To be human is to be hungry
Monica Helwig
approaching the mystery
– with faith
Image: Jackie Howard, Inside Information (detail)
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 appear to be….[this] basic disposition to accept the truth is what enables the person…to be interiorly “taught by God” (John 6:44-45)
Who is it that comes to this time of Eucharist/prayer?
Can I name how it is for me?
Have I a sense of the many and different “me-s”
…the me who’s tired, or bored, on top of things, anxious….
and can I recognize and affirm the deeper “me”, the hidden me, the one who is in reality oriented towards God and who desires God?
How does God see me? How is God disposed towards me?
approaching the mystery
– with imagination
Image: Jackie Howard, Supplication (detail)
The world offers itself to our imagination.
Mary Oliver
We are not always able to feel the love we would like to feel. But we may believe imaginatively, envisioning and eventually creating what is not yet present.
Mary Richards
How can I nurture a Eucharistic imagination?
Can I appreciate the imagination of Jesus…
…who imagined the world other than it is,
…who imagined the Kingdom of God,
…who appealed not to our minds, but to our hearts, our dreams, our longings?
approaching the mystery
– with desire
Image: Jackie Howard, Love tree (detail)
The altar is the Table of Holy Desire
Catherine of Siena
To be human is to be hungry
Monica Helwig
What do I desire?
What am I longing for?
What am I hungry for?
There is another world and it is in this one.
Paul Eluard
We have all participated in the tragic split between head and heart, theology and spirituality, matter and spirit. Somehow we have divided how God feeds us, as if what we do at the dinner table is (merely) physically sustaining, and what we do in Church is spiritually sustaining. The problem is succinctly stated by the poet Kathleen Raine:
How shall we name
A Spirit clothed in world, a world made man?
The images in this post are from the textile works of Jackie Howard, a contemporary Dutch artist. She describes her creative process and her work.
‘Textiles have always been the common thread in my life. I can still see the precious rolls of fabric piled high in the shops where my mother took me. Color and texture are essential, always looking for richness as I see it in creation. An oak tree with winters full of fungus and moss, an old fresco wall, mysterious star nebulae.
Wandering through the woods, images arise naturally. A biblical text that speaks to me from a distant past, happiness in music. Wonder, in search of beauty and truth.
Removing the flat surface, the superficiality. Challenging to look behind things. Getting closer, being surprised by the beauty and sanctity of life…’
For more information click here.
Enjoy this final short prayer of faith, imagination and desire.
I lift it up, Lord
Come and quench this thirsting of my soul
Bread of Heaven, feed me ’til I want no more
Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole
For a printable PDF of the text of this meditation click the link below.
