Lectio
“Surely he means we must love and praise God alone, for his own sake, before any other physical or spiritual activity. There’s nothing more important… So he added, ‘Mary has chosen the best part, which will not be taken away from her.’ He told her ‘it will not be taken away’ because the work of perfect love, the pure reaching out to God that begins here on earth, is exactly the same love that will last eternally in the joy of heaven. It is all one love.”
— The Cloud of Unknowing
Meditatio
In our era of ubiquitous digital technology, there is a risk, of bombarding ourselves with stimulation, of consuming information for the sake of consumption, and of filling every quiet moment with noise and words and pictures. There is a risk, of never truly listening, of never truly seeing, and of never truly receiving and witnessing the Lord’s still, small voice that comes to us in whispers most easily heard in stillness. And in all of this distraction and diversion, there is a risk of not hearing the Lord’s call because we have made ourselves unavailable to hear it.
Jesus tells us that we are not defiled by what we consume, but by what we project forth into the world, but Scripture also warns us about the dangers of over-indulgence, unchecked appetites, and allowing our fleshly desires to rule over us. Jesus, Himself, says that sin is as present and real in our hearts and minds as it is in our actions, and that to look at another lustfully is adultery, and to view another with hatred is murder. Our eyes, Scripture tells us, are the lamp of the body, and, when our eyes are healthy, our whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, our body also is full of darkness (Luke 11:34). While the love and mercy of Christ has the power to overcome all evil and cleanse us of all sin, what we take in through our eyes, our ears, and our other senses matters, and has a direct impact on the light we carry or turn away from.
And so we must ask ourselves, with everything we take in, is this leading me toward the light or away from it? Is this pointing me toward the living Word or the world? Is this growing me in love or fleshly desires? Am I filling my hours with God or with self? Am I feeding my soul with Christ — with The Way, The Truth, and The Life — or with the sights, sounds, and experiences of deception? We must ask this not because the world or the flesh are inherently evil, but because the Evil One uses them to lead us away from the One through whom all things are made holy.
This is why Christ calls His disciples away from the world to pray, why He tells us to go into our rooms, to shut the door, and to pray to the Father in secret, and why He, Himself, retreats from the crowds to pray, not because God cannot speak through the noise or be seen in all manner of creation, but because we too easily give ourselves over to creation rather than the Creator. We too often align ourselves with what He has made rather than with His Living Presence in us, for our flesh is weak and, in the midst of the stimulation of the world, the flesh’s desires pull us away from what our soul longs for, which is God and the love only He can give.
Oratio
Love Amongst Us
God loves in silence
He loves in stillness
He loves through the Word
who draws us into His presence
God loves in secret
He loves in quiet
He loves through the world
that He spoke into creation
God’s love is inside us
His love is amongst us
we are His body
drawing others into His presence
Contemplatio
You do not need to fill this moment with anything. Let what you have taken in today fall away, and let what remains be only this: His love, waiting. Sit in the quiet, and let love have the rest of you.
Related Scripture
“One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.”
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like No Eyes to See: Pseudo-Dionysius and the Silence Beyond Understanding (Lectio Divina), which turns from the noise we let fill our attention toward the deeper silence waiting beneath all our seeing and hearing.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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