The God of Reciprocity
Have you ever heard of the idiom "coming in full circle"? It means that after everything one had been through, they return to where they began. The story of, well, everything, began when the Almighty Triune God created light, the Heavens and the Earth, water and land, animals and mankind. There is a culmination though, which is the creation of human beings, so the story of God comes in full circle, but is not a never ending series of cycles that end with the destruction of the soul like the Buddhists believe.
Our Lord Jesus Christ giving up His Spirit, saying "It is finished" because He already came full circle in the war against Death
Speaking of mankind, God breathed life into the first man, Adam, by the power of the Holy Spirit and man has his own spirit. In Matthew 27:50¹, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Second Person of our Triune God, the Word Who became Flesh, "gave up His spirit" which is the same one the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, breathed on His human flesh. He came full circle, and what is the culmination? The return of life given by God to God, a "return to sender".
There are many instances of God showing reciprocity with His Creation. Just look at the water cycle - water from the seas, rivers and other bodies of water evaporate, then condense to clouds then precipitate back to the Earth. Recall the famous story of birds who eat ants then the ants eat them when they die. These are just a couple examples of how we observe reciprocity in all of creation.
What is the root of the word "reciprocity" though? It came from the Latin "reciprocus" meaning "back and forth"² or "alternating"³ which basically implies that what was given always returns the same way to the originator and, in the case of humans, we return to Him as we were when He created us. Remember when the patriarch Job said "I was born naked and I return to God naked"⁴? Everything returns to God as they began when He created them. The death of canonized saints which is the same day of their entry to Heaven is called "Dies Natalis"⁵ or "Day of Birth" which is why most feast days are the date of death of the saints, with some exceptions like Saints John Paul II and John XXIII having feast days on important dates of their lives instead of their dates of death, but their "Dies Natalis" remains the same and it's considered the ultimate birthday of men and women who returned to God. During Holy Mass, we begin with the Sign of the Cross in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and we end it in the same way, but many priests would tell us that it's also another beginning, another commissioning, just as what the Lord did to His apostles, and then we return to Mass to repeat the process again.
In the creation of man, there are many instances of this reciprocity as well. When we look at the back of a bottle of shampoo, we will often read the instruction, "rinse, lather and repeat" which could sound like a conundrum because if taken literally, one would instantly run out of shampoo in just one washing. What it means though, is we repeat this process AS NEEDED ONLY, and that is what God intended our life of reciprocity to be. I had already mentioned the phrase "return to sender" which is was used in mailing back in the day and is still used by many e-commerce companies like Lazada and Shopee when they return packages to the sellers after failed delivery attempts. Communication signals also goes back and forth, be it audio or video. You may be hearing the word "feedback" a lot especially when that Google survey ad pops up and tells you to give it to them to improve their services. We must have a good feedback about God, and God must have a good feedback on us, that's the point of this reciprocal existence we have.
In the Bible and the lives of the Saints, there are many beautiful examples of reciprocity between God and His faithful and devoted sons and daughters. Yahweh asked Father Abraham to sacrifice his son, St. Isaac, but God did not allow St. Abraham to do so, instead He sends a ram to be offered which is what should be sacrificed in the first place. God allowed St. David to be anointed King of Israel, and after a series of failed descendants, the Anointed One, the Messiah Himself, became the ultimate and best King of Israel and of the Universe. You see, it is a "circle of life", but it's not a never ending cycle, but a cycle that ends with God Himself and we would be renewed to Eternal Life where there is no more cycles, because we have absolutely come full circle by then, because being with Him is the culmination of all culminations! Back to the holy examples of reciprocity, do you remember when the Lord said, "What you do to the least of my brothers, you do unto me"⁶ which was St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta's foundation for her works of charity? It's another hint at reciprocity, that what was given to us must be returned to Him and, yes, the biggest one we must return to Him is our lives. The Most Holy Rosary, the best form of prayer given to us by the Blessed Virgin Mary, is a beautiful redundant prayer but it's also not a never ending cycle, because as it began with God, it would end with God when we pray it devoutly everyday because we would be sure that God is in our lips, mind and heart when our time on Earth is through and this is why St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort said that there's no one who prays the Holy Rosary devotedly everyday would go astray.
Why do we need to give back to Him? You may ask. Well, because we exist as Him, not ourselves. Our journey, our struggles with the devil and all his minions, our problems, sickness and death were all what Our Lord Jesus Christ had been through, this is one great adventure that He set out for us, and He showed us the Way which is also Him, by the way. Before the Great Amen, during the part of the Holy Mass called the Major Elevation, the priest sings or prays, "Through Him and with Him and in Him, oh God Almighty Father, in the Unity of the Holy Spirit. All glory and honor is Yours forever and ever". Look at how everything begins and ends with Him who is the author of Life, the conqueror of Death and the Resurrected God-Man!
Finally, all of creation would end with its annihilation, and the creation of a New Heaven and New Earth, a New Jerusalem. Everything will be, yes, new, but we would then get back to where we started: The creation of a Heaven and an Earth and the expulsion of evil, but this time it would be forever. You may complain about the neverending struggles, dilemmas, confusion, pain and sufferings, but you and I would also come full circle, and we must be sure that we return to the Sender, that we become a new creation, that we would be born in Heaven in our Dies Natalis, because only then would we reciprocate this life that He gave and offered us back to Him. We were born, we have our own passions and in our final moments, we would have our crucifixion and death, but if we truly embrace the "Christian" life, the life molded after Christ, then we would come to love even the bitterest sufferings and the darkest days, for we know that in the end, we would return to Him as He returned to the Father, a pure soul in a glorified body, ready to be with Him forever and ever. Happy endings are always the coming in full circle of stories, but it would not be as sweet if there was not a grand adventure of a war against evil and the bearing of sufferings. Offer everything up to Him and always be careful to offer to Him all that He gave, so that you'll be sure that you'll lose the ones that He didn't, which are the world's, the flesh's and the devil's. We would never be fulfilled until we become Him, because He was never fulfilled until He became us and returned to Himself. He showed us that the human life is His and we must return to Him as He sent us, just as we must return to Mass more apostle-like than the last to ultimately share the fate of the holy Apostles and come full circle being one with God. We must follow the full circle path that He laid out for us, never listen and give in to the devil, the flesh and the world so that we could shape our lives to the perfect circle He planned for us.
¹Matthew 27:50
New American Standard Bible
"And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and gave up His spirit."
² https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reciprocate#:~:text=Reciprocate%20implies%20a%20mutual%20or,%22returning%20the%20same%20way.%22
³ https://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/reciprocity.htm
⁴ Job 1:21
New American Standard Bible
"He said,
'Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
And naked I shall return there.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord."
⁵ https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2018/12/26/dies-natalis/
⁶ Matthew 25:40
