It is by no means only our individual experience which reveals the God of love.  Our experiences are subject to all kinds of error.  In the final analysis it is only the revelation of God which makes it possible for us to believe in a God of love and allows us to open ourselves to God.  God's Self was first revealed as love to a nation freely chosen by God.  Later God's love was revealed in a unique way in Jesus Christ, God's "Son".  At the same time it is also true that we do not have to "believe" blindly in this revelation like a child in school told to believe that the earth revolves around the sun.  We are only able to really believe this message of revelation when it resonates in us, when we know in the center of our being that what has been said is true.  The more vividly our experiences of God are grounded in life, the deeper we are opened to God's revelation as testified in the Scriptures.  On the other hand, the more we open ourselves not only with our head but with our entire being to the message of the Scriptures the more clearly we recognize our life story as a mirror image of this revelation.  Here "mirror image" is undersood literally.  A mirror can reflect only as long as it stands directly before what it is to reflect.

In revelation God speaks his [her] mind.  Speaking one's own mind is a person to person happening of entrusting one's self to another with receptivity and openness.  This means receiving and listening to the Word in which God speaks his [her] mind, in which God reveals the central mystery of divine love.  To meditate on that is the goal of the fifth week of exercises.  All the meditations of the week together with the different ways God has been revealed to humankind as the God of love can be summed up in two questions:

- What kind of a God does such things? ... .
- Who are we that we can experience now in this life a glimpse of these things? ... .