—C.S. Lewis
Friday 6 November 2015
Protecting your Heart
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. ... Christ did not teach and suffer that we might become, even in the natural loves, more careful of our own happiness… We shall draw nearer to God not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in our lives, but by accepting them and offering them to him; throwing away all defensive armor. If our hearts need to be broken, and if he chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it.
Wednesday 28 October 2015
The dance of obedience
To be a good dancer,
with you as with anyone else, it's not necessary
That we know where it will lead.
We only need to follow,
To be cheerful,
To be light,
And above all not to be stiff.
We don't have to ask you for explanations
About the steps that you choose to take.
We need to be like an extension of yourself,
Quick and alive,
And pick up the rhythm of the music through you.
We must not desire to push ahead at all costs,
But allow ourselves to be spun, to be moved to the side.
We have to know how to pause and slide, and not walk.
And the steps would be rather clumsy
If they were not in harmony with the music.
But we tend to forget the music of your spirit,
And we turn our life into a gymnastic exercise;
We forget that, in your arms, life is something to be danced,
That your Holy Will
Is inconceivably creative,
And all monotony and boredom
Is left to the old souls
Who play the wallflower
In the joyful ball of your love.
Lord, come ask us to dance.
We're ready to dance this errand for you,
These accounts to do, this dinner to prepare, this vigil to keep
When we would prefer to sleep.
We're ready to dance for you the dance of work,
The dance of heat, and later the dance of cold.
If certain melodies are often played in the minor key, we won't tell you
That they're sad;
If others leave us a little breathless, we won't tell you
That they knock the wind out of us.
And if other people bump into us, we'll take it with a good laugh,
Knowing well that that's the sort of thing that happens when you're dancing.
Lord, teach us precisely where,
In this endless novel
Which has begun to unfold between you and us,
The peculiar ball of our obedience takes place.
Strike up the great orchestra of your designs
Wherein everything you allow
Sends its strange music
Into the peace of your will.
Teach us every day to dress
Our human condition
In the dancing gown you love to have us wear
Adorned with all its details, like so many priceless jewels.
Make us live our life
Not like a game of chess, where every move is calculated,
Not like a contest, where everything is difficult,
Not like a math problem, which makes our head hurt,
But like an endless celebration, where our meeting with you is
constantly new.
Like a ball,
Like a dance,
In the arms of your grace,
In the universal music of love,
Lord, ask us to dance.
Madeleine Delbrel. We, the Ordinary People of the Streets (Ressourcement: Retrieval & Renewal in Catholic Thought) (Kindle Locations 956-971). Kindle Edition.
Wednesday 12 August 2015
The gift given in silence is His heart. To receive it I need a
space- a throne, shaped to a Heart. So my own heart must be empty, a
heart shaped emptiness. My heart is pierced to be capable of accepting
the thorns crowning His. My wounds must open and fit to the wounds he
bears, I must be hollowed, consumed, emptied to hold the Flame of his
love.
And he will not rest until my heart is ready for His. Until his heart beats in mine. Closer, every advance carving, shaping the space he needs.
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him Gen 1:27
I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. Ps 139:14
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus Eph 2:10
The sword that pierces his heart cuts into mine as he draws closer. His thirst draws my thirst, his love carving a cavern that only Love can fill. To have his heart I must have his passion- accompany him into surrender, into emptiness, into silence. With faith. His faith alive in me, carving the throne of His heart in my own.
To receive, I must be empty. A space must be within me. To receive God, a great and sacred space must exist, a silence. A silent space carved in prayer, joy, tears, emptiness, love. The vines of the garden pruned, the dethroning of treasured things that he will replace.
Trust in the carving, expose your heart constantly to his hand. Welcome his touch, his cut, his silence.
And he will not rest until my heart is ready for His. Until his heart beats in mine. Closer, every advance carving, shaping the space he needs.
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him Gen 1:27
I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. Ps 139:14
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus Eph 2:10
The sword that pierces his heart cuts into mine as he draws closer. His thirst draws my thirst, his love carving a cavern that only Love can fill. To have his heart I must have his passion- accompany him into surrender, into emptiness, into silence. With faith. His faith alive in me, carving the throne of His heart in my own.
To receive, I must be empty. A space must be within me. To receive God, a great and sacred space must exist, a silence. A silent space carved in prayer, joy, tears, emptiness, love. The vines of the garden pruned, the dethroning of treasured things that he will replace.
Trust in the carving, expose your heart constantly to his hand. Welcome his touch, his cut, his silence.
Monday 1 June 2015
Noli me tangere...
'But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her,“Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic,“Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” Mary Magdalene went
and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had
said these things to her.
John 20:11-18
In the dark the dawn comes and with angst I search.
Exhausted, empty... fearing.... And he is not there.
I am decimated.
A morning whisper in the dark longing...
Desire. Wordless whisper,
"My kiss from above is my promise.
"Trust.
Let go and give me your bare and empty hands, your waiting heart.
The soul I know cannot be filled by any other.
A moment of Tabor at the tomb....
An ocean filling the emptiness carved to hold only him... For a moment...
In the dark the dawn comes and with angst I search.
Exhausted, empty... fearing.... And he is not there.
I am decimated.
A morning whisper in the dark longing...
My name... wordlessly, with a gaze from his soul into mine.
An embrace of heaven.
My name, who I am from before I was created in my mother's womb,
known.
Enfolding me in his eyes, and I am naked and unashamed.
I am seen and loved as only he sees me and loves me.
The passionate love of mercy for misery,
who looks at me and names me with the name I know that only he knows,
that only he can pronounce...
"You are precious in my sight and honoured and I love you" Is 43:4
Gazing in him gazing in me,
knowing joy in His beauty,
his goodness, his love,
his fidelity.
My name, who I am from before I was created in my mother's womb,
known.
Enfolding me in his eyes, and I am naked and unashamed.
I am seen and loved as only he sees me and loves me.
The passionate love of mercy for misery,
who looks at me and names me with the name I know that only he knows,
that only he can pronounce...
"You are precious in my sight and honoured and I love you" Is 43:4
Gazing in him gazing in me,
knowing joy in His beauty,
his goodness, his love,
his fidelity.
A gaze lasting an eternal moment
A smile, a tear, a kiss, a touch, a union....
That only heaven can hold.
"Noli me tangere...
Noli me tangere..."
Not a rebuke, but a whispered promise of love within an embrace,
Spoken in ineffable silence.
In tenderness
In longing
In holy peace.
In holy peace.
A love to be known in heaven.
A union only tasted here and in tasting deepens thirst.
A union only tasted here and in tasting deepens thirst.
Noli me tangere... A vow...
That I am his and he is mine,
That there is more,
that heaven will be our together home at the break of the eternal dawn,
but now...rest in me resting in you.
That I am his and he is mine,
That there is more,
that heaven will be our together home at the break of the eternal dawn,
but now...rest in me resting in you.
Desire. Wordless whisper,
"Rest in silence and solitude,
and every moment wait at the open tomb for me to call your name.
and every moment wait at the open tomb for me to call your name.
For the momentary visit of eternal love.
Noli me tangere... Now...
But desire me with all your heart, your tears, your broken alabaster jars,
Your hunger and thirst.
One day we will be one
In heaven."
"My kiss from above is my promise.
I desire the day and I will never leave you alone....
For now, noli me tangere...."
"Trust.
Let go and give me your bare and empty hands, your waiting heart.
The soul I know cannot be filled by any other.
Open your arms, your soul... To the promise of heaven
To me in new ways,
To be vulnerable and empty of the world, to love, waiting for me, always open to me. Trusting me.
I Will not leave you... But my love... Today, noli me tangere...
Until tomorrow and eternity."
A moment of Tabor at the tomb....
An ocean filling the emptiness carved to hold only him... For a moment...
A moment that cuts my heart more deeply, widened to be more empty and more open to more of him.
Noli me tangere... carves a space in me larger than myself, than my horizons, widening my heart to hold eternity Himself.
Wednesday 27 May 2015
The divinization of our passivity
"the passive parts of our lives are immeasurably wider and deeper than the active."
Part of emptiness, part of poverty, is passivity. Passivity that says yes and loves in each moment God brings me to. Poverty that 'goes where I do not want to go' like Peter, with love. Poverty of Christ chained in the garden and led to his trial.
Poverty is not doing more, it's abandoning. It's being and doing His Will as he reveals it- not as I plan it according to my liking. The only thing I have control over is how much love I live His will with. In the moment, which is his will, love.
The sacrament of the present moment is the divinization of us in our passivity. It is the Kingdom come.
What better guarantee of the presence of God than a life lived in love according to His will, not my own?
How long will I fight this like Jonah, like Martha, like Peter, before my FIAT is natural and constant.
Passivity... passion... our suffering... our accepting of experience undergoing the life He gives instead of forging my own... our letting God work, divinizes us by letting him live in me.
Be an apostle of his will, his love, not my own. and be at peace. he in I and my joy complete.
There is still so much selfishness in my love, in my desire to live love. In the wrestling of His will and my will disguised as His. How patient he is with me. How he loves me.
Lord, make me remember.... in every experience, in every day...
At every moment He tells me the same thing, "I love you, love me." -Cum Clamore Valido
HOSPITALLAND AND THE DIVINIZATION OF ONE’S PASSIVITIES
by Fr. Robert BarronMay 26, 201513 Comments
Last week I spent six days at a place only about a ten-minute drive from my home, but I had, nevertheless, entered a country as “foreign” to my experience as Botswana or Katmandu. You see, I had taken up residence in Hospitalland. I will spare you all of the gory details, but I was brought in for an emergency appendectomy and then had to undergo a second surgery, due to complications. As a priest, of course, I had visited Hospitalland many times, but I had never actually lived in it for an extended period. Hospitalland has its own completely unique rhythms, customs, language, and semiotic systems. Adjusting to it, consequently, is as complex an undertaking as adjusting to Vienna, Paris, or Tokyo.
For example, the normal rhythm of day and night is interrupted and overturned in Hospitalland. You are only vaguely aware of the movement of the sun across the sky, and people come barging into your room as regularly at two in the morning as two in the afternoon. I found myself frequently asking visitors not only the time of day, but also whether it was morning or evening. Relatedly, the usual distinctions between public and private simply evanesce in Hospitalland. As my mother told me many years ago, upon returning from a long visit to that country, "When you enter the hospital, you place your modesty in a little bag and leave it by the door. Then you pick it up when you go home.” Nurses, nursing aides, medical students, doctors, surgeons, tech assistants—all of them have license to look over any part of your anatomy, pretty much whenever they want. At first, I was appalled by this, but after a few days, I more or less acquiesced: “Anyone else out there that would like to take a look?” Hospitalland has its own very distinctive language, largely conditioned by numbers: blood pressure rates, temperature, hemoglobin counts, etc. It was actually a little bit funny how quickly I began to banter with the nurses and doctors in this arcane jargon.
But for me the characteristic of Hospitalland is passivity. When you pass through the doors of the hospital, you simply hand your life over to other people. They transport you, clean you, test you, make you wait for results (an excruciating form of psychological torture, by the way), tell you what you have to undergo next, poke you, prod you, take blood out of you, and cut into you. And when you are at your wits' end, frustrated beyond words, so eager to get home that you can taste it, you have to wait for them to give you permission to leave. You place your modesty in a little bag by the door when you enter the hospital, and you put your autonomy in that same container.
And this is of more than merely psychological interest. It has, indeed, far-reaching spiritual implications. As I lay on my back in Hospitalland, a phrase kept coming unbidden into my mind: “the divinization of one’s passivities.” This is a line from one of the great spiritual works of the twentieth century, The Divine Milieu by the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In that seminal text, Teilhard famously distinguished between the divinization of one’s activities and the divinization of one’s passivities. The former is a noble spiritual move, consisting in the handing over of one’s achievements and accomplishments to the purposes of God. A convinced Jesuit, Teilhard desired to devote all that he did (and he did a lot) ad majorem Dei gloriam (to the greater glory of God). But this attitude, Teilhard felt, came nowhere near the spiritual power of divinizing one’s passivities. By this he meant the handing over of one’s suffering to God, the surrendering to the Lord of those things that are done to us, those things over which we have no control. We become sick; a loved one dies suddenly; we lose a job; a much-desired position goes to someone else; we are unfairly criticized; we find ourselves, unexpectedly, in the valley of the shadow of death. These experiences lead some people to despair, but the spiritually alert person should see them as a particularly powerful way to come to union with God. A Christian would readily speak here of participating in the cross of Christ. Indeed how strange that the central icon of the Christian faith is not of some great achievement or activity, but rather of something rather horrible being done to a person. The point is that suffering, offered to God, allows the Lord to work his purpose out with unsurpassed power.
In some ways, Teilhard’s distinction is an echo of St. John of the Cross’s distinction between the “active” and “passive” nights of the soul. For the great Spanish master, the dark night has nothing to do with psychological depression, but rather with a pruning away of attachments that keep one from complete union with God. This pruning can take a conscious and intentional form (the active night) or it can be something endured. In a word, we can rid ourselves of attachments—or God can do it for us. The latter, St. John thinks, is far more powerful and cleansing than the former.
I do believe that my stay in the foreign country of Hospitalland had a good deal to do with the divinization of my passivities and with the passive night of the soul. I certainly wouldn’t actively seek to go back to that land, but perhaps God might send me there again. May I have the grace to accept it as a gift.
Sunday 24 May 2015
“Stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high.”
Jesus promises the sending of the Holy Spirit: “Stay in the
city, until you are clothed with power from on high.” This staying and
waiting is to give them a full sense of human impotence, the permanent
condition of human beings until God bestows something of his own Being on us.
The image of being “clothed with power” is eloquent. It hearkens back to
Genesis and the human sense of nakedness and shame because of sin, and it
evokes God’s clothing of Adam and Eve with leather garments out of compassion,
in order to conceal his creatures’ shame for the time being. But this promised
clothing now is different, since it implies an imparting of God’s own power and
life. Nor is this just any kind of concealing, but rather, paradoxically, a
very radical revealing. After the Father has raised Jesus from the dead and
created a new Adam in Christ, that re-creation through grace is extended step
by step to all believers, so that whatever has happened to Christ is now going
to happen to us.
Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, The Way of the Disciple
Taizé - Veni Sancte Spiritus
Veni Sancte Spiritus
Come Holy Spirit,
from heaven shine forth
with your glorius light.
Veni Sacte Spiritus
from heaven shine forth
with your glorius light.
Veni Sacte Spiritus
Toi, le parfait consolateur,
merveilleuse fraîcheur.
Dans notre âme, Tu fais habiter la paix.
Dans la peine, Tu es le repos,
dans l'épreuve, la force,
dans la tristesse, la consolation.
merveilleuse fraîcheur.
Dans notre âme, Tu fais habiter la paix.
Dans la peine, Tu es le repos,
dans l'épreuve, la force,
dans la tristesse, la consolation.
Veni Sancte SpiritusVen, dulce huésped del alma,
descanso de nuestro esfuerzo,
tregua en el duro trabajo,
brisa en las horas de fuego,
gozo que enjuga las lágrimas
y reconforta en los duelos.
Veni Sancte Spiritus
You are our only comforter,
peace of the soul.
In the heat you shade us,
in our labour you refresh us
and in trouble you are our strength.
You are our only comforter,
peace of the soul.
In the heat you shade us,
in our labour you refresh us
and in trouble you are our strength.
Wednesday 13 May 2015
Absence and Presence
Sometimes God's absence is his Presence...
In it he carves out in me a deeper desire,
and a deeper capacity to receive him and be filled by him,
to belong more to him, and him to me.
Jesus, my God,
The gifts are beautiful. The bouquets of love, smiles, friendships, family, joys... fragrant, bright, exquisite... The love letters you send me in the sunshine, the trees, the poetry around me...
But it's not enough. With all gratitude but with an unfulfilled and aching heart I beg, give me yourself. Your beautiful gifts make me want to share them with you.... in you... and some how increse the pain of your absence. I want to share a life with you, share a heart with you. I want you, Lord....
In it he carves out in me a deeper desire,
and a deeper capacity to receive him and be filled by him,
to belong more to him, and him to me.
Jesus, my God,
The gifts are beautiful. The bouquets of love, smiles, friendships, family, joys... fragrant, bright, exquisite... The love letters you send me in the sunshine, the trees, the poetry around me...
But it's not enough. With all gratitude but with an unfulfilled and aching heart I beg, give me yourself. Your beautiful gifts make me want to share them with you.... in you... and some how increse the pain of your absence. I want to share a life with you, share a heart with you. I want you, Lord....
Give me perfectly Yourself,
Send me no more
A messenger
Who cannot tell me what I wish.
Monday 11 May 2015
In the emptiness is presence. In the desire is the fulfillment. The nothing is where he gives all.
It seems to me...
On the cross he said "I thirst". In his thirst was the fullness of love. Emptiness is presence in the way that air fills the lungs. Were it not there, it would be filled by something else... Were love not present, the desire would be quenched by something less. Love desired, burns a deeper desire. my thirst is joined by Thirst. Unquecnhed, but unquenched fulfilled.
Christ was empty. He thirsted for love and to love. The will of the Father is what he thirsted for, and what consumed him. In his thirst is the consummation.
Emptiness pulls all else out of my weak heart like searing heat consumes all hidden moisture, all hidden comfort. In my thirsting, he puts love where he finds no love. He burns away what prevents thirst to the bone and burns into me a thirst that is only quenched as it is unquenchable.
That is the mystery & fecundity of emptiness. Of thirst. The living water thirsts on the cross, he fills and quenches. To be one with him is to be filled and quenched, to fill and quench... and to thirst.
The hunger of the Bread of Life, the thirst of the Living Water, the dying of life himself. There is nothing that remains on our journey in Him but Love.
He asked so much of Mary Magdelene... her shame, her thirst, her alabaster jars, her fidelity, her night, her emptiness. And he loved her. As he loved her, she thirsted more until she was at the point of dying in the morning at the tomb... Dying of a love she couldn't cling to. To go on to hold all things loosely, but always give love. Give love while all else falls from your hands, give love from an empty dark heart. In the desert allow the spring of living water, the Thirst of God, to flow and to quench even as you die of dryness. Noli me tangere.... but love.
Love from the darkness, from and in His darkness, in the darkness of a world lost where his heart is present. He is with Him in his passion, his night, Show them he is there by a faith that dares joy. Suffering with them... thirsting to love. Be faithful to the one who thirsts in your emptiness, to the burning heart that loves in darkness. The light meant to illuminate the night. Salt and light are love. Be present in your mundane, in your darkness, in suffering with those who suffer... but with love.
It seems to me...
On the cross he said "I thirst". In his thirst was the fullness of love. Emptiness is presence in the way that air fills the lungs. Were it not there, it would be filled by something else... Were love not present, the desire would be quenched by something less. Love desired, burns a deeper desire. my thirst is joined by Thirst. Unquecnhed, but unquenched fulfilled.
Christ was empty. He thirsted for love and to love. The will of the Father is what he thirsted for, and what consumed him. In his thirst is the consummation.
Emptiness pulls all else out of my weak heart like searing heat consumes all hidden moisture, all hidden comfort. In my thirsting, he puts love where he finds no love. He burns away what prevents thirst to the bone and burns into me a thirst that is only quenched as it is unquenchable.
That is the mystery & fecundity of emptiness. Of thirst. The living water thirsts on the cross, he fills and quenches. To be one with him is to be filled and quenched, to fill and quench... and to thirst.
The hunger of the Bread of Life, the thirst of the Living Water, the dying of life himself. There is nothing that remains on our journey in Him but Love.
He asked so much of Mary Magdelene... her shame, her thirst, her alabaster jars, her fidelity, her night, her emptiness. And he loved her. As he loved her, she thirsted more until she was at the point of dying in the morning at the tomb... Dying of a love she couldn't cling to. To go on to hold all things loosely, but always give love. Give love while all else falls from your hands, give love from an empty dark heart. In the desert allow the spring of living water, the Thirst of God, to flow and to quench even as you die of dryness. Noli me tangere.... but love.
Love from the darkness, from and in His darkness, in the darkness of a world lost where his heart is present. He is with Him in his passion, his night, Show them he is there by a faith that dares joy. Suffering with them... thirsting to love. Be faithful to the one who thirsts in your emptiness, to the burning heart that loves in darkness. The light meant to illuminate the night. Salt and light are love. Be present in your mundane, in your darkness, in suffering with those who suffer... but with love.
As you piercingly cry out to him,
as you seek Him out, the Provider of
happiness,
the Giver of joy, the Riches that last and subsist forever,
while He
tests your will,
see to it that you do not grow discouraged, my soul,
that you do not turn back,
that you do not say:
"How long will he remain so incomprehensible to me?"
that you do not say: "Why, when he has just appeared, does he again
hide himself?
How long yet will He heap troubles upon me instead of mercy?"
That you do not say: "How can I undergo until the end such crosses?"
But do not shrink back, O my soul, in seeking the Master,
but as a soul which has once and for all given itself over to its own
death,
do not grope to seek your own ease,
do not seek out glory,
nor the
pleasure of the body,
nor the affections of the neighbors. Do not look at all to the right nor to the left,
but, as you have begun,
so even run more ardently!
Make haste always to apprehend, to seize the Master!
As often as He should disappear, even 10,000 times, likewise
10,000 times He will appear to you
and thus He who cannot be grasped
will be grasped by you.
10,000 times, or rather as long as you still breathe,
seek with greater
ardor to run towards him!
For He will not forsake you, He will not forget you.
Little by little, nay, He will even show Himself more and more.
And the more frequently, my soul, the Master will be present to you,
and after having perfectly purified you by the radiance of His light,
He Himself, the Creator of the world, will be with you.
He Himself will be with you, the Creator of the world.
And you will have real riches such as the world does not possess,
but such as Heaven and those who are inscribed there possess.
If such will be yours, tell me, what more do you desire?
SAINT SYMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN
Wednesday 6 May 2015
A Voice Praying in the Desert
There has been a lot said about "the desert of love"
Love seeks the desert because the desert is where man is handed over to God, stripped bare of his country, his friends, his fields, his home. In the desert, a person neither possesses what he loves, nor is he possessed by those who love him; he is totally submitted to God in an immense and intimate encounter.
That is why in every age the Holy Spirit has compelled all lovers to seek the desert.
We, missionaries without a boat, are seized by the same love and led by the same Spirit into new deserts.
From a sand dune, dressed in white, the missionary overlooks an expanse of lands filled with unbaptized peoples. From the top of a long subway staircase, dressed in an ordinary suit or raincoat, we overlook, on each step, during this busy rush-hour time, an expanse of heads, of bustling tling heads, waiting for the door to open. Caps, berets, hats, and hair of every color. Hundreds of heads - hundreds of souls. And there we stand, above.
And above us, and everywhere, is God.
God is everywhere - and how many souls even take notice?
In a moment, when the subway doors open, we'll climb aboard. We'll see faces, foreheads, eyes, and mouths. Mouths of lonely people, in their natural state: some greedy, some impure, some malicious; some mouths that hunger, some filled with every earthly sustenance, but few - very few - that bear the form of the Gospel.
Once we arrive at our station, we will surface into the dark, breathe the night air, and go down the street that leads home.
In the fog, the rain, or the moonlight, we will pass by other people. We will overhear them talking about their purchases, about butter, about money, about promotions, about fear, about quarrels - but hardly ever about the one we love.
To the right, to the left, stand darkened houses with tiny cracks of light, announcing that there are people alive in all this blackness.
We can well imagine what they are doing. They are constructing their fragile joys, bearing their long suffering, doing some good, doing much that is sinful.
We cannot help wonder how little light there would be if a light shined only for each person in prayer.
Yes, we have our deserts - and love leads us into them.
The same Spirit that leads our white-robed brothers and sisters into their deserts, also leads our beating heart down the turbulent stairways, into the subways, and up again to the darkened streets.
We do not envy our religious brothers and sisters.
In this crowd, heart against heart, crushed between so many bodies, on the seat we share with these three strangers, in the darkened street, our heart beats like a fist closed upon a bird.
The Holy Spirit, the whole Holy Spirit in our tiny heart, a love great as God is beating within us, like a moiling sea struggling to break out, to spread out, to penetrate into all these closed-up creatures, into all these impermeable souls.
To be able to pace every street, to sit in every metro, climb up every staircase, carry the Lord God to all places: we are certain to find a soul here or there that has preserved her human fragility before the grace of God, a soul that has forgotten to armor herself in gold or concrete.
And we can pray, pray just as they pray in all the other deserts, pray for all these people so close to us, so close to God.
A desert of people. We can plunge into the crowd as if plunging into the white desert sands.
A crowded desert, a desert of love.
The nakedness of real love.
And we do not miss the countryside, or the friend who would understand stand what we have on our hearts,or the quiet hour in the corner of a church, or the favorite book left at home.
The desert is where we become love's prey.
Won't this love that dwells in us, that explodes in us, also transform us?
Lord, Lord, let the thick skin that covers me not be a hindrance to you. Pass through it. My eyes, my hands, my mouth are yours.
This sad lady in front of me: here is my mouth for you to smile at her.
This child so pale he's almost gray: here are my eyes for you to gaze at him.
This man so tired, so weary: here is my body so that you may give him my seat, here is my voice so that you may say softly to him, "Please sit down."
This smug young man, so dull, so hard: here is my heart, that you may love him, more strongly than he has ever been loved before.
Missions to the desert, unfailing missions, sure missions, missions in which we sow God in the midst of the world, certain that, somewhere, he will take root, for: "There where love is lacking, put love, and you will reap love."
by Servant of God, Madeleine Delbrel. We, the Ordinary People of the Streets (Ressourcement: Retrieval & Renewal in Catholic Thought) (Kindle Locations 818-824). Kindle Edition.
Love seeks the desert because the desert is where man is handed over to God, stripped bare of his country, his friends, his fields, his home. In the desert, a person neither possesses what he loves, nor is he possessed by those who love him; he is totally submitted to God in an immense and intimate encounter.
That is why in every age the Holy Spirit has compelled all lovers to seek the desert.
We, missionaries without a boat, are seized by the same love and led by the same Spirit into new deserts.
From a sand dune, dressed in white, the missionary overlooks an expanse of lands filled with unbaptized peoples. From the top of a long subway staircase, dressed in an ordinary suit or raincoat, we overlook, on each step, during this busy rush-hour time, an expanse of heads, of bustling tling heads, waiting for the door to open. Caps, berets, hats, and hair of every color. Hundreds of heads - hundreds of souls. And there we stand, above.
And above us, and everywhere, is God.
God is everywhere - and how many souls even take notice?
In a moment, when the subway doors open, we'll climb aboard. We'll see faces, foreheads, eyes, and mouths. Mouths of lonely people, in their natural state: some greedy, some impure, some malicious; some mouths that hunger, some filled with every earthly sustenance, but few - very few - that bear the form of the Gospel.
Once we arrive at our station, we will surface into the dark, breathe the night air, and go down the street that leads home.
In the fog, the rain, or the moonlight, we will pass by other people. We will overhear them talking about their purchases, about butter, about money, about promotions, about fear, about quarrels - but hardly ever about the one we love.
To the right, to the left, stand darkened houses with tiny cracks of light, announcing that there are people alive in all this blackness.
We can well imagine what they are doing. They are constructing their fragile joys, bearing their long suffering, doing some good, doing much that is sinful.
We cannot help wonder how little light there would be if a light shined only for each person in prayer.
Yes, we have our deserts - and love leads us into them.
The same Spirit that leads our white-robed brothers and sisters into their deserts, also leads our beating heart down the turbulent stairways, into the subways, and up again to the darkened streets.
We do not envy our religious brothers and sisters.
In this crowd, heart against heart, crushed between so many bodies, on the seat we share with these three strangers, in the darkened street, our heart beats like a fist closed upon a bird.
The Holy Spirit, the whole Holy Spirit in our tiny heart, a love great as God is beating within us, like a moiling sea struggling to break out, to spread out, to penetrate into all these closed-up creatures, into all these impermeable souls.
To be able to pace every street, to sit in every metro, climb up every staircase, carry the Lord God to all places: we are certain to find a soul here or there that has preserved her human fragility before the grace of God, a soul that has forgotten to armor herself in gold or concrete.
And we can pray, pray just as they pray in all the other deserts, pray for all these people so close to us, so close to God.
A desert of people. We can plunge into the crowd as if plunging into the white desert sands.
A crowded desert, a desert of love.
The nakedness of real love.
And we do not miss the countryside, or the friend who would understand stand what we have on our hearts,or the quiet hour in the corner of a church, or the favorite book left at home.
The desert is where we become love's prey.
Won't this love that dwells in us, that explodes in us, also transform us?
Lord, Lord, let the thick skin that covers me not be a hindrance to you. Pass through it. My eyes, my hands, my mouth are yours.
This sad lady in front of me: here is my mouth for you to smile at her.
This child so pale he's almost gray: here are my eyes for you to gaze at him.
This man so tired, so weary: here is my body so that you may give him my seat, here is my voice so that you may say softly to him, "Please sit down."
This smug young man, so dull, so hard: here is my heart, that you may love him, more strongly than he has ever been loved before.
Missions to the desert, unfailing missions, sure missions, missions in which we sow God in the midst of the world, certain that, somewhere, he will take root, for: "There where love is lacking, put love, and you will reap love."
by Servant of God, Madeleine Delbrel. We, the Ordinary People of the Streets (Ressourcement: Retrieval & Renewal in Catholic Thought) (Kindle Locations 818-824). Kindle Edition.
Recognize and embrace the bridegroom who is with you always...
Learn to see him in every moment, present,
Whether....
Christ in Mary's womb,
Christ the child
Christ lost in Jerusalem
Christ at Cana,
Christ calling the apostles
Christ the Healer
Christ the Teacher
Christ the friend
Christ the servant
Christ the king
Christ crowned with thorns
Christ scourged
Christ in prison
Christ alone
Christ in agony
Christ carrying the cross
Christ walking on water
Christ broken and given,
Christ risen
Christ ascended
...
Christ of Tabor or
Christ Crucified.
Tuesday 28 April 2015
Noli me tangere...
Noli me tangere...
Because you cling to me from fear when I want to embrace you in love.
Because you hold on to me externally, the only way you have yet known me, but I will enfold you from the inside from the depth of your soul.
Because I want you to know my love in new and eternal ways and you hold onto what is passing
Because I will hold you forever and you must let go to know my faithfulness.
Because I have you carved in my hand
Because I love you with an everlasting love
Because you hold onto what you can understand and I AM more.
Because we will be one together with the Father.
Because to know my mercy, you must know your weakness and let go of your security
Because the grip of trusting me with empty hands is stronger than grasping me in ways that you can feel and hold.
Because you cling to me from fear when I want to embrace you in love.
Because you hold on to me externally, the only way you have yet known me, but I will enfold you from the inside from the depth of your soul.
Because I want you to know my love in new and eternal ways and you hold onto what is passing
Because I will hold you forever and you must let go to know my faithfulness.
Because I have you carved in my hand
Because I love you with an everlasting love
Because you hold onto what you can understand and I AM more.
Because we will be one together with the Father.
Because to know my mercy, you must know your weakness and let go of your security
Because the grip of trusting me with empty hands is stronger than grasping me in ways that you can feel and hold.
Prayer
You speak my name Lord,
You see me, You know me,
You pull back the veil to let me see you.
I am naked and unashamed, covered by Mercy.
Gazing into your eyes as you gaze in to me,
rejoicing in your beauty
together.
You are the garden we walk in
You fill me and surround me
I breathe your breath,
Your heart beat is mine
All I can do is love you.
You are the ocean of joy and
I am rain falling into you, absorbed into you
into your joy
your love.
You are
Ineffable beauty
Unending depth
Limitless sky
Undying flame
Beautiful mercy
I am
your tabernacle
your chalice
your garden
your rest
yours
You see me, You know me,
You pull back the veil to let me see you.
I am naked and unashamed, covered by Mercy.
Gazing into your eyes as you gaze in to me,
rejoicing in your beauty
together.
You are the garden we walk in
You fill me and surround me
I breathe your breath,
Your heart beat is mine
All I can do is love you.
You are the ocean of joy and
I am rain falling into you, absorbed into you
into your joy
your love.
You are
Ineffable beauty
Unending depth
Limitless sky
Undying flame
Beautiful mercy
I am
your tabernacle
your chalice
your garden
your rest
yours
"To be mine, lose yourself in me."
I begin to see that in faith he is near.
That is his presence. Faith that believes in darkness is Christ giving me himself.
Hope that trusts in unknowing, not longing for the past not fearing the future, is Christ giving me himself.
Love in darkness is what makes it a night of warmth, of encounter. Love in darkness is Christ's gift of self, his truly sharing my life in His, in Union.
What has seemed so empty has never been empty, as Christ's own heart believes, hopes and loves in mine. Why can I not see him? Because he is sharing one life with me, because at these moments, it is not I who live but Christ who lives in me. The union is not the union of being beside someone but of being one with them.
He hollows and carves with desire and longing and emptiness so he can fill with himself.
Glorious wounds
Resurrected wounds,
Beautiful wounds,
Triumphant wounds.
Vulnerable wounds,
Pleading wounds,
Screaming wounds,
Silent wounds,
Wounds that will never close.
Welcoming wounds,
Wounds that hold your love,
Wounds that lavish your love.
Forgiving wounds,
Healing wounds,
Everlasting wounds,
my name carved in your hand.
Holy wounds touching my wounds,
Sacred wounds embracing my wounds,
Wounds exchanging blood, exchanging self, becoming one.
"By rising with his glorious wounds, when Christ pleads for us with the Father, he may always show the manner of death he endured for us" - Venerable Bede
Resurrected wounds,
Beautiful wounds,
Triumphant wounds.
Vulnerable wounds,
Pleading wounds,
Screaming wounds,
Silent wounds,
Wounds that will never close.
Welcoming wounds,
Wounds that hold your love,
Wounds that lavish your love.
Forgiving wounds,
Healing wounds,
Everlasting wounds,
my name carved in your hand.
Holy wounds touching my wounds,
Sacred wounds embracing my wounds,
Wounds exchanging blood, exchanging self, becoming one.
"By rising with his glorious wounds, when Christ pleads for us with the Father, he may always show the manner of death he endured for us" - Venerable Bede
Is the tabernacle happier to have her prisoner locked inside her, or to have her door open, her emptiness vulnerable and exposed to the world while her Lord is being given to all?
All the world becoming the tabernacle itself while she waits alone empty for Him alone. A reserved space that no other creation can fill.
His deserted space, his place of rest.
Does it matter to her how she feels her solitude when her beloved is being glorified and his kingdom grows, even when it as the cost of her fulfillment?
All the world becoming the tabernacle itself while she waits alone empty for Him alone. A reserved space that no other creation can fill.
His deserted space, his place of rest.
Does it matter to her how she feels her solitude when her beloved is being glorified and his kingdom grows, even when it as the cost of her fulfillment?
You took me by the hand, robed me and adorned me.
Led me deeper
Led me into darkness
Into emptiness
Into nothing
And begged me to take the final agonizing steps
Into you
Deep, deep
Inside me,
I in you, you in me.
Not seeing you beside me
I thought I had lost you.
But your hand was guiding me.
You did not let go.
I was not beside you, but
Inside you.
Led me deeper
Led me into darkness
Into emptiness
Into nothing
And begged me to take the final agonizing steps
Into you
Deep, deep
Inside me,
I in you, you in me.
Not seeing you beside me
I thought I had lost you.
But your hand was guiding me.
You did not let go.
I was not beside you, but
Inside you.
Come my dove
Come my dove, he says,
Hiding in the cleft of the Rock,
Come out of your head and into your heart.
Hiding in the cleft of the Rock,
Come out of your head and into your heart.
When you cannot find me
Go into your heart.
Go deeper.
I AM there.
I gave you handfuls of flowers to give to me
And I weave them in your hair to adorn you
Come my dove, I reply
Overshadow me and fill me with yourself.
Let me fly with you.
'Draw me and we will run to you.'
Go into your heart.
Go deeper.
I AM there.
I gave you handfuls of flowers to give to me
And I weave them in your hair to adorn you
Come my dove, I reply
Overshadow me and fill me with yourself.
Let me fly with you.
'Draw me and we will run to you.'
In the dark
Lost
Lost
Wandering
Impatient
Impatient
Exhausted.
I blindly turn to you
and grasp for a map.
As if to say
Lord, we've wandered too long
Let's go this way.
Let's go here.
And without seeing,
Somehow I know you smile
Your unfelt hand in mine
And silently say
Let's stay in the dark
together.
I AM
here with you.
And the stars are beautiful.
Where else could you rather be?
I blindly turn to you
and grasp for a map.
As if to say
Lord, we've wandered too long
Let's go this way.
Let's go here.
And without seeing,
Somehow I know you smile
Your unfelt hand in mine
And silently say
Let's stay in the dark
together.
I AM
here with you.
And the stars are beautiful.
Where else could you rather be?
My God if you were here…
My heart, a tomb
would be a tabernacle.
If you were here
I would be alive.
Why do you wait Lord?
Knowing I die and fight not to be my own savior,
resurrecting myself in my own image.
I am Weary, you are rest
I am Hungering and thirsting, you are my fill
I am Begging, you promise to give
But you wait.
You hear my cry, my pain,
My God…?
Why have you abandoned me?
And you leave me alone
A tomb
Made only to be a tabernacle.
The stone closed for while you wait,
And I am scared of the stench inside from the decay, death and emptiness.
Are you moved?
Do you weep for me?
Will you, Lord, roll away the stone?
How long must my heart be a tomb, empty of life?
‘This precious chalice’
Unable to give because it is empty.
A chalice tomb.
They taunt me, scream and mock me,
He has left you. You aren’t enough.
It was a dream, in your imagination.
You will never see the face of God, he has turned away. He left you.
Lord,
Where are you?
Do you hear me cry?
Do you hear me call you?
Have you forgotten me?
Abandoned me?
Seen my weakness and turned away?
Lord your mercy cannot. You promised me.
To know in faith that you are the resurrection and the life is not enough.
I need you to resurrect me, make me a living chalice, a tabernacle, a vessel, a bride.
Where are you?
Seeing you on Tabor, hearing you on Sinai
Makes my emptiness ache more
Having seen your beauty
something in me is darkly dying.
My eyes are blind and my mind doesn’t understand the cognitive dissonance between
You are precious in my sight and honoured and I love you
And day upon day of darkness in the tomb.
When will you call my name?
Even when I feel utterly lost and fragmented, in darkness, you are with me and we are one. You are faithful. Living together, as one. You so humble, hidden, silent. Strong. Still present and touching, transforming, loving.
The emptiness becomes intimacy. The emptiness of the desert that tore at me day and night has become the silence of your heart, present day and night. The silence that never leaves me. The solitary place where we are alone and we are one. The night I live hidden with you. The beautiful night.
You transform my reality. You transform me and all in me, and all that you give me transforms into higher love. All is gift. This is how all things work for good. All become love, all become you. You are all. You are my all.
You dont take away, you transform. All joy, all suffering, all work, all misery... you transform into gift and love. All I have you make into love's token. All is treasure from you. There is nothing that escapes your hands. Nothing passes away, but all is transformed.
You make all things new, my Love. All things.
“It is true that not even Christ is seen, but he exists; he is risen, he is alive, he is close to us, more truly than the most enamored husband is close to his wife. Here is the crucial point: to think of Christ not as a person of the past, but as the risen and living Lord, with whom I can speak, whom I can even kiss if I so wish, certain that my kiss does not end on the paper or on the wood of a crucifix, but on a face and on the lips of living flesh—even though spiritualized—happy to receive my kiss.” (Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, 1st Lenten Sermon for 2011)
I will lead the blind on their journey; by paths unknown I will guide them Isaiah 42:16
You take me by the hand.
Where are you leading me, Lord?
The journey is long and I feel I have walked alone a thousand miles,
yet now in the predawn light I see that I have never departed
from inside your heart.
Even in the darkness.
You take me by the hand and lead me
To the mountains....in your Heart
To the valleys....in your Heart
To the flight of the sparrow....in your Heart
To the desert....in your Heart
To the night....in your Heart
To the sunrise....in your Heart
To the Ocean....in your Heart
To others....in your Heart
To your cross....in your Heart
To my cross....in your Heart
To the crosses of those around me....in your Heart
With each step you lead me deeper into you
With each step I am more yours
With each step you surrender yourself to me
With each step the air grows more fragrant with your breath
With each step the silence grows more clearly into the sound of your Voice
With each step my heart changes to the rhythm of your own heart
You take me by the hand.
Where are you leading me, Lord?
The journey is long and I feel I have walked alone a thousand miles,
yet now in the predawn light I see that I have never departed
from inside your heart.
Even in the darkness.
You take me by the hand and lead me
To the mountains....in your Heart
To the valleys....in your Heart
To the flight of the sparrow....in your Heart
To the desert....in your Heart
To the night....in your Heart
To the sunrise....in your Heart
To the Ocean....in your Heart
To others....in your Heart
To your cross....in your Heart
To my cross....in your Heart
To the crosses of those around me....in your Heart
With each step you lead me deeper into you
With each step I am more yours
With each step you surrender yourself to me
With each step the air grows more fragrant with your breath
With each step the silence grows more clearly into the sound of your Voice
With each step my heart changes to the rhythm of your own heart
THE BRIDEGROOM
Light-winged birds,
Lions, fawns, bounding does,
Mountains, valleys, strands,
Waters, winds, heat,
And the terrors that keep watch by night;
|
XXI
By the soft lyres
And the siren strains, I adjure you,
Let your fury cease,
And touch not the wall,
That the bride may sleep in greater security.
|
All these passions and faculties are comprehended under the expressions employed in the first stanza, the operations of which, full of trouble, the Bridegroom subdues by that great sweetness, joy, and courage which the bride enjoys in the spiritual surrender of Himself to her which God makes at this time; under the influence of which, because God transforms the soul effectually in Himself, all the faculties, desires, and movements of the soul lose their natural imperfection and become divine
Who is God the Father?
“Be Reconciled with God” Fr Raniero Cantalamessa Dec 6, 2014
I would now like to bring to light how this gift of peace, received ontologically and by right in Baptism, must change little by little, in fact as well and psychologically, our relation with God. Paul’s heartbroken appeal: “We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20) is addressed to baptized Christians who have lived as a community for a long time. Therefore, he is not referring to the first reconciliation or, evidently, to that which we call “the Sacrament of Reconciliation.” In this existential sense, it is addressed also to each one of us and we try to understand in what it consists.
One of the causes, perhaps the principal one, of modern man’s alienation from religion and from the faith is the distorted image that he has of God. This is also the cause of a spent Christianity, without thrust and without joy, lived more as a duty than as a gift. I think of how the grandiose image of God the Father was in the Sistine Chapel when I saw it for the first time many years ago, all covered by a dark patina, and how it is now, after the restoration, with the lively colors and clear contours with which it issued from Michelangelo’s brush. A more urgent restoration of the image of God the Father must happen in men’s hearts, including in us, believers.
What is, in fact, the “pre-defined” image of God (in computer language, which operates, namely, as default) in the human collective unconscious? To discover it, it suffices to ask oneself this question and to ask it also to others: “What ideas, what words, what realities arise spontaneously in you, before every reflection, when you say: Our Father, who art in heaven … thy will be done”? While saying this one interiorly bows generally his head in resignation, as if preparing for the worst. Unconsciously, the will of God is connected with all that is displeasing, painful to what, in one way or another, can be seen as mutilating of freedom and of individual development. It is as if God was the enemy of all celebration, joy and pleasure.
Another revealing question -- what does the invocation Kyrie eleison, “Lord have mercy,” suggest in us, which punctuates Christian prayer and in some liturgies accompanies the Mass from the beginning to the end? It has ended up by becoming only the request for forgiveness of the creature, who always sees God about to punish him. The word mercy has become very debased from being used often in a negative sense, as something mean and despicable: “have pity,” a “pitiful” spectacle. According to the Bible, Kyrie eleison should be translated: “Lord, have your tenderness descend upon us.” Suffice it to read in Jeremiah how God speaks to his people: “my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy (eleos) on him” (Jeremiah 31:20). When the sick, the lepers and the blind cry out to Jesus, as in Matthew 9:27: “Lord, have mercy (eleison) on me!” they do not intend to say: “forgive me,” but “show your compassion on me.”
In general, God is seen as Supreme Being, the Almighty, the Lord of time and of history, that is, as an entity that imposes on the individual from outside -- no particular of human life escapes him. The transgression of his Law introduces inexorably a disorder that exacts reparation. The latter, not ever being able to be considered as adequate, the anguish of death and of the divine judgment arises.
I confess that I virtually get shivers when reading the words that the great Bossuet addresses to Jesus on the cross, in one of his Good Friday sermons: ”You throw yourself, O Jesus, in the arms of the Father and you feel rejected, you feel that it is in fact he who persecutes you, who strikes you, he who abandons you, he in fact who crushes you under the enormous and unbearable weight of his revenge … The anger of an irritated God: Jesus prays and the angry Father does not listen to him; it is the justice of a vengeful God for the outrages received; Jesus suffers and the Father is not placated!” If an orator spoke thus of the loftiness of Bossuet, we can imagine to what popular preachers of the time abandoned themselves. We can understand, therefore, how that certain “pre-defined” image of God was formed in man’s heart.
God’s mercy has certainly never been ignored! However, entrusted to it only was the duty to moderate the inalienable rigors of justice. In fact, in practice, the love and forgiveness that God generously gives were made dependent on the love and forgiveness that is given to others: if you forgive him who bears the offense, God in turn will be able to forgive you. There has emerged with God a relation of bargaining. Is it not said that one must accumulate merits to gain Paradise? And does one not attribute great importance to efforts to do things, to the Masses to have celebrated, to the candles to light, the novenas to make?
All this, having enabled so many people in the past to demonstrate their love for God, cannot be thrown away; it must be respected. God makes his flowers -- and his saints-- bloom in every climate. One cannot deny, however, that the risk exists of falling into a utilitarian religion, of the “do ut des.” At the base of everything is the presupposition that the relation with God depends on man. “None shall appear before me empty-handed” (Exodus 23:15; 34:20), but this is the God of the Law, not yet the God of grace. In the kingdom of grace, in fact, man must appear before God “empty-handed”; the only thing he must have “in his hands’ on appearing before him, is his Son Jesus.
Let us now see how the Holy Spirit changes this situation, when we open ourselves to it. He teaches us to look at God with new eyes: as the God of the Law, certainly, but yet first as the God of love and of grace, the “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Exodus 34:6). It make us discover him as an ally and a friend, as “he who did not spare for himself his own Son but gave him up for us all” (this is how Romans 8:32 should be understood!); in sum, as a most tender Father. In a word, the Holy Spirit communicates to us the feeling that Jesus had of his Father.
The filial sentiment now blossoms which is translated spontaneously in the cry: Abba, Father! As one who says: “I did not know you, or I knew you only from hearsay. Now I know you, I know who you are; I know that you truly love me, that you are favourable to me.” The son has taken the place of the slave, love that of fear. It is thus that one is truly reconciled with God, also on the subjective and existential plane.
We leave for our daily work with a question in our mind: What idea of God the Father is in my heart: that of the world or that of Jesus?
I would now like to bring to light how this gift of peace, received ontologically and by right in Baptism, must change little by little, in fact as well and psychologically, our relation with God. Paul’s heartbroken appeal: “We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20) is addressed to baptized Christians who have lived as a community for a long time. Therefore, he is not referring to the first reconciliation or, evidently, to that which we call “the Sacrament of Reconciliation.” In this existential sense, it is addressed also to each one of us and we try to understand in what it consists.
One of the causes, perhaps the principal one, of modern man’s alienation from religion and from the faith is the distorted image that he has of God. This is also the cause of a spent Christianity, without thrust and without joy, lived more as a duty than as a gift. I think of how the grandiose image of God the Father was in the Sistine Chapel when I saw it for the first time many years ago, all covered by a dark patina, and how it is now, after the restoration, with the lively colors and clear contours with which it issued from Michelangelo’s brush. A more urgent restoration of the image of God the Father must happen in men’s hearts, including in us, believers.
What is, in fact, the “pre-defined” image of God (in computer language, which operates, namely, as default) in the human collective unconscious? To discover it, it suffices to ask oneself this question and to ask it also to others: “What ideas, what words, what realities arise spontaneously in you, before every reflection, when you say: Our Father, who art in heaven … thy will be done”? While saying this one interiorly bows generally his head in resignation, as if preparing for the worst. Unconsciously, the will of God is connected with all that is displeasing, painful to what, in one way or another, can be seen as mutilating of freedom and of individual development. It is as if God was the enemy of all celebration, joy and pleasure.
Another revealing question -- what does the invocation Kyrie eleison, “Lord have mercy,” suggest in us, which punctuates Christian prayer and in some liturgies accompanies the Mass from the beginning to the end? It has ended up by becoming only the request for forgiveness of the creature, who always sees God about to punish him. The word mercy has become very debased from being used often in a negative sense, as something mean and despicable: “have pity,” a “pitiful” spectacle. According to the Bible, Kyrie eleison should be translated: “Lord, have your tenderness descend upon us.” Suffice it to read in Jeremiah how God speaks to his people: “my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy (eleos) on him” (Jeremiah 31:20). When the sick, the lepers and the blind cry out to Jesus, as in Matthew 9:27: “Lord, have mercy (eleison) on me!” they do not intend to say: “forgive me,” but “show your compassion on me.”
In general, God is seen as Supreme Being, the Almighty, the Lord of time and of history, that is, as an entity that imposes on the individual from outside -- no particular of human life escapes him. The transgression of his Law introduces inexorably a disorder that exacts reparation. The latter, not ever being able to be considered as adequate, the anguish of death and of the divine judgment arises.
I confess that I virtually get shivers when reading the words that the great Bossuet addresses to Jesus on the cross, in one of his Good Friday sermons: ”You throw yourself, O Jesus, in the arms of the Father and you feel rejected, you feel that it is in fact he who persecutes you, who strikes you, he who abandons you, he in fact who crushes you under the enormous and unbearable weight of his revenge … The anger of an irritated God: Jesus prays and the angry Father does not listen to him; it is the justice of a vengeful God for the outrages received; Jesus suffers and the Father is not placated!” If an orator spoke thus of the loftiness of Bossuet, we can imagine to what popular preachers of the time abandoned themselves. We can understand, therefore, how that certain “pre-defined” image of God was formed in man’s heart.
God’s mercy has certainly never been ignored! However, entrusted to it only was the duty to moderate the inalienable rigors of justice. In fact, in practice, the love and forgiveness that God generously gives were made dependent on the love and forgiveness that is given to others: if you forgive him who bears the offense, God in turn will be able to forgive you. There has emerged with God a relation of bargaining. Is it not said that one must accumulate merits to gain Paradise? And does one not attribute great importance to efforts to do things, to the Masses to have celebrated, to the candles to light, the novenas to make?
All this, having enabled so many people in the past to demonstrate their love for God, cannot be thrown away; it must be respected. God makes his flowers -- and his saints-- bloom in every climate. One cannot deny, however, that the risk exists of falling into a utilitarian religion, of the “do ut des.” At the base of everything is the presupposition that the relation with God depends on man. “None shall appear before me empty-handed” (Exodus 23:15; 34:20), but this is the God of the Law, not yet the God of grace. In the kingdom of grace, in fact, man must appear before God “empty-handed”; the only thing he must have “in his hands’ on appearing before him, is his Son Jesus.
Let us now see how the Holy Spirit changes this situation, when we open ourselves to it. He teaches us to look at God with new eyes: as the God of the Law, certainly, but yet first as the God of love and of grace, the “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Exodus 34:6). It make us discover him as an ally and a friend, as “he who did not spare for himself his own Son but gave him up for us all” (this is how Romans 8:32 should be understood!); in sum, as a most tender Father. In a word, the Holy Spirit communicates to us the feeling that Jesus had of his Father.
The filial sentiment now blossoms which is translated spontaneously in the cry: Abba, Father! As one who says: “I did not know you, or I knew you only from hearsay. Now I know you, I know who you are; I know that you truly love me, that you are favourable to me.” The son has taken the place of the slave, love that of fear. It is thus that one is truly reconciled with God, also on the subjective and existential plane.
We leave for our daily work with a question in our mind: What idea of God the Father is in my heart: that of the world or that of Jesus?
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