Again, I find the comment box not obvious enough, so am emphasizing Seraphim's beautiful, loving words here. Thank you, Seraphim.
This Sunday I would like to share a few lines from Thomas Merton's Book of Hours I prayed this morning with tears in my eyes:
"... Father I praise you, with all these my brothers and sisters,
and they give voice to my own heart and to my own silence.
We are all one silence, and a diversity of voices.
You have made us together.
you have made us many,
you have placed me here in the midst as witness,
as awareness, and as joy.
Here I am.
In me the world is present, an You are present.
I am a link in the chain of light and of presence."
May the fire of tenderness warm you up and lightful joy guide you ... specially you dear Ruth and Nothing and his "Relative" in the hospital ...
your silent hermit brother
Seraphim
from Germany
your silent hermit brother
Seraphim
from Germany
Thank you Aspiring for your very touching message ...
ReplyDeleteMy closing prayer for Laudes/Dawnprayer this morning:
" Let us live in this Love and this Happiness, you and I and all of us, in the Love of Christ an in contemplation, for that is where we find ourselves and one another as we truly are. It is only in this Love that we at last become real. For it is here that we most truly share life of One God in Three Persons."
Father Louis (Thomas Merton)
nothing and Seraphim, regarding the comment above, this closing prayer is unspeakably wonderful. It's got me praying. And thinking, too :) .
ReplyDeleteAs we truly are
can be interpreted in a countless ways. Filled with limitation and sin is one way, for instance. However, I'll focus on this interpretation. How we are is wonderfully made. We are discouraged by the world and by self and by the deceiver from seeing and knowing it. But we are gifted with clarity to see and know it in His Love, in heaven on earth as it were. Why, we are made no less than to inherit the riches of heaven! Knowing and seeing this aspect of how we truly are is good for Christ's cause.
It is only in this Love that we at last become real...
We become real because of the truth to know and the clarity to see that are there in His Love. But we become real for this reason also. While we are wonderfully made in our humanity, we inherited sin and we commit sin and we know it. Point being that, in His Love is where we see that it is safe to be real, in the Love of the very one we offend most...
Use of the word contemplation is interesting here also. Contemplative vocations are distinct from active vocations. In the context of this prayer though, I think it's assumed that one is contemplative in his activity. In His Love all the while, that is.
Such discussion on my part is the long way to simple truth :) ! But it's so interesting to wander and think through the one richness of our redemption and yet the infinitely numbered riches implied by it.