Eph 3:14-21
This, then, is what I pray, kneeling before the Father, from whom every fatherhood, in heaven or on earth, takes its name. In the abundance of his glory may he, through his Spirit, enable you to grow firm in power with regard to your inner self, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, with all God’s holy people you will have the strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; so that, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond knowledge, you may be filled with the utter fullness of God. Glory be to him whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine; glory be to him from generation to generation in the Church and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.
With St. Paul, we too bow our knees before the Father, before the wonderful presence of Jesus in the tabernacle and before the Holy Spirit, who was sent to us to remain with us forever. The Christian’s relationship with God has a supernatural character. It is not primarily a natural religiosity, which the Lord placed in us at the time of our creation, but, as we heard yesterday, a revelation of God that calls us to faith and to the following of Christ. This is why we also worship God in the three persons, a knowledge that is given to us in Christian faith and is of great importance.
God wants to share his richness with us and let us participate in it. He does this in many ways, especially through the Holy Spirit who has been poured into our hearts (cf. Rom 5:5). The Holy Spirit is the love between Father and Son, as the Church teaches us. This love, in which we are rooted and founded, causes us to grow in strength and power within ourselves.
Our faith should be a powerful one, which does not mean human strength, but being firmly grounded in the truth. We should know our faith and strengthen and deepen it again and again through the right teaching. It strengthens us in our convictions, especially at this time when many things have been confused in the church as well. The daily Word of God is light for us on the path we follow (cf. Sal 119:105).
The strength is the unfolding of God’s gift within us, which makes us ready to confess our faith, to accept disadvantages on our side or even to give our lives. This goes beyond the good virtue of courage and helps us to carry out all the steps of surrender to God, to live up to our vocation. This is what His Spirit does in us, whom we can ask for and should live with Him in intimate communion. He also opens us up to a deeper understanding of the love of Christ, because he reminds us of everything that Jesus did and said (cf. Jn 14:26) and opens up the meaning for us.
I can only encourage us to enter into an intimate exchange with the Holy Spirit, to speak with Him, to ask Him to open our inner ears, to understand His instructions, to perceive His tender yet firm guidance. He is our divine friend and teacher, whom the Lord has called a Comforter (“Paraclete”) (cf. Jn 15:26). He comforts us with his divine presence and will always show us the way, the next step, if we do not close our minds to him.
Thus two very important statements of the text come to life. First of all, the fullness of God grows within us. By listening and following the instructions of our “friend”, God can fill us more and more with His love. This is what it is all about, Paul even speaks of the fullness. Our human and therefore still imperfect and often weak love is purified and strengthened by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, we are enabled to act in the divine love that far exceeds our capacity!
Therefore, through his power working in us, i.e. through his Holy Spirit, God can do much more than we can ask for and imagine, because we have given God the guidance for our lives. So God is now glorified through his church, of which we are members (cf. 1 Cor 12:27), and through the head of the church – Christ (cf. Col 1:18)!