Lectio:
“What is a merciful heart? It is a heart burning for the whole of creation… for men, for birds, for animals… for every created thing.”
~ St. Isaac the Syrian, Ascetical Homilies, Homily 71
Meditatio:
The path of grace and salvation is a never-ending journey until we are rejoined in wholeness with God. We are, each and every one of us, broken creatures seeking recollection and reunion with the divine source, making imperfect decisions based on imperfect beliefs lived out in imperfect action. Whatever goodness we have is by grace, and not of our own doing or thinking. But this fact is easily and often forgotten, as pride blinds us to our own flawed natures, deafens us to the quiet voice of love and mercy, and separates us from the relational wholeness from and for which we were created.
By pride, we are tricked into believing that we are different, that we are special, and that our gifts and our pain are unique to us and us alone. It deceives us into believing that we are the source of our own goodness and that others are the source of our misery. We forget that we are merely one broken creature seeking wholeness amongst many broken creatures seeking wholeness, and this separates us not only from our fellows, but from the source of loving wholeness itself.
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” He then goes on to say, “And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:36-40, NRSVCE). To love our neighbors as ourselves is to see them as we see ourselves, to allow for them the same grace we wish for ourselves, and to understand that their brokenness is not the cause of our brokenness, but rather a reflection of it. To love our fellows, Jesus says, is to love God. They — we —are only separate from him and one another to the degree that we believe and behave as if it were so.
Oratio:
Lord my expectations
for your creatures
are far too high
how easily I forget
my own brokenness
seeing only the brokenness
of my fellows
allying myself
with the accuser
the deceiver
the trickster
who antagonizes me
through my pride
how easily I forget
that I am merely
a fragmented soul
seeking recollected wholeness
amongst fragmented souls
seeking recollected wholeness
~Robert Van Valkenburgh
Contemplatio: How might my heart soften if I remembered that I am walking among fellow wounded souls seeking the same wholeness I seek?
Related Scripture: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:36)
For Further Reading:
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