The hunger of the human heart is far deeper than our bodily and emotional needs. It is for love. Our emotions dispose us to love, but they are incomplete because, after they have arisen within us, they can stay within us. It takes the committed response of another person to transform our emotion into real two-way love. Our hearts fundamentally are searching for bonding with others to complete ourselves, and to prune and develop ourselves, and not just us: the whole of creation has the same urge. At its very deepest this search is only fully realised by our bonding with God.

For that to happen we need the gift of faith. It is the facility of faith which enables a person to begin to perceive God, and to gradually come to know him through love. There is a big question here: why is it that many people seem not to receive this gift? Furthermore, is God unfair when he seems to give faith to some and not to others?

I think that the answer to that question lies in the infinitely wise and tender care of our Father. We are the only creatures we know of that God made in his own image. Now the deepest revelation of God is that God is a community, essentially a Trinity of persons united in utterly perfect love. We, ourselves, will never be redeemed except as a community.

The creator knows that our human community works through love, which requires the voluntary decision to open ourselves to an other. He also knows that most of us find that frightening. He assists the human community’s efforts to grow in love by starting with the most willing souls. Through them, all the rest of us are shown how to cooperate with his grace, and their progress creates a drag towards heaven which assists others.

The fallen human community is very complex; we find it hard to transform our free will into loving. We have a history of disunity and multiple fracturing. We know very few people well and our love is extremely limited and often conditional. We lost our spiritual compass when we put ourselves in the centre of creation instead of God. It takes God to restore our enfeebled spirits. He knows us far better than we know ourselves.

He knew that we could only gradually learn about him and that we need to do so with others. We may think of ourselves as sovereign individuals, but we really only flourish in company. The story of revelation is one of God gradually drawing people nearer to himself through dealing at first with a few chosen souls. Then they bring others into the process of salvation.

Look how Jesus gently dealt with crowds, but limited his deep teaching to a few disciples.

When he completed that process by drawing those disciples into himself after Pentecost, animating them with his Holy Spirit, their influence developed exponentially. This is how God works; this is his wonderfully wise design.

As he forms spiritual communion through his Church, our human community grows through stages until his will is accomplished. The way he unfolds his plan is not unjust; it is tenderness and wisdom, and his timing lasts through ages not years or centuries. It all depends on willing souls taking up his cross and following him.