Power

“…that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend… what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. ​Now to him who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine, by the power at work within us, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.  Amen.” 

Ephesians 3:14-21

What is Saint Paul saying here? SO MUCH! We have to take it phrase by phrase, word by word. But what I got stuck at is the phrase, “by the power at work in us”. In the Book of Acts, we can read that Jesus told His disciples, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." Jesus did not forsake us, and leave us without any means to fulfill what He asked of us, to become His witnesses, His ambassadors. Perhaps the kind of power we are expecting is the kind of power the people in Jerusalem expected Jesus to exhibit as the Messiah of His people. They rejected Him when He did not have the power to overthrow the Romans who lorded it over them. 

Let us ask Jesus for the power of the Holy Spirit, the power that St. Paul described to Timothy, “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.” (Timothy 1:6-7) The power to conquer self and selfishness is the most significant power of all, because “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13)