God's love story

"True, no one has ever seen God as He is. And yet God is not totally invisible to us; He does not remain completely inaccessible. God loved us first, says the Letter of John quoted above (cf. 4:10), and this love of God has appeared in our midst. He has become visible in as much as He "has sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him" (1 Jn 4:9). God has made Himself visible: in Jesus we are able to see the Father (cf. Jn 14:9). Indeed, God is visible in a number of ways. In the love story recounted by the Bible, he comes towards us, he seeks to win our hearts, all the way to the Last Supper, to the piercing of his heart on the Cross, to his appearances after the Resurrection and to the great deeds by which, through the activity of the Apostles, he guided the nascent Church along its path.

"Nor has the Lord been absent from subsequent Church history: he encounters us ever anew, in the men and women who reflect his presence, in His word, in the sacraments, and especially in the Eucharist. In the Church's Liturgy, in her prayer, in the living community of believers, we experience the love of God, we perceive his presence and we thus learn to recognise that presence in our daily lives. He has loved us first and he continues to do so; we too, then, can respond with love. God does not demand of us a feeling which we ourselves are incapable of producing. He loves us, he makes us see and experience his love, and since he has "loved us first", love can also blossom as a response within us."

God is Love - Benedict XVI (A CHRISTIAN OUTLOOK is weekly reproducing short extract from the Pope's first encyclical.)