God is the “bottomless encouragement to a faltering and frightened being”. John Updike Love is indeed “ecstasy”, not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed, inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of […]
God makes room for creation by contracting divine presence and power. Elizabeth Johnson To “have room inside yourself….to have another actually living and moving and having being in yourself…is quintessentially a female experience” (cf Philippians 2:6-8- the self-emptying, or divine kenosis enacted in Jesus Christ). God restricts divine presence and power to make room for […]
God desires us, as if we were God Rowan Williams The whole story of creation, Incarnation and our incorporation into Christ’s body tells us that God desires us, as if we were God, as if we were that unconditional response to God’s self-giving that God’s self makes in the life of the Trinity. We are […]
God is a beckoning word Gerard Hughes Patrick White, the Nobel Prize winning Australian novelist, wrote of a defining moment in his life: “During what seemed like months of rain I was carrying a tray load of food to a wormy litter of pups down at the kennels when I slipped and fell on my […]
“Prayer is….God’s breath in man returning to its birth” George Herbert Spirit as “inexpressible closeness of God” Jurgen Moltmann Image: Georgia O’Keeffe, Ballet Skirt or Electric Light (from the White Rose Motif) John V. Taylor, closes his book “The Go-Between God” with a story of a West Indian woman who had been told that her […]
We were conceived in the mind of God as the partner in a dialogue. Hans Urs von Balthasar We are the beings created as bearers of the Word, and only in responding to the Word do we rise to our full dignity. We were conceived in the mind of God as the partner in a […]
For the Word of God is a happening, not a thing. Karl Barth For the Word of God is a happening, not a thing. Therefore the Bible must become the Word of God, and it does this through the work of the Spirit. Karl Barth Image: Carlos Cazares, Anticipation The Word of God in Scripture […]
We believe in a Spirit that emerged into visibility. Michael Morwood Rowan Williams talks of Jesus, Incarnate Word of God, as “earthly visibility, open availability”. Jesus is the place of meeting, always pointing beyond himself to the Other. Reflect upon how, in the gospels, Jesus is the place of meeting and encounter with Other for […]
There lives the dearest freshness, deep down things. Gerard Manley Hopkins We are not given our eyes just to stop us from bumping into things.Stanley Spencer Word is what is said, Spirit is the saying.Michael Downey Image: Filippo Rossi, Hidden Streets 12, 2021 Think about Spirit as wind, air, breath. Pay attention to your breathing…and […]
A symbol should go on deepening. Flannery O’Connor The world offers itself to your imagination.Mary Oliver Image: Daniel Arredondo, Hidden Below, Our Roots A sacramental universe is a symbolic one. This life, and this world says to us that the starting point for becoming who we are intended to be is not striving after another […]