The Fire Within

St. Catherine of Siena writes in one of her letters: I long to see you so totally ablaze with loving fire that you become one with gentle First truth. Truly the soul's being united with and transformed into him is like fire consuming the dampness in logs. Once the logs are heated through and through, the fire burns and changes them into itself, giving them its own color and warmth and power." Letter T137

Passionate love for God comes with years of listening and loving. It seeps into the soul gradually, as knowledge and acceptance of God's plan becomes routine and habitual. We are so concentrated on God and the things of God that we truly are unaware of how this fire is taking hold of us. Others see it, and such fire becomes the living sign of God in our midst.

Our service of God takes place in the same little ways human loves develops. First we must get to know Him better, through meditation, Lectio, study. That knowledge does not enkindle fire until we begin to formulate our lives on what we know, making the hard decisions when they come simple because it is the right thing to do. It is a step by step process, one where failure can actually deepen our sense of commitment and dedication.

Spirit and Flesh

This week, the Gospel concentrates on John chapter 6, the feeding of 5 thousand, and the events surrounding this wondrous miracle. As John notes, Jesus compassion led him to supply the crowd with food. After the event, after crossing over the Sea of Galilee, the crowd comes to Jesus the very next day, wonders how he crossed the lake without a boat, and then asks him to give them a sign to prove he is from God. Pretty bold considering they just witnessed the feeding of five thousand.

The disciples are caught in the midst of this story. They assist in feeding the five thousand, gather up the fragments, and then, upon Jesus bid, launch their boat into the sea. But as scripture tells us, as they were struggling with the stormy sea when Jesus came to them walking upon water.

In Matthew chapter 14, Peter cries out, "Lord if it is you, bid me come." Jesus calls, "Come" and he does , and walking upon water. It is only when he looks down and realizes what he is doing that he sinks and begins to drown.

The crowd asked Jesus for a sign. Jesus replies by requesting faith. He shows us what faith can do - balance our life between what is natural and earthy, and what is spiritual. When Jesus walks upon water, he is neither in heaven, nor on the earth. He is in the balance between the two. Peter too, when girt about with faith, can walk on water. But without that balance, he falls.

The spiritual life is not devoid of earthly existence. It is bouyed up by it. We too can "walk on water" when that balance is present in our lives.

Expectation

Olivier Clément writes In the battle of ascesis and the offering of creatures to God…our will must cooperate with divine grace. But the ultimate knowledge…takes hold of us by grace alone. We prepare for it by a stripping away of our being until we become nothing but expectation.

Easter is a time of expectation. We hope because we believe. It is an expectation toward re-creation by the spirit. God draws, God enlightens, God transforms. It has to be God. Otherwise, our efforts are aimed at purely human transformation, which does not lead us toward Light but toward a greater immersion into ourselves.

And we do not need to understand or know, because God is “irreducible.” And yet we continue toward that unknowing, because it holds the pearl of great price. Again, Clément: The unknowing is not simply negative theology: it is a soaring of the personality towards that personal God who was led by love to assume the condition of a slave and to die on the cross.

Mary of Magdala

On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark John tells us in chapter 20.

Many see darkness as symbolizing of the soul in the midst of trials and tribulations. The psalmist reminds us that as gold is tired in the fire, so are we tried. Mary Magdalen came to Jesus while in her trial, while things were still confusing, while the apostles still slept. She came seeking Jesus, not so he could deliver her, but so that she could perform even now, after his death, some service to his body.

The Resurrection influences us only as much to us as we allow it. St. Paul says, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. Seeking the things that are above make us different. It keeps us hopeful, even when life is dark.

Easter Glory

Olivier Clement writes Resurrection begins already here below...The truest moments of our life, those lived in the invisible, have a resurrection flavour. Resurrection begins every time that a person, breaking free from conditioning, transfigures them. Through grace is found 'the body of the soul', 'the outer side of innermost'. Resurrection begins every time that a person plunges this world's opaque, divisive, death-riddled modality into its Christ-centered modality, into that 'ineffable and marvelous fire hidden in the essence of things, as in the Burning Bush'.

In monastic life, we use symbolism as a way to remind us that our earthly journey is just that, earthly. For the Easter celebration, a wondrous fullness contrasts Lent's spark bareness. This fullness is symbolized through an abundance of flowers, bells, music, light and incense, helping to lift the mind to things above, where we all hope to be one day with Christ. As Clement notes, we begin resurrection here below every time we penetrate through the opaqueness of this world of sense into that world of spirit, where fire doesn't burn, nor light blind, nor death destroy.

Holy Saturday

St. Amphilochius of Iconium writes: Death has seized our Lord Jesus Christ, but it shall not keep its hold on life....Of his own will he is now held; tomorrow he shall rise again, and hell shall be emptied.


Within the monastic setting, Holy Saturday is traditional a day of silence and reflection. The Liturgy of the Hours is stripped to the barest minimun of psalms, responsery and concluding prayer. The church is bare. Candles remain unlit, holy water fonts are dry. No bells, no processions, not even prayers for the dead. All these customs assist us in "feeling" the emptyness Jesus followers must have felt that first Holy Saturday. 

Pope Benedict XVI writes Christ strode through the gate of our final loneliness; in his Passion he went down into the abyss our abandonment. Where no voice can reach us any longer, there is he.

Good thoughts for this Holy day.

Good Friday

John Tauler writes Let a person humbly await God's guidance, abandoning himself in all peacefulness and in total detachment to the divine influence, whenever and however it may come to him. This will be all that God requires of him...

Such words describe Mary and John at the foot of the cross. They stood there without saying a word, without fighting for Jesus, or answering his adversaries. It isn't hard to imagine they simple did not understand what was happening. They only knew, it was happening, and somehow, Jesus would make it good.

No one can escape those moments when we question life. It is part of the stirring of our soul for the "better part" and indicates a yearning for something more. During such times, silence, reflection, and prayer do much for our spirit.