Monday 19 May 2008

In his writing about the Holy, Merton addresses himself to the image of saint.



It is not true that the saints and the great contemplatives never loved created things, and had no understanding or appreciation of the world, with its sights and sounds and the people living in it. They loved everything and everyone.
Do you think that their love of God was compatible with a hatred for things that reflected God and spoke of God on every side?
You you say that they were supposed to be absorbed in God and they had no eyes to see anything but God. Do you think they walked around with faces like stones and did not listen to the voices of people speaking to them or understand the joys and sorrows of those who were around them.
It was because the saints were absorbed in God that they were truly capable of seeing and appreciating created things and it was because they loved God alone that they alone loved everybody.

So connected to God that everything is seen more clearly - wow! So connected to God that all that is of God can be see as it was created...not with the eyes of what we would want it to be for us. The saint (which are, remember, each and every one of the baptized) is given the eyes to see all thing through a lens of a love that creates all things and leave nothing behind, forgotten and forsaken. Being "absorbed in God" does not make for a distant relationship with everything around us every day. I would think that the great martyrs of the church were not ones who saw the Reign of God as something other than the creation in which they were a part. If a Bonhoeffer was absorbed in God in such a way that he did not see the brutality and lies around him, we must say he was not absorbed in God! Rather, it was as he was absorbed in his baptism that the everyday incidences of this day were seen more clearly and he was given to act within the realm of God's love that creates and does not destroy. Show me a contemplative who is not aware of all the details and nuances of an ordinary day in an urban setting and I would have to say that we would not be looking at a contemplative. Contemplation opens up life so that we do not miss being a part of God's Reign as the moments pass by. Therefore, justice, mercy, peacemaking, reconciliation, and amazing joy awaits one who enters into contemplation...and it will draw us into the fullness of this life.

Connection: Try to notice one of the many ways God's gift of life is going on as we meander through the events of this day. In seeing those gifts, we are given opportunities to enter into them.

Blessed God, help us to become absorbed in You alone. For when that takes place, all that we come upon in this day will shine with your presence. Amen.