We are shut in, shut up tight, in Cor Unum.
We are IN Christ, and members of one another (Romans 12:5.) No cloister on earth has anything to compare with that!
Christ is in us; we are the place where it pleases Him to dwell. Not, as He said, in a temple made with hands, but in His people, His own, He Himself alive in those who live in Him.
What mystery can compare with this, as Jesus began to portray it before His disciples? John 14 and 15 present a landscape of wonders concerning His nearness, His life, and ours in Him.
Let us, in Cor Unum, make plans to think upon these things more faithfully than we give heed to our finances, our health, our schedules, to irritations and disappointments and successes.
Is there any better way to do so than to bring all of these to Him and display them all against the backdrop of a hill, with instruments of crucifixion raised aloft against the fading day?
Every river of disappointment and shame flows to that day, and every lasting joy and strength of hope flows out from it.
We take a moment, not just every chance we get, but on purpose, daily, and with every real need, every imagined slight, every painful encounter . . . every rousing joy! We pursue the monastic habit of FINDING GOD in everything, and there waiting until the finished work of His Son makes each episode divine. Wherever we are, whatever we have done, He loves us, here in the sanctuary of His finished work.
"Walled In, For Good"
photo by Kerry
I am especially loving the direction you are going....I so need the reminder. I have been thinking about the Pope and about the President [W not O]. Both were men of prayer. W was also a man who never failed to get out and do some running to keep in shape. And I feel completely over-whelmed, behind, befuddled ....frustrated at times beyond belief.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I tell myself, they had someone else to do the housework [true] and the Pope has no small children to tend to [also true] but there has to be a solution that both allows for rest [He gives His beloved sleep] and devotion -- that doesn't involve hiring a staff ;-)
PS -- the Pope in question is John Paul II. I am sure Benedict is also a man of prayer but I have just finished a book on John Paul and love him all the more for his personal devotion.
ReplyDeleteIf there is an answer, I hope we find it here. You know that I believe there is.
ReplyDeleteFor the Pope(s) and President "W" . . . for anyone who will keep an "Opus Dei" in a position that could take them into a vortex of business, policy, pride, despair . . .and on and on . . . I do believe the staff you mentioned can make all the difference.
I'd like to explore this later on. Who will be ours? The staff keeps us to the schedule, and the schedule allows for . . . silence, prayer, jogging, meditation before the "host" . . . before . . . may I say it again . . . the finished work of Jesus!
"Who" will be our staff? The first thing that comes to my mind is Suzanna Wesley's apron!
love the apron picture.
ReplyDeleteI also know I'm fighting my personality.... that "get it done now" tendency that makes me want to wait until it's all done and then I'll....
And since I've never been so far behind in all my "put-togethers", I'm waking up thinking "as soon as I get it done, I'll....
There's a side of me that's thinking....
"OK, I do have this personality. Is that a sin to be erradicated or am I missing something in not working with how I'm fearfully and wonderfully made?"
I'll get back to you on it.