WEDNESDAY, EIGHTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
Jer 31: 1-7 Jer 31: 10-13 Mt 15: 21-28
WE ARE ALREADY LOVED
Jeremiah’s prophecy contains some of the most tender words in all of Scripture: “I have loved you with an everlasting love…” Here is the foundation of all spirituality – not our love for God, but God’s eternal, unchanging love for us. Before we ever thought to seek God, God was seeking us. Before we ever loved, we were loved with an “everlasting love.” Our spiritual journey is not about earning God’s affection or achieving a level of holiness that finally makes us worthy of divine attention. Rather, it is about awakening to a love that has always been there, waiting for us to notice, to receive, to rest in it. Teresa of Avila insisted: God does not wait for us to become perfect before drawing close. God’s love is the very thing that makes our transformation possible inviting us into a profound, lifelong intimacy with the Divine.
Jeremiah describes the exiles returning to Jerusalem. Notice who makes this journey: not the strong and capable, but the weak and vulnerable. We do not come to God as spiritual athletes displaying our achievements. We come as the blind who need to be led, as the lame who cannot walk without support, as those who weep because the journey is hard and we are weak. St Thérèse of Lisieux called this the ‘little way.’ She recognized her own spiritual poverty, her inability to perform great penances or achieve mystical heights through her own effort. But she discovered that this very weakness was her strength, because it made her completely dependent on God’s mercy. Like the exiles in Jeremiah, she needed to be carried, guided, consoled; and God delighted to do so.
God’s love is not a reward for the worthy but a gift for the needy. It is everlasting, which means it predates our sins and failures, and no amount of stumbling can exhaust it. We are already loved, already sought, already held in the heart of God. Let us humbly awaken to that transformative love today and learn to live fully in it forever.
Response: The Lord will keep us, as a shepherd keeps his flock.
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