When I was younger, I had this idea that being good and avoiding bad habits was like a checklist to earn God’s love. I thought if I just ticked all the right boxes, divine affection would be the reward. But I’ve come to realize it’s not about earning; it’s about receiving. God’s love, often referred to as charity, is fundamentally a Love Gift.
This love gift is a spiritual offering, freely given to us, meant to be both received and then shared. It’s a unique kind of love, profoundly different from other loves we experience. It’s the only love that truly satisfies the deepest yearnings within our hearts. Like any precious gift, the first step is to accept and cherish it. Once we do, it empowers us to love ourselves and others in the same way God loves us.
Among all the virtues that God gifts us, love stands supreme. As St. Paul eloquently reminds us in 1 Corinthians 13:13, “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” The love Paul speaks of here is charity, a concept far removed from our everyday uses of the word “love.” When I say I love reading, nature, chocolate, friendships, animals, or the countryside, these loves are rooted in the natural delight they bring me. These natural goods are gifts in themselves, meant to be enjoyed as God intends. However, they pale in comparison to the spiritual joy and peace that flow from God’s own life within us through charity – this love gift.
This divine love gift, God’s love residing within us, is what truly fulfills our deepest desires. It’s an astounding reality that we are invited to participate in the very communion of love shared within the Holy Trinity – the love between God the Father and the Son, and their shared love with the Holy Spirit. This profound communion of love is made manifest through God the Father’s act of creating us in love, God the Son’s act of redeeming us through love, and the Holy Spirit’s act of sharing God’s love with us through grace, these spiritual gifts are all expressions of this ultimate love gift. Indeed, we are called to partake in this Trinitarian love and, in turn, extend this love gift to others and ourselves.
So, how does this spiritual love, this love gift, actually work? God bestows his spiritual love upon us, and we, in turn, receive it with open hearts, savor it, offer it back to Him in gratitude, and then generously share it with those around us and even towards ourselves. While we can never “earn” God’s love, we can prepare ourselves to receive this love gift by consciously choosing to live according to His commandments and will, because ultimately, that path is what is truly best for our flourishing.
The remarkable aspect of God’s love gift, received and shared, is its inherent desire to seek and delight in what is truly good for others. The fruits of this love are profound spiritual joys that enrich our inner lives, fulfill us deeply, and ignite within us a desire to spread the goodness of God’s love.
To be “in love” in this spiritual sense, to be “in charity,” is to experience the fulfillment of our very purpose in life. It is an extraordinary experience when we, as humans, are elevated beyond our limitations, allowing God to fill us with His divine life through grace and love, mirroring the way He Himself loves. Over the years, I’ve learned that when I shift my focus away from my own wants and redirect it outwards towards God, receiving His spiritual love gift, and then actively seek to share that love with others, I discover a deeper, more lasting happiness. This resonates with what St. John Paul II described as the “law of the gift”: by prioritizing others, we paradoxically find greater fulfillment ourselves.
God the Father’s love is evident in His very desire to share the life of charity, the very essence of love He shares with the Son and the Holy Spirit, with us. Jesus embodies His love by taking upon Himself the sins of the world, offering Himself in His humanity as a sacrifice on the cross to redeem us from sin. As He Himself proclaimed, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). Finally, the Holy Spirit continually pours out this divine love upon us, especially through the sacraments. God’s grace, another expression of this divine love gift, is given to us by the Holy Spirit in each sacrament, continually manifesting the Holy Spirit’s boundless love for us.
