In deeds more than words
God warns us through the prophet Jeremiah: “Put not your trust in the deceitful words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD! The temple of the LORD! The temple of the LORD!’” (Jeremiah 7). God specifically warns us about the temptation of believing that something is true simply because we think it or say it. A student who says that a paper is finished “in her head” but has not begun to actually write or type it out is deluding herself. Likewise, God warns us through the prophet that, “Only if you thoroughly reform your ways and your deeds; if each of you deals justly with his neighbor; if you no longer oppress the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow; if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place, or follow strange gods to your own harm, only then will I remain with you in this place, in the land I gave your fathers long ago and forever.” For the Lord to dwell among the people, it is not enough for them to affirm that he does so, they must actually “reform their ways and their deeds” so that God’s love can be seen to abide in them. If not, their words are as empty and dead as their actions are sterile.
Ignatius of Loyola took this lesson to heart: “love ought to manifest itself more by deeds than by words” (SpEx 230). We discover the reality of God’s love, therefore, by reflecting on God’s deeds, especially as they are revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of the One who offers himself for each one of us personally. But once we see what God has done for us in Christ, we begin to realize more and more that God has done “everything” for us and that this love enables us to do “everything” for God (cf. SpEx 231). Simply saying “I love you,” does not make this statement true. God says, “I love you,” but mostly God shows it by giving us everything and holding nothing back, for this is what God does when he gives us everything in his Son. Let us, with Ignatius, return to God our own halting, “I love you, too,” as best we can, not only through our words but all the more by letting our every deed be an expression of this love, not only saying but living Ignatius’s offering: “Take, Lord, and receive… all that I have and possess.”