Contemplation is.... with Thomas Merton.
Contemplation is also the response to a call: a call from Him Who has no voice, and yet Who speaks in everything that is, and Who, most of all, speaks in the depths of our own being: for we ourselves are words of His. But we are words meant to respond to Him, to answer to Him, to echo Him, and even in some way to contain Him and signify Him. Contemplation is this echo. It is a deep resonance in the inmost center of our spirit in which our very life loses its separate voice and re-sounds with the majesty and the mercy of the Hidden and Living One. He answers Himself in us and this is divine life, divine creativity, making all things new. We ourselves become His echo and his answer. It is as if in creating us God asked a question, and in awakening us to contemplation He answered the question, so that the contemplative is at the same time, question and answer.
I could spend a few days listening to this paragraph...let me jump in at one point for today. It sounds like the life of the church as it is to be. We are now the word. We don't simply study the word and memorize the word, we are the word. Therefore, resurrection life is not something we long for or read about it is the life that we have. This image of an echo is quite awakening. The original voice calls out we respond...but the response is the same voice of the God who calls us into being. It sounds a bit distant and not quite as bold as the original voice....but there it is...here we are. We respond to the call by taking on the call and that is the voice that continues to make its way into our lives so as to make for life...the word made flesh...in and among us.
Connection: For a start, we must hear that Word. It is available all around us as we trip through the day being consumed and run by other words.
Be for us, O God, the voice of new life and pull us into that life even as you speak. Amen.
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