To love someone is to be in active relationship with them. St. Ignatius believed that this action consists in a mutual sharing of goods between the ones who love. Technical as it sounds, we all experience this, however imperfectly, in our many human relationships. And all this is true when it comes to our relationship with God, except that the love of God is perfect. But it is not enough to say that God is love and leave it at that. God is love, therefore God shares what God is with us. Christ comes to us as a full gift and revelation of God for us. We are then invited to respond to God in love with a return of what we are; to share our goods with God through our love for one another and the world that God has given us.

That seems pretty simple, right? You share the goods you have with the one you love. God has given you life and salvation through Christ and so you love God by writing a check to help the needy. Or you volunteer with a crisis line, or you are even good to your relatives. This must be up the right alley. And it is, but it’s just the beginning of the giving spree to which God calls us.

An extra cloak, cash to the homeless, or even the shirt off your back is comparatively straight forward compared to giving the goods of your redeemed humanity. To dig those out requires a strong back and a sharp shovel. God has given us our very selves, complete with our histories, our talents, our limitations, our hopes, our peculiar mix of cheerfulness and despair. This is the fullness of the humanity that we have to give back to God.

But in order to give it, we have to perceive the fullness of it as a good. Our entire life comes from God and so all pieces of it are going to be used by God in our shared world. Believe it or not, all the dark pieces and all of the light pieces will be used by God if freely given as a response in love. Everything you are proud of and everything that fills you with shame, God will use if you just let Him.

As Christians, as Catholics, as Jesuits the best thing we have to share with God’s world is this fullness of how we understand our relationship to God. This relationship is the one good above all goods. It is the good around which we center our lives and therefore, is the core of who we are. So close to our heart, we often struggle with how to share it with other people. We can do it, but it requires a vulnerability of self revelation prone to constant misunderstanding. As Christians, we have been given Christ so we are to give Christ to other people and to struggle through the challenges of this awesome mission. This is the energy and power behind any and all true evangelization—we invite people to fullness of life in Christ.

Catholics have inherited the Church, its history, its traditions and its ways to Christ. With all its gifts and shortcomings it is altogether too human even as it is a symbol of the divine. And so Catholics, give what you have been given. Name being Catholic as a God given good and give it away as a full offering to a world hungry for meaning. Whenever we invite others to become part of the Catholic Church we are claiming the fullness of our faith as a response to God’s perfect goodness, to be shared in relationship with others. To do so is not to denigrate other faiths or denominations but it is to claim Catholicism as something worthy of sharing.

And finally, Jesuits have been given the gift of a life lived together for the greater glory of God. Somehow, some way, we have been called to a life that challenges us, supports us and gives us a way to live life to the fullest. This is an essential good that cries out to be shared with others. Jesuits stand in a world hungry for meaning, hungry for an identity that will be deep and rich enough to sustain all people. We have a way of life that can meet the need. Will we give ourselves fully to those we love? Will we give it away to those we are called to serve?

As we head into the new year in an old world let us look for ways to return all the goods that our generous God has given us. For in this action of gift and response we realize what it is to be loved and loving in God.