2. The Eternal Circulation of Love

The divine life of God is an eternal circulation of love among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You and I and every other human being who has ever existed were created to share forever in that eternal flow of love. You and I and every other human being were meant to be united forever with God and with all of our fellow human beings who choose to accept God’s offer of a share in the divine life. Only there, only within that eternal circulation of love, will our hearts find the happiness, freedom, purpose, and peace that they so desperately desire. But to be able to share as fully as possible in the divine life and love, we have to learn how to love as God loves. At the heart of the divine love, at the heart of the divine life, lies the gift of self. The essence of love is the gift of self, because the essence of Love is the gift of self. God is self-gift. Giving is not just something that God does; giving is what God is. The divine life of God is an eternal exchange of the gift of self among God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit. From all eternity, God the Father pours out the gift of himself in begetting God the Son. The Father selflessly shares his total divinity with the Son, giving the Son everything he is except his status as Father, his status as the “unoriginate Origin”[i], which he cannot give away. The Son eternally receives the Father’s gift of self in love and gratitude, selflessly giving the Father the gift of himself in return. This reciprocal self-gift of Father and Son is so perfect, so complete, that it “spirates” a third divine Person, the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of love flowing between Father and Son. The Holy Spirit joins with the Father and the Son in the eternal exchange of the gift of self that constitutes the divine life. In God, we see the true nature of love revealed: Love is the selfless gift of self, given and received. The divine bliss consists precisely in this eternal circulation of love among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.[ii] We were born to share forever in the eternal circulation of love that is the divine life. But to participate as fully as possible in the divine life, we have to learn to selflessly give and receive the gift of self in love. That’s what we’re here to learn how to do. And the more fully we learn to do that, the more fully we can share in the divine love and life and bliss.
[i] Balthasar, Explorations in Theology. Vol. 5, Man Is Created, 172.
[ii] I am indebted to the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar for many of these ideas.