One of the marks of spiritual maturity is the quiet confidence that God is in control - without the need to understand why He does what He
does.
- Anonymous (What do you need to turn over to the care of God?)________ Christianity and Spirituality monthly forum April 4, 2024, 7:30 - 8:30 p.m. CDT Topic: "Christianity and Reincarnation," by Philip St. Romain More info via the link below Free sign up for Zoom link
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Gn 17:3-9; Psalm 105:4-5, 6-7, 8-9 Jn 8:51-59
Jesus said to the Jews:
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever keeps my word will never see death.”
So the Jews said to him,
“Now we are sure that you are possessed.
Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say,
‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’
Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died?
Or the prophets, who died?
Who do you make yourself out to be?”
Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing;
but it is my Father who glorifies me,
of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’
You do not know him, but I know him.
And if I should say that I do not know him,
I would be like you a liar.
But I do know him and I keep his word.
Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day;
he saw it and was glad.”
So the Jews said to him,
“You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you,
before Abraham came to be, I AM.”
So they picked up stones to throw at him;
but Jesus hid and went out of the temple
area.
Reflection on the Scriptures
The part of today’s readings that touched me most deeply was the verse before the Gospel: If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. If I imagine myself in the
crowd of Jews in today’s Gospel, I can see how a person in that situation could experience a closed heart to Jesus’ message. To such a person Jesus delivers a message that is both outside of one’s tradition and outside of one’s experience. Jesus goes on to claim a unique connection with God. In my imagined role as a crowd member, my religious leaders see this man as a troublemaker, as someone who is deserving of severe punishment. In that imagined context, I feel that I would need to have Jesus
proving me wrong in an extraordinary way before he could bring me over to his camp, and I would find myself seriously doubting that could even be a possibility. My sense is that today we live in a world of full of hardened hearts. We spend our time inside camps of people who share our ideology. So often we
reject the messaging from the other camps. So often we hear, but do not listen. Healing does not function, and progress does not occur when people refuse to or are afraid to interact. The fear of retribution by those in authority creates an unholy “order”.
Dear Lord,
How often
have I discovered the gift of being brought outside my own comfort zone?
Grant me the grace to hear without bias, to listen with compassion,
to free myself from any disordered attachment to things or to outcomes,
to open my heart with a
willingness for You to call me and lead me,
and to live a life of humble service to my fellow occupants of this planet.
-by Mike Cherney
St. John of the Cross and the Beginning of Contemplation
by James Arraj From St. John of the Cross and Dr. C. J. Jung, Part II, Chapter 4. Inner Growth Books, 1986.
Loving Attentiveness
Loving attentiveness is a complex reality that consists of two interpenetrating dimensions. The primary dimension is the contemplative experience itself, or loving knowledge, as when St. John
states:
"The soul is alone, with an attentiveness and a knowledge, general and loving, as we said, but without any particular understanding, and adverting not to that which it is contemplating."(54)
Loving knowledge as the designation for contemplation also appears in the two
passages from the Living Flame that have just been cited.
The other dimension of loving attentiveness is the human response to the contemplative experience. This response has two modalities. The first is a loving advertence which occurs at the very beginning of contemplation when the contemplative is learning to turn from his discursive activity and
tries to be receptive to the new experience that is welling up in him. This is a more conscious and deliberate attentiveness. The second aspect of this loving attentiveness is when the contemplation has succeeded in making itself felt, and then it should become more passive and unreflective, and thus St. John says in the Living Flame that loving advertence in the first sense must be forgotten when the contemplative experience makes itself more strongly felt. This advertence,
however, cannot be separated from the actual beginning of contemplation. It is not a way to make a long journey to contemplation, but rather, to become aware of the contemplation that is already present. The more contemplation becomes manifest, the more the recipient has to be on guard against interposing its own specific acts between himself and the contemplative experience, and even against trying to maintain a distinct awareness of his own receptivity. With these points clearly in mind we are
in a much better position to understand the changes that were introduced by the developers of acquired contemplation.
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