Mark Dohle
Well-Known Member
The Intimacy/Love of God for all of His Children
After Second Vespers of Our Holy Father Saint Benedict Adore Me in My humility and I will make you humble. Adore Me in My obedience and I will make you obedient. Adore Me in My prayer to the Father and I will begin to pray My Father in you. Adore Me in My merciful love for sinners and I will save sinners through you. Adore Me in My weakness and in My poverty, and I will make you strong in My grace and rich in heavenly blessings.1 Adore Me, and I will live in you. Adore Me, and at the hour of your death, I will take you to myself and show you the beauty of My Face unveiled in glory.
A Benedictine Monk. In Sinu Jesu: When Heart Speaks to Heart--The Journal of a Priest at Prayer (p. 177). Angelico Press. Kindle Edition.
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At the beginning of the Gospel of John, it starts with this verse.
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him, nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.
I find that in reading the above verse, it is bracing for me. Jesus is “Cosmic”, the universe His Body, and this Infinite Being became flesh and dwelt among us. Showing us the “Father”. As Jesus said: “To see me is to see the Father”.
He also said, that whatever we do to the least we do to Him. That is another powerful statement that may not be pondered enough by Christians, myself included. He taught that God is “love”, of a type way beyond human love, but manifested through and in the humanity of Jesus Christ. So, it is the least, the outsider, the ones we find ourselves wanting to avoid, that we come face to face with Christ Jesus. The intimacy of God with his children is heartbreaking when prayed over, mediated on, and actually beginning to see Jesus in those around us. Jesus gravitated to the poor, the hurting, and the outcast. I think most of us have found ourselves among the outcaste in certain circles. For the Christian, there should be no outcast.
The more we seek to be with Christ Jesus in prayer, He will lead us into a deeper understanding of who He is, as well as who those around us are. I do believe that modern Christians are the Pharisee class of today. We know the bible, we know the law, and we pray in public, and like the Pharisees, do we hide our own inner poverty from one another because we fear rejection?
It is grace, the very Heart of Christ Jesus that will deepen our own humanity through grace, allowing us to soften inside and to not be afraid of the pain, suffering, isolation, and abuse those around us go through. I believe we are all outcast in the presence of God, hence his mercy, compassion, and empathy for us all. God's love is free, it can't be earned, any more than the woman caught in Adultery earned the mercy she received from Jesus.
Pray, pray, pray, trust, trust, trust, and leave it up to God…..when we love others, speak true with them, yet are gentle, we all grow.—Br.MD