Reflections - March 14, 2008

Marital love is an image, however pale, of the reality which develops little by little between the Absolute and the creature, between God and humankind, between Yahweh and Israel.
In Marital love it is not enough to study the beloved, write poems, or receive cards from far away. Couples must marry, say “yes” to one another, go behind the veil of intimacy, delight in one another – exultantly , become close, cultivate friendship, stay together as much as possible, coalesce their wills, make two things one, as scripture says.
But pretending to know the other just by studying him in books or photographs means remaining outside real knowledge, real mystery.
Today, many persons who seek or study God do just that. They study him in books, make him an object of speculation, approach him from intellectual curiosity.
With what result? The more we study, the more our ideas become confused; the more we get caught up in discussions, the farther we go from him.
I think this is the nature of the crisis in the Church today; it is the crisis of prayer, it is a crisis of contemplation.
Study is no longer the light of spirituality, and curiosity has taken the place of humility.
Self-assurance and derision of the past are the false light which guides man’s pride in the labyrinth of God’s “unknowing,” pretending to seize the truth with strength of intelligence only.
But God’s truth is the same, truth is the secret of things “up there,” and no one can know it without revelation from God.
Has Christ not already said so?
In the upper room, replying to the worried question to him by Judas (not Judas Iscariot) about why he was not manifesting himself to the world, but only to his intimate friends, he replied with extreme clarity: “‘Anyone who loves me will be true to my word, and my Father will love him; we will come to him and make our dwelling place with him’” (John 14:23).
Only love brings God’s coming to us, his living presence within us, and his consequent revelation.
He who obeys the commandments he has from me
is the man who loves me;
and he who loves me will be loved by my Father.
I too will love him
and reveal myself to him.
(John 14:21)
-From The God Who Comes by Carlo Carretto

As I was reading through the devotion and selected devotional readings this one truly caught my attention, so I thought I would share it. The book that this comes from was published the same year I was born (1974) and much of what he said then still applies! We live in a world that seems to be hungry for spirituality and knowledge of God, but many are unwilling to do the things which God is calling for them to do. We have the Jesus Seminar people telling us that the historical Jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible and confusing t he issue even more when they come on the Media outlets in clericals telling the world that the Bible is not true and just a story. I will argue that many of the academics that are caught up in this historical Jesus message are most often devoted believers just wanting to know the “true” Jesus, but they miss the forest through the trees.
By no means am I against academia, but we are in a time in which we must just pray and pray those prayers of brokenness and a need for forgiveness. We are always caught in our sin and in our sin we forget that love is not a selfish knowing, but a giving and a trusting. Love opens us up to the prospect that we are going to be hurt. As we look forward to the Holy Week ahead of us with Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter/Resurrection Sunday we are being lead on a journey. A journey that shows us the true pain endured for us by our Lord and in this we see the full humanity in the love He had for us and His disciples. We see the pain and the tears, hear the suffering in his heart, the sounds of the whip, the nails, and the raising of that cross. In this season I see myself as the thief next to our Lord in full realization of what I truly deserve and knowing that the pain that He suffers is in my stead. I hear the words, “You will be with me in paradise.” Thank you Lord!