To have faith in God is to revive what is concealed.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
Archbishop Jean Marie Lustiger speaks of discovering God by situating ourselves differently in relation to ourselves, the world and “the One [we] do not know”.
This suggests a radical kind of openness, a new kind of appreciating – not seeing different things but seeing things differently.
Can you stay with this kind of openness – and wait?
What’s it like not having God at your disposal?
This act of waiting – this readiness to admit we do not see – may in turn be itself revelatory.
Faith is the fundamental openness of heart, the basic readiness to see and hear what is really there, the devotion to being which refuses to tamper with reality, no matter how frightening or costly it appears to be… [This] basic disposition to accept the truth is what enables the person… to be “interiorly taught by God”.
Sandra Schneiders
Unless [our faith] can make its harsh and saving sense out of what we experience here and now, it is a useless fairytale.
Philip Toynbee
This being open to reality is quite rigorous for us. It means allowing us to be affected by what we open ourselves to, but at the same time it allows us “to transcend the unreality with which we surround ourselves”, (Ernst Kasemann). |
 | Try and take time each day, and as simply and courageously as you can, ask yourself, ‘What is going on in my life at present? What am I carrying or facing?’ |
 | The invitation is not, in the first instance, to change it, or fix it up but to see it and begin to wake up to its saving (how it offers life and freedom) and revelatory aspect. |
 | The task is to have ”a long, loving look at the real”. This calls out from us honesty, faithfulness or staying with the real, and willingness to be led by the grace which is at the heart of the real. |
We shall rescue the entombed heart. We shall bring it to the surface, to the light and air. We shall nurse it and listen respectfully to its story.
Michael Leunig
just as the roots of the trees hold firm the soil, so it is
the roots of Love that hold the ground of our being together.
The mystery of love is the meaning of life
My stillness, my stillness
in the spirit we move into the
oneness that is Love.
–adapted by Margaret Rizza from the writings of John Main
For a printable PDF copy of the text of this meditation click on the link below.
