April 10 – Opening to the Son Above

Scripture suggests that there is little in life more suffocating than the fear of death.

“Since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives” (Hebrews 2:14, 15)

Because of our fear of death, we sometimes fail to let go our fears, we often tremble lest our bars and gates be removed, and we can be seen by others, hiding behind our inabilities, both real and imagined.

Oh, what a pitiful state this is for those who have been created as the chief ornament and the crown of all creation, set over all the earth and all within it!

The young postulant, entering a hidden life through the Abbey doors, has a bold, if unformed, understanding that the door which locks behind her locks her into a confrontation with her fears. She knows, even if she cannot yet imagine the depths of her release, that she will never be able to hide for long behind either her abilities or her shortcomings.

We in Cor Unum are bolted into the same reckoning. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18.)” Day after day, we become more and more consumed with love, making choices on the foundational reality of death, that we have died, and yet we live. Death cannot hold us, because it did not hold Jesus, Who died in our place. He died with the sins of the postulant and the sins of the community and the sins of the city and the sins of the nation and of the whole earth upon Him.

Now, we love. Whatever we can or cannot do in terms of intelligence, talent, or strength, we know by the commandment of God that we can love. When death appears around the corner, leering and jeering, we seek out the object of the love of God which death is seeking to obscure, and we love wholeheartedly.

“Our soul has escaped as a bird out of the snare of the trapper; the snare is broken and we have escaped (Psalm 124:7).”