"Receive One Child"
Our hearts should be always asking, "what more, Lord? What do you want of me? what is still wanting? Show me anything that is preventing your love having full scope in me. Show me. Help me to see the showing. Help me to hear the answer to the questions: what still?"
What our Lord asks, what He realized was so bitterly hard for the human heart, was "conversion": that accepting to turn right round, to be uncoiled from the self-possession, self-centeredness, and self-orientation that is our native condition, to become God-possessed, God-centered, God-directed. It is what He means by becoming a little one, a child, who alone is capable of receiving the kingdom, of knowing the mysteries of the kingdom. This re-making is God's exclusive work. But we must accept His work, we must allow His divine hand to take hold of us and wrench us into true shape. And we resist with all our might. He knows that only when we are thus re-shaped can we be truly happy. Our misery springs from our self-centeredness. Joy and freedom are in God's possession. "Ah, if only you knew what is for your peace." (Lk 19:42).
Let us then open our hearts to God that His Spirit may take possession of us and the dream of God become a reality in our lives - the dream of our vocation - God alone.
Sister Ruth Burrows, O.C.D.
Magnificat published this in
the February 2014 edition
No comments:
Post a Comment