The Spiritual Life, which can be seen as a "growing in Love", is being described in the classical terms of purification, enlightenment and union. It is open to those, who earnestly follow God's call. The Holy Spirit, who is the Love of the Father and the Son, is doing His work in our hearts to transform us into the image of Christ. Man, who is reborn "of the Spirit and water", is being formed under His gentle influence, and becomes able to receive more and more of the Love of God in himself, to live and act in It - to become a truly loving human being.

For this way of grace in imitation of Christ, it is important at first that it be built upon a secure and stable foundation, which is always present and remaining. Even the disciple of Christ, who followed the invitation of Christ, has not yet overcome the weaknesses of his human nature and is in constant need of God's help. He shall neither come to grief, nor loose his way on this path! Therefore, it is a great gift to have someone at our side and advise us, who is already advanced in the spiritual life. The Church offers many means of help on this way to strengthen and instruct the disciple. In her bosom, there are not few enlightened spiritual teachers, who instruct us about the way of the imitation of Christ.

The secure and healthy foundation, upon which we can build our lives and walk the "Way of the Lamb" with great confidence and joy, is the Love of the Heavenly Father.


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The Love of the Heavenly Father is the reason for our human existence, as Holy Scripture vividly testifies: "Let Us make man in Our image, in Our likeness" (Genesis 1.26). God did not need to call us into being - He would not lack anything in the fullness of His Being, if we humans would not exist. Our call into being is the free choice of His Love. He wanted to call humans into being to let us partake of the abundance of His glory, which is the source of eternal blessedness. He called everyone by his name and gave him the gift of His own likeness.

We can recognize the Love of God in many ways: in the wonderful song of creation, which He entrusted to us, in His daily care for us, in the presence of loving human beings, in all His boundless efforts to raise us fallen men to lead us home into His kingdom, in the testimony of Holy Scripture, in the Sacraments of the Church...
Who "has eyes to see and ears to hear" will discover God's Love everywhere, and the more open our eyes and ears are, the more we recognize this Love also in the difficult situations of our lives.

But often these eyes and ears are still closed or opened but little, and that is why we cannot really perceive the everlasting Love God has for us, and sometimes even presume the opposite!

One cause for this may be that not few men were lacking a loving parent's home, which should have reflected and made tangible the Love of God. This cradle of human community in particular is subject to special attacks. We rarely know a religious home anymore with a kind father and a self giving mother, never tiring in Love - whereby the presence of such a father is even more rare! Therefore more and more humans are growing up without a natural sense of basic trust, and the image of a kind Heavenly Father, who is looking out for His children with great Love, is for many not more than an image of an uncertain longing for a reliable Love.

Nevertheless, God is exactly such a Father!

The ruin of many families is not the only reason though, why the access to a loving image of the Father is so difficult. We already find a cause for that in the event of the fall of man and its consequences.

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In the story of temptation, as the Bible describes it, the tempter approaches man and tries to convey to him a different image of God, which does not correspond to the Truth. God is not being described as the kind Father, who is in intimate communion with men in paradise, giving them all necessary material goods for their food and joy, but the image of a God is being portrayed, who denies man by means of prohibition, "to be like God" and "to recognize good and evil", therefore begrudging him something desirable! (cf. Genesis 3)

What a fatal and scheming lie! God created man in His image and then even God should not want that man bears His likeness? Later, we hear in the reports of the Gospels, how Jesus invites us to become perfect like the Father in heaven!

But man, who at first still rejects this lie of the tempter and presents the true facts, gives room to this lie, and finally gets caught in the net of this temptation, being lured by his senses. (cf. Genesis 3)

Thus the lie about God entered the life of man, and the devil successfully spread the seed of distrust. Through the act of sin that followed, the transgression of God's commandment, caused the great disaster of mankind. Henceforth, man could no longer remain in the paradisiacal state, and the powers of death had gained dominion over him. The consequences in the behavior of man towards God were: man "hid" from God, and "was afraid" of Him! (cf. Genesis)

We see therefore that the devil wanted to destroy in man initially the image of the kind and loving Father or cast doubts on it. On this he has been working now throughout all history. Man should not know the true, loving Being of our Father, seeing through this lie, and cast himself full of confidence into the arms of God, which are spread wide open for him!

Even in those men, who have found access to the Heavenly Father through Jesus, who reveals the true image of the Father, the effect of this lie is still noticeable. Often, there is not enough trust in God to surrender their lives to the loving providence of God. It may not always be discernible as an active fear, but in many situations of the natural and spiritual life we become aware that we do not trust enough in the Love of our Father, but our lives are still ruled by too many uncertainties, fears and anxieties!

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Our Father wants that we boundlessly trust in Him! If deep trust in God is being restored and newly found, we can even on this earth win back something of that state man enjoyed in paradise before his fall, and, in the assurance of this communion with God, approach and master our tasks, which God gives us in life!


1.) The Love of the Father is operative in the Creation of Man

"Let Us make man in Our image, in Our likeness" (Genesis 1.26) - Holy Scripture testifies to this as being the Will of God, and a mystic, whom Grace afforded a vision of the creation of man, exclaimed: "Now I know, why You love men so much!"

How could it be otherwise, since God created us in His image, and the holiest and deepest motivation of God being Love, to give us the gift of life? And this Love is such, as we do not know or expect it from ourselves, because God created us without our help. What abundance of the Creator's Glory did He pour out to inscribe Himself in man, for man is His image, bearing His likeness!

At times, we could perceive something of the rapture of God, when we see a newborn or small child, and our hearts are just flying to the child, without it having done anything for us. It simply happens, because it is there. Something of the secret of God's Beauty and Love is lighting up there, which He Himself has placed within man. This Love, which, for example a child can arouse in us, is a beam of that Love, which lives in God, when He is looking at us as His children.

Did God not veil our lives with a deep secret, which we may unveil? Do we not all at least faintly perceive something great and eternal in us, despite all our defeats and limitations? Do we not become aware that our lives must have a purpose, which we are to discover, and do we not reach out for this purpose? Do we not desire to become "different human beings", human beings, who are able to love more? Do we not perceive that we are in need of a greater home than this world?

All this God has planted in us with the likeness of His image, for it is the search for Him, which moves our lives. The Love, in which He has created us, is at the same time also the source we are longing and thirsting for! It is the Water, which will quench our thirst, which Jesus promised us! (Joh 4.14)

This Love, which is part of our existence and the reason for our being, is realized in the coming of every human being, who, by reason of his existence alone, gives testimony to the loving "Yes of God" to man. This holds true without limitation, even then, when the exterior circumstances, under which the new human being is born, barely reflect this Love or when he might not be welcome.
God did not only create us in His Love, but He remains in this Love with us to maintain and form our natural and supernatural lives. He invites us to a free will answer to this Love, so that we may receive His infinite Love, and He may dwell with us, His children. It is therefore God, who seeks His creature to bring it to perfection, to communicate His loving Fatherhood, and to live in intimate communion with man, even before man gives his answer! Man should know that he is being loved unconditionally by His Heavenly Father and that the "Yes of God" stands always over his life! It is man himself, who can shut himself up from this Love.


2.) After the Fall of Man

Being enraptured by the beauty of man in the state he was originally created in, God did not retreat from man after he had trespassed His command and no longer remained in perfect union with Him!

Just now, the Father revealed His Love even more! He called Prophets to speak through them to men. The more evil increased in the world, the more the Love of the Father was challenged. He revealed Himself to just souls, so that they would instruct those responsible for the disorder (cf.: "The life in honor of the Father", p. 104).

Since man was often unwilling to be taught though, the loving Father had to resort to stricter means as well to bring man to his senses, so that he would abandon his wicked ways. Again, it is this same Love of God, which does not simply leave man to his doom, but desires to make use of all possible means to keep him from the ways of disaster.

After the fall, God walks with man through time, dwells with His people Israel, whom He has chosen as "His possession", and prepares this people for the coming of His Messiah, His own Son.

Again and again, God courts His often stubborn people, calling them back to union with Him with tender words:

"When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son... It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them... I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of Love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them... How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? My heart is changed within Me; all My compassion is aroused... I will betroth you to Me for ever; I will betroth you in Righteousness and Justice, in Love and Compassion. I will betroth you in Faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the LORD..." (Excerpts from the Book of Hosea, chapters 2 and 11)

Nevertheless, we witness it again and again throughout history that man does not correspond to the Love of God but leaves It unanswered. The whole story of salvation can be seen as a Love story, in which God is courting for the Love of His creatures, but often receives indifference or even rejection. Yet again, God does not retreat, but His Love extends to the utmost.


3.) God sends His Son and comes to us Himself in Him!

How can the Father show His Love for men more than by sending them His Son! In Him, He is present in yet another way than in the Prophets, who spoke as He charged them. The Father comes Himself in His Son Jesus Christ. "I am in the Father and He is in Me", Jesus explains to us, "whoever is with Me, is with My Father", and "I and the Father are One". (from Joh 17)

God, our Father, takes the guilt of man upon Himself in His Son, dies in His Son upon the Cross and demands from Himself the Sacrifice, which Abraham did not have to bring! God now not only dwells among us, but in the Second Person He becomes Man to always remain united with us.

"See how great is the Love of the Father for us!" Holy Scripture does not tire to express this again and again, and it is Jesus' innermost desire and expression of His Love for the Father that His Father is being recognized and loved!

Contemplating the life of Jesus, we often look at His Love for us. With right, for It is infinitely great and goes as far as death, but Jesus wants that we first also perceive in Him the infinite Love of the Father for us! He desires to glorify Him and offer Him redeemed humanity, for our Father courts for us incessantly, day and night!


4.) God's Merciful Love for our spiritual journey

But it is not so easy for God to reach us. We are too much attached to our earthly lives, too much has the devil darkened the image of God or tries, with deplorable success, to make men forget God. In addition to that, how often are men afraid of God, not knowing Him and offending Him with abominable sins.

Nevertheless, God does not cease to love, but offers conversion and thereby homecoming to every man - in every instant! God never ceases to wait and look after us: in sending the Holy Spirit, in the Holy Eucharist, in His Word, by speaking to our innermost being, by establishing the Church as the beginning of the Kingdom of God - by enlightening men interiorly, giving prophetic directives, sending loving human beings and protecting us by His Angels. No way is too far for Him, no effort to great, no work too hard, no service too small, to find us. Angels and men, who are filled with His Love, are trying to do the same: It is always about bringing tidings to men about the Love of the Father, realizing this Love, and assisting them on the way to eternity!

God Himself has opened His loving Heart to us, and all that we hear about the open Heart of Jesus and the loving Heart of the Virgin Mary has as its source the Heart of our loving Father, from whom all things come and to whom all things go! This Divine Heart is present on the Cross of Jesus, in the Most Holy Eucharist, in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

The desire of God for us is so great that He leaves His glory to dwell in Jesus among us like a poor man, to suffer, to endure derision, to take upon Himself the Cross of humiliation and to suffer the death of a criminal. All this, the Father is doing for us, because He loves us and courts for His creatures as His children!

Do we now better understand why we can build the house of our lives and the house of the spiritual life upon this Love, and that It is the basis of a sound way in the imitation of Christ? This Love of God is never ending and It is directed towards us personally. At the same time It is directed towards all humanity: past, present and future.

We can always come to God on the way of holiness: when we make mistakes, when we touch upon the roots of our deep alienation from God, when we fall into sins, which we thought of having already overcome for a long time, when we seemingly have to start over again and again: His loving compassion will raise us up and strengthen us again and again, so that we can continue on the way, to which He has called us! He offers us the grace of confession, so that we are being washed clean in the Blood of His Son and receive anew the mercy of God.

Thus God is looking after us to dwell with us, and He is asking for our trust. It might be that we want to trust and throw us unconditionally into His arms, but something is holding us back. Then we are invited to surrender just that, which is holding us back, - if we know it or not - to God and to ask Him for the internalization of His Love. If we knew, how much God is waiting for us, we would not hesitate a single day to come to Him.

Is it not just that, what we humans need - an unconditional Love, which we do not merely know and desire theoretically, but which shows Itself very concretely. In God, this Love is so much present that It consumes Itself for us.

It might be that we cannot believe that someone can love us this much, for example because of our sins, our weaknesses, because we have never experienced such Love and do not feel worthy of such Love!

But God cannot love any other way, for He is Love Himself! God would rise up against Himself, if He would not always choose Love, to express it in human terms! And that is why this Love does not cease even towards the greatest sinner, but It waits for him with infinite patience, if this one will not come home after all in the last moments of his life!

We humans can barely envision such Love, nor can we draw It from ourselves, since we are not the source of such Love! But we can get to know this Love, get involved with It, and thereby more and more interiorize It. It is not only given us as a Love, which approaches us, but also as an indwelling reality, which is able to infuse and transform our entire human being!

The great transformation of men happens in the imitation of Christ, where the new being, which was given to us in baptism and awakened by our conversion, is unfolding itself. It is therefore just this Love of the Father, which I described above, that accomplishes this transformation. On the paths of this sincere transformation, we will reach our limits again and again, sometimes even discovering things that we are not pleased with, nor can be pleased with. Especially in these moments, it is important to realize the merciful Love of God, which has called us on this way, always desiring to strengthen and raise us up. There is nothing substantial that we can do wrong in depth, if we trust this Love and try to live in It every day!

Thus we are invited to follow this way in imitation of Christ - without imprudence and wrong trust in our own alleged strengths - but with unwavering trust in the Love of our Heavenly Father! This Love has called us and holds us at every stage of our way, supports us and assists us in all our weaknesses!

Thus God, who created and redeemed us, will also bring us to perfection.

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