Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Today’s text

Mark 1:29-31

And at once on leaving the synagogue, he went with James and John straight to the house of Simon and Andrew. Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed and feverish, and at once they told him about her. He went in to her, took her by the hand and helped her up. And the fever left her and she began to serve them.

Reflection

Healing comes we know that what is in Jesus is also in us.

It comes when the divine Spirit that moves Jesus’ compassion and power awakens the divine Spirit within us.

Healing is this awakening.

The divine Spirit of love and power resides in us. Its seeds are planted in our creation. It is breathed into us by virtue of our humanity. In the beginning, God breathed life into creation, our holy texts tell us.

This means every human soul is alive with the Spirit, the breath of God, the One who is love and power, mercy and compassion, whose will is life for all that is.

Such is the Spirit that makes us alive, but most often it is buried or caged within our fears and prejudices that it no longer flows freely through our bodies and souls, animating our actions and feelings.

Momentary emotional states--fear, threat, stress and the pains of woundedness--hide the essential truth of our existence from awareness. We live believing these fleeting feeling states are our reality, our truth--that this is who we are.

Confusion results: First, I am my fear, then my joy. I am my victory and then my defeat, my success and then my sadness and stress.

Hidden beneath this illusion is my reality. I am a manifestation of the life and love of God. My breath is the breath of the Immortal and Immeasurable One. This always remains, hidden deep in our interiority, waiting its awakening.

Awakening comes in the presence of One who is filled and animated by the Divine Spirit. This is not strange or even unusual. We have felt it. We come alive and are freed to give ourselves to the tasks of our lives (like Simon’s mother-in-law) when we are in the presence of someone or something in whom we feel the Divine Spirit of love and freedom.

The Divine Spirit enlivens us when we are in the presence of the Presence.

Some blessed souls manifest the Presence more fully and beautifully, awakening life in others. They are graces, sacraments of God’s life stirring us to the life and joy God intends.

The Spirit of the Loving Wonder comes to fullest human expression in our brother Jesus. This is what makes him Son of God, Messiah and Savior. When we come into his presence--or his presence comes to us--his Spirit awakens the Spirit within us.

Then it is: the fever of life leaves us, and we come alive.

Pr. David L. Miller