity especially characteristic of the Father, we tend to love only what strikes us as loveworthy.
- instead of exhibiting the receptivity that is especially characteristic of the Son, we tend to fear (out of a sense that we are not loveworthy) that we will not receive the love we desire. As a result, we can either tend to be manipulative in order to try and force love, or tend to despair of ever being loved.
- instead of exhibiting the delight that is especially characteristic of the Holy Spirit, we tend to be envious or jealous when we see others giving or receiving.
3. How does God restore us to His image?
Jesus, in becoming human and founding His Church, shows us who we are made to be, makes us members of His Body, the Church, and offers us through the Sacraments the grace that can restore what had been damaged and destroyed … So that we can give, receive, and delight like He does, and so we can become what we are made to be from all eternity.
By Fr. Joseph Koterski, S.J. Originally printed in IMPRINT Magazine Winter 2020.
