World

I stay in the world with my Beloved and allow other people to see Him in me.

Saul King of Israel (Ernst Josephson)

I have been thinking about how to find Christ.

Christ, who is God, is in all things…  In order to understand how God is in all things, I must first have a proper understanding of God and how He can be in all things.  If I did not know anything about my Beloved, how could I then expect to recognise Him in all things..?

I have been thinking about how God impacts my life.  After all, God made all things and He made them good because He loved the world.  He did not have to make anything and yet He chose to because He wanted us to love Him because He knows how much LOVE can benefit us.

I have often reflected that until I became a mother, I did not really understand how to love.  Of course, this does not mean that people who do not become parents cannot love.  Of course, people who are never parents can experience very strong feelings of love.  But, in my experience, being a mother has taught me some things that I was unable to learn otherwise.  For example, being a mother means that I very often put my own needs on hold so that I can attend to the needs of my children.  Being a mother means that I sacrifice my ow happiness for the happiness and future of my children.  These sorts of things have taught me to value the love that I can give to my children above all other kinds of love – with the exception of the love of God…

And I have been thinking about that today.  You see, I am a Catholic, and that means that I am a citizen of the Church.  Pope Leo XVI asked young people in the Church to exercise their talents in a holy revolution.  He asked young people to stop accepting the status quo and instead to reimagine the way that the world could work if they were able to live up to their full potential as children on God.

In this way I am invited – perhaps not as so young a person anymore, but as a person nonetheless – to join my talents with those of my neighbours.  And in this way, I am asked to be with God in the world and to feel Him and to speak of Him and to acknowledge Him.

I am asked to bring others to love Him and that really means that I am asked to bring others to know Him.  And the only way that is possible is if I live in the world with my Beloved.  The only way that is possible is if I stay in the world with my Beloved and allow other people to see Him in me.

And it occurs to me today, that with all my faults and sin, I am muddying the view and soon nobody will be able to see Him at all.  And that is a truly terrible thing.  A truly, truly, terrible thing indeed!

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.