Awakening to mystical life, the centrality of communion with God in our lives, makes possible our awareness of our interdependence with one another, all creation. It is born of a conviction that God, and Jesus are always with us and that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus show that all life is not in vain. In faith, we trust that in honouring God’s presence within our very being we would “have God in all places, in the streets and in the world no less than in the church, in the desert or cell.” Why? Because the person in communion with God is, in Meister Eckhart’s words, “ever bearing God alone in mind, pregnant with God in all their acts as well as in all places, and all their works are being done by God.”
We see this to be the essence of our call to holiness. “Holiness is something greater than a moral quality. It is the presence of God with us; of us with God. It is … [in the Incarnation of Jesus] God’s “tent” pitched among us (Jn 1:3).” It is the ongoing summons to new life in and through our relationships with one another, with all life.
Assisting in the birth of holiness in one another and in others connects to our desire to share the good news that faith in Jesus offers. Once again, the words of St. Augustine encourage us. “At Baptism,” he said, “you came to birth as members of Christ, you have it in your power to become the mothers of Christ as you bring others to birth in the same way.”
As a mother gives birth to new life, gathers, protects and guides her children towards adulthood, so we take our responsibility as Church to “co-operate in a maternal love in the birth and education of our brothers and sisters in faith.” Guiding them to become adults in the faith has become our fundamental responsibility.
Living out this commitment begins first at home, through our manner of loving and respecting others. From there it flows into the community of Church, into our neighbourhood, at work and at play. In so doing we might recall that Jesus set up his ministry by the sea, where the disenfranchised lived (Mt 4:13-17). Like his, our commitment as Church must extend to those who are poor and homeless, to all those who are relegated to the margins of our society.
Take time to reflect on the following quotations.
The importance of ‘mystical life’ has been documented as far back as the Fathers of the Church. In recent times, Karl Rahner made the case that “the Christian of the future will be a mystic or he or she will not exist at all.” By mysticism, Rahner means a genuine experience of God emerging from the very heart of our existence. Rahner adds that a deep experience of God, constantly renewed in prayer, supported by participation in the Christian community, is necessary for Christians to live their faith, to sustain hope and not succumb to fear in the face of an often hostile secular culture.
God’s mercy transforms human hearts; it enables us, through the experience of a faithful love, to become merciful in turn. In an ever new miracle, divine mercy shines forth in our lives, inspiring each of us to love our neighbour and to devote ourselves to what the Church’s tradition calls the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. These works remind us that faith finds expression in concrete everyday actions meant to help our neighbours in body and spirit: by feeding, visiting, comforting and instructing them. (Pope Francis, Lenten Message, 2016)
I ask God for the grace…
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