Jean Khoury
Summary: This article explores one of the deepest truths of biblical and spiritual theology: the bowels of God and His passionate yearning for humanity. This reality is woven throughout the Old Testament through the Hebrew term raḥamîm, reaches its summit in the events and teachings of the New Testament, and then finds an echo in the experience of Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. The study begins from its biblical foundations and rises to the level of spiritual contemplation, where God is revealed as the lover madly in love with humanity, even a “beggar for love”, in the words of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. It then offers practical conclusions for assimilating this truth into daily life.
Introduction: When God Is Seized with Longing
At the heart of biblical revelation stands an image that astonishes the mind and overwhelms the heart: God Almighty, whose inward parts are stirred, whose bowels tremble, whose heart burns with grief for humanity. These are not empty rhetorical metaphors, but the very words chosen by the Holy Spirit to express a reality beyond the reach of human language: God’s affective bond with each one of us.
There is a deep spiritual obstacle preventing us from grasping this truth: we pass lightly over the divine phrase, “I created you in my image and likeness”, without pausing to weigh it. We hear that Eve is “bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh”, yet it scarcely moves us. And yet these biblical expressions proclaim something staggering: humanity is a magnet for God. Humanity is God’s counterpart and His very own flesh. God — if one may dare say it — is lost without us.
This study seeks to plunge into this theological treasure through four paths: first, the biblical root in the Old Testament; secondly, its full revelation in the New Testament; thirdly, its spiritual echo in the teaching of Saint Teresa of Avila; and fourthly, the depths of spiritual contemplation concerning the astonishing bond between God and humanity. It concludes with practical fruits that bring this truth into everyday life.
Firstly: The Bowels of God in the Old Testament — The Root of raḥamîm
1.1 The Linguistic Origin: From the Womb to Mercy
Anyone studying the Hebrew lexicon of the Old Testament encounters a striking linguistic surprise: the word expressing divine mercy, raḥamîm, is the intensive plural of reḥem, meaning “womb”. Mercy in Hebrew was not merely an abstract concept, but a living bodily image: the inward tenderness of a nursing mother, the warmth that enfolds the child in its weakest and most fragile moments.
In this linguistic choice lies a marvellous revelation: when God wished to reveal to humanity how He feels towards us, He did not first choose the image of a mighty king or a just judge, but the image of a mother carrying her child within her womb. It is as though He were saying: this is how I feel about you — in the deepest way feelings can exist.
1.2 Witnesses from the Old Testament
In Isaiah this imagery reaches its summit: “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands” (Isaiah 49:15–16). Here God not only borrows the image of a mother but surpasses it: a mother may forget, but He never forgets. The bond is deeper than any human attachment.
In Hosea, God unveils the intensity of this emotion with startling force: “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? … My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender” (Hosea 11:8). The Hebrew verb hāpak means “to overturn” or “to be convulsed” — the bowels turning within themselves through overwhelming emotion.
In the Psalms we read: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him” (Psalm 103:13). And in Jeremiah God speaks of Himself using the emphatic form raḥēm araḥamenu — “surely I will have mercy on him” (Jeremiah 31:20), where the infinitive preceding the verb intensifies and deepens the meaning.
What is striking is that these divine bowels do not arise from weakness or impotence, but from an excess of love. They are strength, not weakness; abundance, not poverty. God is not compelled to feel this way; He chooses it because humanity is precious in His sight, honoured and beloved (Isaiah 43:4).
Secondly: The Bowels of God in the New Testament — The Word Became Flesh That Is Moved
2.1 The Greek Language: σπλαγχνίζομαι
In the New Testament the Evangelists express divine inward emotion through the Greek verb σπλαγχνίζομαι (splagchnizomai), derived from σπλάγχνα, meaning “the inward parts” or “bowels”. It denotes a profound bodily stirring, an emotional upheaval in the depths of one’s being. It is no coincidence that the Evangelists choose precisely this verb to describe Jesus’ emotions towards humanity.
2.2 Jesus Sees the Crowds: The Bowels Are Moved
In Matthew 9:36 we read: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” This moment reveals something essential: the sight of human misery does not awaken in Jesus a cold pity, but an intense inward movement. The bowels — the seat of the deepest emotions — are stirred.
2.3 The Parable of the Good Samaritan: Mercy That Descends
In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:33), Saint Luke records that the Samaritan “saw him and was moved with compassion” (σπλαγχνίζομαι). Jesus is not merely giving a moral lesson; He is describing the very movement of God Himself: the One who passes by wounded humanity does not hurry on like the priest and Levite, but stops because His bowels are moved. This is God.
2.4 The Parable of the Father and the Prodigal Son: The Waiting Bowels
In the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32), the divine bowels reach their fullest manifestation. When the father sees his son “while he was still far off” — notice: before the son arrives, before he openly repents, before he finishes his speech — the Gospel says: “he was moved with compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him” [at length] (Luke 15:20). Note that the son hasn’t washed himself yet! The father here stands waiting for the absent one. His bowels are stirred from afar. God does not wait for us to become perfect before being moved by us — His emotion precedes our repentance.
2.5 Other Witnesses in the New Testament
Many other passages proclaim the same truth. When Jesus sees the widow of Nain carrying her dead son, the Gospel says: “he had compassion on her” (Luke 7:13). When He sees the crowds, the same emotion is stirred within Him (Matthew 9:36). At the feeding of the multitude: “I have compassion on the crowd” (Matthew 14:14). In the healing of the leper whom no one dared touch, Jesus touches him (Mark 1:41). Together these scenes paint a magnificent picture: Jesus does not heal from a distance, nor help from behind glass; His bowels are stirred, and He hastens towards broken humanity.
Nor can we pass over His cry upon the Cross: “I thirst” (John 19:28). The Fathers of the Church, among them St. Augustine, saw in this cry more than physical thirst: it is God thirsting to save humanity and draw it to Himself, bowels groaning with longing as salvation is accomplished.
Thirdly: The Echo of the Divine Bowels in the Experience of Saint Teresa of Avila
3.1 The Fifth Mansions and the Interior Transformation
In The Interior Castle, Saint Teresa of Avila describes the soul’s growth in God through seven mansions. Upon reaching the fifth mansions, representing an initial spiritual maturity and close to the “union of will”, she observes a striking phenomenon: the person begins to feel strange sufferings for others. Their inward parts are crushed with sorrow for those far from God.
This transformation is not merely a psychological emotion, but the fruit of the actual growth of grace within the soul. The more a person is united with God, the more he or she feels what God Himself feels towards the lost. The divine bowels become bowels within the soul united to Him. He gives it a being inflamed for the lost sheep.
O greatness of God! Only a few years before, and perhaps even a few days before, this soul was concerned with nothing but itself. Who has placed it into such painful concerns? For even if we were to spend many years in meditation, we would not be able to feel them as painfully as this soul now feels them. Indeed, God help me, if for many days and years I strive to exercise myself in considering the great evil that it is for God to be offended, and to reflect that those who are condemned are His children and my brothers, and on the dangers in which we live, and how right it is for us to leave this miserable life — will that not suffice? No, my daughters, the sorrow felt here is not like those sorrows here below. With the Lord’s favour, we could indeed have such sorrow by thinking much upon these things; but it does not reach the innermost depths of the entrails as it does here, where it seems to shred a soul and grind it down, without the soul seeking it, and at times even without wanting it.
What, then, is this? From where does it proceed? I shall tell you. Have you not heard — for I have already said it here before, although not for this purpose — about the Bride whom God brought into the wine cellar and in whom He ordered charity? Well, this is it: since that soul has already surrendered itself into His hands, and great love has so overcome it that it neither knows nor desires anything except that God may do with it whatever He wills (and, in my opinion, God never grants this favour except to a soul He already takes as wholly His own), He wills that, without the soul understanding how, it should come forth from there sealed with His seal. For truly, the soul there does no more than wax when another impresses the seal upon it; the wax does not impress itself, but is only disposed — that is, softened. And even for this disposition, it does not soften itself, but remains still and consents. O goodness of God, everything must come at Your expense! You ask only for our will, and that there be no obstacle in the wax. (Interior Castle, 5th Mansions, chapter 2,11-12)
3.2 The Importance of This Theological Witness
This Teresian witness teaches us two essential truths: firstly, that the divine bowels we see in Scripture are not a distant history, but a living reality transmitted to those united with God; and secondly, that the measure of depth in union with God is the capacity to suffer for those turned away from Him. The soul united with God becomes itself “bowels” in the world — melting into God’s love for humanity and becoming an instrument of its presence.
Fourthly: The Depths of Spiritual Contemplation — What Is Humanity in God’s Eyes?
4.1 Humanity Is a Magnet for God: Who Dares Understand This?
If we were truly to pause before the biblical phrase, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26), we would be struck with awe. Humanity is not merely a creature worshipping God from afar. Humanity is, if one may dare say it, of the same “substance” as God. Humanity springs forth from His knowledge, will, and love. Image and likeness do not signify external resemblance, but profound affinity. Humanity is the only place in the universe where something “resembles” God.
And of Eve it was said: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23). Isn’t Jesus, God, the New Adam?! St. Paul recalls these words to proclaim that the Church — redeemed humanity — is so in relation to Christ (Ephesians 5:30). Humanity is a part of God’s very own being. This is not metaphor. It is the proclamation of an ontological reality.
4.2 God Is “Lost” Without Us: A Necessary Theological Boldness
Here spiritual contemplation reaches its depths: God, self-sufficient and free from all need, has created a being capable of moving Him. This movement is not weakness, but the manifestation of perfect love. God does not “need” humanity from poverty, but longs for us from the superabundance of love. There is an immense and subtle difference between need and longing.
Love in its essence is an exodus from oneself and a dwelling in the other. This is the very nature of the Trinity: the Father loves the Son and dwells in Him, the Son loves the Father and dwells in Him, and the Holy Spirit is the breath of this indwelling love. When God created humanity in His image, He extended this mutual love beyond the divine life itself. Humanity thus became, within the sphere of God’s love, something infinitely precious.
For this reason the Incarnation was not a passing visit. It was not a king inspecting his subjects before departing again. Rather, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14) — placing His complete humanity into existence forever. This is divine passion and love, as expressed in the Song of Songs.
4.3 God Knocks Gently While His Heart Burns
In the Book of Revelation, the One standing at the door says: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20). This image is astonishing: God knocking at the human door. Not violently or coercively, but with longing and expectation. He knocks gently while His heart burns with thirst and desire. He is the One who asks, who waits, who suffers when the door is not opened.
Humanity does not understand itself in God’s eyes. We live as though we were merely numbers in a crowd, tiny pieces in a vast machine. Yet in God’s eyes each person is the whole person. God’s love for each one of us is excessive, complete, and undivided — as though no one else existed.
4.4 Saint Thérèse of Lisieux: “The Beggar for Love”
St. Thérèse of Lisieux described God with a phrase both daring and profound: He is “a beggar for love”. God begs for human hearts. He stands before humanity with outstretched hands saying: “Give me something of your love.” Not because He is poor, but because He desires a relationship that is free and real. The beloved does not desire fear, nor forced service, but a heart freely and joyfully given.
This image reveals one of theology’s deepest paradoxes: God Almighty places Himself before humanity in the position of one in need — not from poverty, but from an excess of love that desires reciprocity. And when humanity turns away from Him, God does not become a crushing power; His bowels are moved with grief and longing.
Practical Consequences: How Are We to Live This Truth?
If all this is true — and it is true — then it must transform our lives.
Firstly: Restoring the Image of God Within the Heart
Many of us carry within ourselves a distorted image of God: a harsh judge, a cold and indifferent being, or an absent God. Contemplating the bowels of God — as taught by Scripture and witnessed by the saints — is the first step towards restoring a living relationship with Him. One cannot truly love someone feared with servile fear. When you realise that His bowels are stirred with longing for you at this very moment, everything changes.
The whole work of the Holy Spirit within us, throughout the journey of purification and transformation, is directed towards restoring the Image of God in our hearts. It is therefore essential to allow Him to reshape and transform the image we carry or have constructed of Him.
A certain interior pliability is required, a becoming like wax in the hands of the mould, which allows the Word of the Holy Spirit to imprint itself within us. This also implies a real detachment from the old image, so as to receive the new one that He wishes to bestow upon us.
Secondly: Prayer as a Response to Divine Longing
When prayer becomes a response to God who knocks, rather than a religious performance, its entire meaning changes. God does not wait for us to come to Him perfect. He began by knocking. All that remains is for us to open the door. Even weak, distracted, fragmented prayer is an answer to the knocking of the divine bowels, and it consoles His heart.
Thirdly: A Transformation in the Understanding of Sin and Repentance
The father in the parable saw his son “while he was still far off”. This means God always sees us, even at the furthest point of our wandering. Repentance is not the appeasing of divine anger, but steps towards the Father who runs towards us. Sin grieves Him because it means our separation from Him, not because it wounds His pride. A true understanding of repentance removes fear and sets the person free.
Fourthly: Mission Towards Others — Carrying the Bowels of God
As St. Teresa of Avila taught, authentic spiritual growth causes the human person to bear within himself the bowels of God for those far from Him. The mature Christian does not become more distant from the world, but more wounded for its sake. His inward parts are crushed with sorrow because he now sees humanity through the eyes of God. This is the heart of the Gospel mission: we proclaim not a law, but bowels.
Fifthly: Human Dignity from a Divine Perspective
If God is so passionately attached to us, who are we to despise ourselves or despise others? In every human face there is the bearer of an image that moves the bowels of God. To look upon every person — even the poorest, weakest, or most sinful — according to the worth they possess in God’s eyes is a profound practical fruit of this theological contemplation.
Sixthly: Offering Oneself to Merciful Love as Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus Did
Reading her account of the Act in Story of a Soul, final manuscript A (see here).
Making the Act itself of Oblation to the Merciful Love of God (see here)
Conclusion: Bowels Waiting for the Doors to Be Opened
Through this journey from the Old Testament to the depths of spiritual contemplation, one truth unfolds ever more deeply and widely: God is moved by humanity with an emotion unlike anything in human experience. His bowels are stirred, His inward parts tremble, His heart burns. This is not weakness but the power of love. Not deficiency, but the overflow of perfection.
From the Psalms of Hebrew faith to the streets of Nain, from the roads of Jericho to the threshold of Teresa’s Interior Castle, from the bowels of the Good Samaritan to the tears shed before the tomb of Lazarus, from the cry “I thirst” upon the Cross to the sound of knocking at the door of every heart — God Himself repeats the same truth in many languages: I love you with a love that causes my bowels to be stirred.
And St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who discovered that her place in the heart of the Church was “love”, concluded with an insight overflowing with warmth: this all-powerful God has chosen to stand before us as a “beggar for love”. He stretches out His hand and asks. The only remaining question is: will we give Him our love?
Read also
– God’s Overwhelming Love For Us
– The Revelation of God’s Love
– You Shall be my Segullah, Towards a Nuptial Theology of the Covenant
– With All Your Meʾōd, the First Commandment and the Theology of Passionate Love
– The Goal of Our Life is Union With Christ
– “God is Much Better Than You Believe”
– Christ The Groom, What Does it Mean?
– Dwelling in the Cross’ Sanctuary
– The Revelation of the Our Father
– God’s Eros for the Human Being
– Purification of the Bride-to-be
– Why the Cross? Why All This Suffering?
– Christ, the Unifying Principle of Human Life
– The Human Being as God’s Dwelling Place: A Theology of Sacred Indwelling