Lectio
“There is something mysterious about the spirit, something relevant to eternity. Absolute rest and composure is eternity. Time is unrest and dispersion; eternity is rest and unity, not inactivity or boredom — only fools connect these with it. Eternity is the brimming fullness of life in the form of repose. Something of eternity is deep within us.”
— Fr. Romano Guardini, Meditations Before Mass
Meditatio
Whether we know it or not, we are all reaching for eternity. Even when we cling to or settle for the temporal, it is in the hope that it will somehow last, that it will somehow be eternal, or at least ground us in the security and comfort of eternity.
In the finite is always the reflection of the infinite, as in a mirror dimly, but when we mistake the finite for the infinite, when we mistake the reflection or the mirror for the truth that is being reflected, we have mistaken that which is created for the creator Himself. And when we do this, it is not that we are necessarily culpable of the sin of idolatry, for God knows our hearts and our intentions matter, but the act itself is idolatrous nonetheless — regardless of our intentions, pure or otherwise, it is idolatry to expect from not-God that which only God can be or give. It is idolatry to seek eternity in the temporal — infinity in the finite.
And yet, the temporal and the finite can point us to the eternal and the infinite. Ordered rightly in our hearts and minds, God’s creation can and should point us to God Himself. Everything in our lives, including our very lives themselves, is the unfolding of God’s eternal love for us — His love through us.
When we bow down in humility and reverence to the beauty and mystery of creation, then, let our bowing be to the Creator Himself, let our humility and reverence be a response to His grace and His glory, for even our bow would not be possible were His life not breathed into our body and His Spirit into our soul. And in the stillness of this bow, the repose of this breath, we touch something of eternity itself, not in that which will ultimately pass away, but through it and into the One who gives it to us.
Oratio
Looking For You
looking for You
in all that You are not
yet all that You show
Yourself to be
revealing Your love
in all that You have made
Your magnificence
Your majesty
Your glory
every moment
pouring Yourself out
for me
Contemplatio
Everything and everyone you have ever loved, and every moment of love itself, has been Him, loving you through it. Let your gaze pass through the gift to the Giver, and rest there a while. Offer Him your consent, and nothing more, and let Him take it from there.
Related Scripture
“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
— 1 Corinthians 13:12 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Right-Sized and Beloved: John Chrysostom on the Humility of a Child (Lectio Divina), which meets the same call to right order from another angle — not what we ask of the things we love, but who we know ourselves to be before the One who gives them.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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