- Reflection from November 16th and 23rd, 2003 -

By Fr. John Vella

Many people spend their whole lives seeking for the truth. We all do in some way or other. We want to know why things are the way they are. We want to know what life is all about. We want to know what makes things tick.

But what is the deepest truth of life? What penetrates and pervades and saturates every blade of grass, every cloud in the sky, every rock, every single human heart, everything that ever was, everything that is, everything that ever will be ... what fills all of this with an utter fullness? Only one thing -- the everlasting, unbreakable, overpowering love of God. Without God's love, nothing would exist - nothing would have meaning. That is the deepest truth of life. That is the truth to which Jesus came as the most reliable of all witnesses.

In his answer to Pilate, Jesus summarizes with great emphases his whole mission, ''For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth''. Jesus has the mission to testify to the truth of God's love and to live it. This is the will of the Father that Jesus came to do: to convince the people of God's love. Jesus is our King - King of Truth.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega - who is, who was and who is to come." Jesus is everything - everything we need or will ever need. And Jesus is the face of God.

Is it possible that we can take the love of God for granted? If you were confined to your bed with an illness which prevented you from doing anything for yourself, and you were blessed with a person who devoted herself to you completely - a person who would care for all of your needs every day of your life - if this were the case, do you think you could take that person for granted? It hardly seems possible, does it?

And yet for many of us, that is exactly what happens so much of our lives God not only takes care of us; God gives us our very life and yet we so often take God for granted. How can we prevent this from happening? I guess there is not a simple, easy way but the best start on a solution to this problem is prayer. Prayer is the way we bring God into our minds and hearts. Through prayer we grow to appreciate the love that is being poured into our lives, moment by moment, by One who cares about the smallest details of our lives.

Imagine if you were lying in that bed completely dependent upon your wonderful caregiver. Would you not think about them a great deal? You would be so conscious of your need for them, that it would be impossible to forget them. Our loving God is THE caregiver. God's care is so all pervasive, so completely encompassing that it would be impossible to exaggerate how total and wonderful it is. In fact, God's care is so deep that it will never end. It will last into all eternity.

When we decide to spend time in prayer, we are allowing ourselves to become more aware of the truth of life. The more we let this truth enter the deepest part of ourselves, the more we will know what life is all about. Life is not about getting more, becoming better, being well-known or any number of other things. Ultimately, life is about love. Life is about realizing that we have always been loved and always will be loved.