Lectio
“He longs for you a thousand times more than you long for Him: the opening and the entering are a single act.”
— Meister Eckhart, Sermon 4, in The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart
Meditatio
God loved us first. He desired us first. He called us to Him before we ever turned in His direction. This is the beauty of our salvation. This is the miracle of our grace. This is the generosity of His love. And He did this all while we were still sinners.
He loved us when we ignored Him. When we doubted Him. When we denied Him. When we rejected Him.
He gave His entire self to us. He gave His entire self for us. And He did this when we gave nothing to Him — not our time, our attention, or our affection.
And He never stopped and will never stop giving Himself to us because this is what love is — boundless, unconditional, and overflowing — because that is what God is. Because God is love.
And so when we find ourselves loving God, desiring God, and longing for God, it is not we who initiated this relationship, but God who initiated it in us. Love calling to love. Desire calling to desire. Longing calling to longing.
Ours is the return message. Ours is the “I love you too,” that completes the circle. Ours is the response — the entering — to the opening He created for us. To the opening He created in us for Him.
Whatever longing we have for God is not one-thousandth of the longing God has had for us since before we were even born. Since He first contemplated us into being. Since His thought became the word that is our life.
And this imbalance is exactly the debt we can never repay. But we are not asked to. We are merely asked to respond. To respond with affirmation and consent. To respond with “I love you too. Let it be with me according to your will. For I am nothing but a word within your Word.” And that Word is Love.
Oratio
Speaking Through The Veil
rustling leaves of spring
reveal the breeze
otherwise unheard
otherwise unseen
Your mysterious way
of speaking
through the veil
that is creation
wordless whispers
into my heart
so that I may speak
in my broken words
a prayer
a groan
a whisper
I hear you
I see you
I love you too
Contemplatio
What is one place in your life where creation has spoken to you wordlessly — and did you hear it as God’s voice?
Related Scripture
“For you love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made, for you would not have made anything if you had hated it. How would anything have endured if you had not willed it? Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved? You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living.”
— Wisdom 11:24–26 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
For Further Reading: If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Opening the Heart: Love, Grace, and the Practice of Saying Yes, which explores how the love God first poured into us becomes the grace that makes our own yes — to Him and to neighbor — possible.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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