to see or to perish
Teilhard de Chardin
God “sees” and “attends” – and in the act of seeing God creates. Another way of saying this is to say God “makes room” for creation by constricting divine power. This quintessential female experience – making room for another – is always creative – it is a birthing into new life.
Think of your own birth
and see in it a metaphor for God giving you the space to be yourself
naming you, and bringing you to life.
Allow this to sink in – God as space, creative space, for you to find life.
When we look or listen to someone, or something – really look and listen – something happens. Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist master says: “When we breathe, when we are mindful, when we look deeply at our food, life becomes real at that very moment.”
Let God
dream you into existence
the gift of identity
look at you into life
the gift of dignity
hear you into speech
the gift of freedom
We are persons-in-relation, just as God is. Marvel at this relationship. Savour it.
“We cannot see our faces. We are not meant to try. We see the faces of others. We need them to see us.” We turn towards the other person, offering ourself, the sign of our personality – it is our way of paying attention. “Facing” someone else is a gesture of courage and sincerity. Jesus is God’s face turned towards us.
The poet Rilke says of the bond between two people: that “each should stand ground over the solitude of the other”. Elizabeth O’Connor says: “We are to hold each other to let each other go. Holding is what makes possible letting go and letting go, in turn, makes possible holding.” This balance – not easily achieved – suggests a deep, interior freedom, involving self-awareness and self forgetfulness, and the courage to be ourselves.
Communio was the central ecclesiological concept of the Second Vatican Council, and was in fact a reworking of an important Biblical term. Communio or koinonia is central for Orthodox Christians. Remarkably, in a totally unplanned way, communion has emerged as the key term and the common denominator for the different Christian traditions. Ecumenically it is a word with tremendous significance and possibility. Communio is both the source and goal of the Christian journey.
| O Quam Mirabilis Hildegard of Bingen | |
| O quam mirabilis est prescientia divini pectoris que prescivit omnem creaturam. Nam cum Deus inspexit faciem hominis quem formavit, omnia opera sua in eadem forma hominis integra aspexit. O quam mirabilis est inspiratio que hominem sic suscitavit. | How wonderful it is, that the foreknowing heart divine has first known everything created! For when God looked upon the human face that he had formed, he gazed upon his ev’ry work, reflected whole within that human form. How wondrous is that breath that roused humanity to life! |
For a printable PDF of the text of Fr Philip’s meditation click on the link below.
