Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The HEART of the Matter

Athos passed this early morning and I thought the meditation of the day suited him well. Peace and all good.

From The Magnificat June 28, 2011

Let us push straight to the heart of the matter. What is the core, the central message of the revelation of Jesus? Surely it is of the unconditional love of God for us, for each one of us; God, the unutterable incomprehensible mystery, the reality of all reality, the life of all life. And this means that the divine love desires to communicate its holy self to us. Nothing less! This is God’s irrevocably will and purpose; it is the reason why everything that is, is, and why each of us exists. We are here to receive this ineffable, all-transforming, all-beatifying love. Well-instructed Christians know this notionally but, alas, few know it really. And here I must add an important reminder that knowing it “really” does not imply “feelingly.” To know really – or really to know – means living that knowledge, living out of it. It means that our way of looking at things, our attitudes, out actions arise from this knowledge. Of this real knowledge we use the word faith. This must give us pause and make us very cautious to claims to faith. “Of course I have faith!” We can feel quite indignant if someone implies otherwise! My experience tells me that real faith is rare and it is best we acknowledge this so that we may really work at believing.

Basing ourselves, therefore, on what Jesus shows us of God (and we Christians have only one teacher, Jesus the Christ, who is our way), we must realize that what we have to do is allow ourselves to be loved, to be there for love to love us.

- Sister Ruth Burrows, O.C.D.