“Anyone who loves God in the depths of his heart has already been loved by God. In fact, the measure of a man’s love for God depends upon how deeply aware he is of God’s love for him.” – Diadochus of Photice
One of the things that has surprised me about my ministry in my first year as a priest – though in retrospect, maybe it should not have been surprising – is how frequently I find myself saying to people the basic, fundamental core of our faith: that God loves you.
The reason why this has surprised me, I think, is that usually we think that words like “basic” and “fundamental” mean “easy to grasp and understand.” Or worse – we think they just mean “cliched, hackneyed.” God’s love is basic and fundamental, yes. But it is certainly not a truth that is easy for us to grasp, and the proof of that is in how many people don’t understand that God loves them!
Like most people, I suppose, I received the gift of my faith through my family and God’s mysterious providence in placing holy people in my life. I was raised in the faith, educated in the faith, given every kind of help and support in my faith as I grew up. But I can also clearly remember the moment in 2018, when I was a novice in Colorado, fully three years after I had begun formation with Holy Cross, that I really understood for the first time what it meant that God loves me. I even remember the precise place that it happened – I was sitting on a rock on a ridge just to the east of our house, praying, and it finally came together: the knowledge that God loves me. God does not love me because I am good, but rather I am good because God loves me. It would be difficult to communicate everything that led up to and precipitated that realization for me, but I do know that it was the single most important thing I gained during the whole of my time in initial formation: this intuitive, felt knowledge that God loves me.
And what is amazing to me about the ministry that I am now entrusted with as a Holy Cross priest is that most of what it really boils down to is telling other people that same thing. The “surprise” of this first year of priesthood has been that it ultimately amounts to nothing more than offering to others the same pearl of great price that I found on a rock in Colorado seven years ago. My job is to preach the Gospel, which tells us about God’s love for us. I hear confessions, during which I am tasked with explaining to people that God loves us amid our sinfulness. And I celebrate Mass and offer to people the sacrament of Christ’s body and blood, given up for love of us.
Jesus tells his apostles before he sends them out that “freely you have received, and freely you are to give.” Thanks be to God for the gift of his love for us, and for the further gift he offers to us in charging us to share that love with one another.
Fr. Steve Jakubowski, C.S.C.
Published on April 30, 2025
