that you, rooted and grounded in love,
may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones
what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,
so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
What do we need to do to be filled with the divine nature, with all the fullness of God. First, we need to realize how great a blessing this is. We are creatures. We have no right or reason to expect that the creator would fill us at all. Once we hear that he wants to fill us we tend to treat it as a reward for good behavior. We think of the beatitude of the Saints and the struggles they endured to receive it. But what do we read?
to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge
so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
It isn't ultimately about what we do. It isn't ultimately about what we know in the normal sense of knowledge. It is about an experiential knowledge of the love of Christ. It is this, and no effort on our part, that fills us with the fullness of God. There are of course things we do which help us to be ready for this experience. But they do not cause it. This is the experience the Church describes as contemplative prayer. "Contemplative prayer is the simplest expression of the mystery of prayer. It is a gift, a grace; it can be accepted only in humility and poverty" (CCC 2713).
In a way, we all express in miniature the life of ancient Israel. Prophetic voices help us to prepare for the Messiah. We commit ourselves to follow the ways of the LORD. But we wait for the savior to be given to man. All of our prayer is like a miniature Advent that awaits the coming of the LORD with joyful hope. It is like the wise maidens with their lamps alight, waiting for the bridegroom.
We see our own failures and are tempted to lose heart. But we need not become discouraged. God's heart is for us. He continues to wait for us even when we turn from him.
For I am God and not a man,
the Holy One present among you;
I will not let the flames consume you.
Jesus wants us to believe that the love of the Trinity for us is a river of life-giving water which sin cannot contain.
but one soldier thrust his lance into his side,
and immediately blood and water flowed out.
He pours out his love for us precisely at the moment when all the sinfulness of man tries to silence him and hear nothing of it. That sin was not able to change his heart for us. The stream continues to flow. All we need to do is drink.
You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation.
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