Tuesday May 8, 2012

Today’s text

John 15:9-11

I have loved you just as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my own joy may be in you and your joy be complete.

Reflection

I have loved you, as the Father loves me.

I am not sure if there is a more amazing statement in the entire Bible. I come here again to know the truth of your words, Jesus. There is no other reason, not really.

There is a love that awakens the soul to the beauty of all things and, yes, even to the beauty of its own soul self. Having tasted such love, all of life becomes a pilgrimage back to the places and faces, to the moments and yearning practices that open one’s heart to know what it most needs to know: that we abide in love, at all times and in every moment.

It is true every moment, but it is a truth lost to us most of our lives. We miss the holiness, the Presence of the One Love who is present in every love and in the deep mystery of every moment, moments that appear out of the darkness of nothingness to make a world where our hearts might discover the heart of the One from whom we all come.

We hunger for that heart, each in our own way, seldom knowing the rapture of being so enveloped that we know this One, this Love is the ultimate truth of our lives. We wander in deserts of our own despair and the drivenness of our craving to experience and know as much as we can, fearing life is passing us by.

But there is only One thing we truly need, One Love which evaporates our craving in a flood of fulfillment and surprising joy.

You, Jesus, tell me that you are rapt in joy when this happens. So you tell us to abide, rest, remain in the places and faces, the moments and practices where we know that we are loved as wholly and everlastingly as you are by the One Love, the Loving Mystery, you call ‘Father.’

So I flee again to this place to listen and prepare to enter again my daily pilgrimage into the wonder of the divine heart, praying but one prayer: that my heart may open and know One Love.

Pr. David L. Miller