In today’s Gospel, Jesus says that it is the Father’s will that he “not lose anything of what he gave me.” Jesus never fails his mission. He always accomplishes what he sets out to do. He keeps those who are his own within his loving grasp.
Likewise, In the third chapter of the Book of Wisdom, we hear that “the souls of the just are in the hand of God.” And then, several verses later, we also hear, “those who trust in him shall understand truth, and the faithful shall abide with him in love.” These wise words describe the just person’s relation to God—a relation of resting in his divine hands. Why does the author of the Book of Wisdom call attention to justice in relation to being held in the divine hands?
We recall that the virtue of justice orders and perfects our relations to others (CCC no. 1807). This moral virtue is inherently connected to other persons precisely as other. Those who act unjustly violate the order of otherness that shapes all of reality. Anyone who acts according to the order of justice relates to others according to both the truth of who one is in himself or herself, and according to the truth of who others are in themselves. Consequently, the virtue of justice is absolutely necessary for human life, discourse, and society. Without the virtue of justice, family life, civilized society, and even humanity itself would be unsustainable.
The virtue of justice does not only apply to other human persons, however. God is first and foremost among those to whom we owe just relation. Whether or not we acknowledge God in our lives, he still exists. He is the ultimate origin of all that we are and all that we have. Therefore, we—by our very nature—owe him, in justice, our devotion and worship. Religious devotion is something we owe to God in justice.
It is quite common today to hear people describe themselves as being “spiritual but not religious.” Ultimately, however, it is impossible to be spiritual without also being religious. Yes, we are spiritual beings. (It is true that we have a soul.) Nonetheless, we are not only a soul—we are not purely spiritual beings. (We are not angels.) We are also bodily beings. Indeed, we are soul-and-body composites. The human person is a single soul-and-body unity.
Therefore, we virtuously relate to God according to our nature; which is to say, we owe him acts of devotion and worship. And these acts are not only spiritual. They are also physical. Why? Because, in justice, we owe God our all-ness. This is why thinking about God (i.e., prayer) and making interior acts of love for God are important, yes. But also important are our bodily activities of devotion—like physically going to Mass, making the sign of the cross, or visiting sacred places.
God is the origin of who we are in all our being—body and soul. Therefore, virtuous human persons are those who, with some regularity, offer to God their gratitude and devotion in spiritual and bodily ways. All human persons are, by nature, spiritual and religious.
Nonetheless, God has done much more than invite us to enter into just relation to him. God does not want us to relate to him only as other, but he wants us to be intimately united to him because of who he is in himself. He invites us to find our very identity in him. Consequently, God sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to assume our humanity—a human soul and a human body—so that he could draw us to himself—in our souls and bodies. Our entirety. This is the “good news” of the Gospel.
Through the Incarnation, God’s goodness and love overcome all human injustice. If justice bespeaks the relation between two or more persons who are separate, charity bespeaks a supernatural union in which all otherness is removed through and in God’s own divine goodness (CCC no. 1844). Through charity we are actually united to God, because we share—really and truly—in his own divine goodness.
Charity enables us—here invoking the profound words of the Book of Wisdom—to “abide with him in love.” This helps to explain why charity is the greatest theological virtue. This virtue enables us to find nothing less than our very identity in the “very hands of God”—in whom there is only beatific happiness.
In justice, we owe God our all-ness. In charity, God gives us his all-ness. And this is the very essence of the good news that Jesus really proclaimed and that he truly is.
