We were created to love Him and adore Him, being infinitely loved, held and cherished in return

God our Father created us – human beings; men, women and children – precisely “because He is a Father and has a Son from eternity” (Staniloae, 2012, p. 39). Hence, the First Person of the Holy Trinity created “a category of beings toward whom He could show a love like the one that exists between Him and His Son” (ibid.), because since He is Infinite Love – and love, true love, is always other-oriented – our Heavenly Father was, is and remains both unable and unwilling to contain Himself, in terms of the giving of Himself; His Divine Life. This is the fullness of our inheritance (Paul VI, 1964) – the deification, theosis (Gross, 1938/2003; Lot-Borodine, 1939, 1970; Palamas, 1983) – to which we have all been called and which is ours by grace, if we want it. This is the real meaning of the universal call to holiness (Paul VI, 1964): sanctity through deification.

Meanwhile, God our Almighty Father “does not distance Himself from the Son and the Holy Spirit, and They do not think about separating Themselves from the Father. Rather, each sees Himself in the other and is more preoccupied with the other’s good than with His own” (Staniloae, 2012, p. 42). This is the perfect example of the intimate relationship that Our Father wants to have with each one of us and which He deeply desires us to have, reciprocally, with Him. It is the reason why Our Father “created beings whom He could raise up to love the Father as the Son does, to love the Son as a brother, and to love each other as brethren” (p. 39) – He wanted to have a family and a large one at that. It is also the reason why it is high time that we consent to return to the bosom, the Divine Heart, of our Almighty Father, because we were never created by Him, to be and live apart from Him and His Infinite Love.

References

1. Gross, J. (1938/2003). The divinization of the Christian according to the Greek Fathers (P. A. Onica, trans.).
2. Lot-Borodine, M. (1939). L-anthropologie theocentrique de l-Orient Chretien comme base de son experience spirituelle. Irenikon, 16, 6-21.
3. Lot-Borodine, M. (1970). La deification de l-homme selon la doctrine des Peres Grecs (J. Danielou, ed.).
4. Palamas, G. (1983). The triads (N. Gendle, trans.).
5. Paul VI. (1964). Lumen gentium: Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.
6. Staniloae, D. (2012). The Holy Trinity: In the beginning there was love (R. Clark, trans.).