Buried in God with Christ

Dear One,

My soul needs to tell you that it is wholly in communion with yours, letting itself be caught, carried away, invaded by him whose charity envelops us and who wishes to consummate us into "one" with him.  I thought of you when I read these words of Pere Vallee on contemplation: "The contemplative is a being who lives in the radiance of the Face of Christ, who enters into the mystery of God, not in the light that flows from human thought, but in that created by the word of the Incarnate Word."  Don't you have this passion to listen to him?  Sometimes it is so strong, this need to be silent, that one would like to know how to do nothing but remain like Magdalene, that beautiful model for the contemplative soul, at the feel of the Master, eager to hear everything, to penetrate ever deeper into this mystery of Charity that he came to reveal to us.

Don't you find that in action, when we are in Martha's role, the sould can still remain wholly adoring, buried like Magdalene in her contemplation, staying by this source like someone who is starving...  Then both can radiate God, give him to souls, if they constantly stay close to this divine source.  It seems to me that we should draw so close to the Master, in such communion with his soul, to identify ourselves with all its movements, and then go out as he did, according to the will of his Father.  Then it does not matter what happens to the soul, since it has faith in the One it loves who dwells within it.

During this Lent I would like, as Saint Paul says, "to be buried in God with Christ," to be lost in this Trinity who will one day be our vision, and in this divine light penetrate into the depth of the Mystery.

~Elizabeth

Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity (+1906) was a French Carmelite nun and mystical writer.

Accepting Paradox in Others

Dear Leo,
Do you ever have that feeling of really liking someone but also finding yourself repeatedly irritated by so many of the things they do or say or how they say what they say or how they don't do what they say others should do?!?

I've had that experience recently, and it leaves me feeling disoriented.  I think, maybe, that feeling of "disorientation" is true, and I've given it the proper word, because I feel most whole and balanced and true and able to move forward when I am oriented in Christ, when my eyes are fixed on Christ, when it is Christ that I aim to please and to follow and be shaped by.  If I have allowed myself to be too focused or too influenced by another person, I have misplaced my proper orientation!

In the other experience (of liking someone in general but being greatly irritated by their particulars) I think, maybe, that the "liking" is recognizing some basic commonality; I have identified myself w/ them.  And then the irritations are when I either see in them things I don't like in myself, or I am being disabused of the generalized identification; I'm being reminded that the other is truly other, and I have to reorient myself as to who I am!  I'm not sure about all this.  I'm just wondering about it.

At any rate, I was somehow reminded of something by Rohr:

People are odd creatures: We are at the same time very good and very sinful.  These qualities do not cancel each other out.  Faith is to live and to hold onto that paradox.  Those with room for those two seemingly contradictory truths to coexist are the ones who can recognize the Kingdom of God. 

The absurdity of human reality will not shock them:  They've already faced it inside themselves.  The enemy is not out there, the enemy is us.  And when they see the paradox, they stop fighting the world.  They stop hating and avoiding the world.  They're free to live that threshold existence that we call the Kingdom. 

Then he goes on to say some important things about the Kingdom and about the nature of "threshold," but it was the reminder that we're all paradoxical creatures that's helping me abide in Christ's pure and faithful unconditional Love for each one of us, and all of us together.

Thank you, Leo, for listening.
Thank You, Abba, for Being!

~Mack