As we celebrate the Mystery of the Incarnation of God is Jesus Christ, we must not forget that, as fellow children of God and brothers and sisters of Jesus, we are intended to live out and carry forward the same Mystery in ourselves. Rest and rejoice this season in the fact that each of us also carries the light of Divine Love, a fact which our contemplative practice helps us embody! Consider the following insight from Fr. John O’Donohue: (click title to view full article)
To proclaim Mary as “Mother of God” is at once to proclaim her as a master contemplative. To understand why, consider the well-known and established theological reasoning behind the title “mother of God”: that in birthing Jesus, Mary becomes mother not only to his human body and human nature, but to his divine nature as well. Mary’s “let it be done unto me” (Lk 1:30) is far more than just an agreement to provide a fleshy container for the Divine Son. Rather, she is consenting to receive perfect Love into herself, and to willingly undertake all the joy, pain, revelation and strife that will surely come with welcoming this Love and sharing it with the world. And wouldn’t you know, the woman who births Love into the world most perfectly is a woman of few words? Mary speaks only seven times in the New Testament, and is the most venerated figure in Christianity aside from Jesus himself. Don’t dismiss these two facts as coincidental! Mary would had to have maintained an interior posture of receptivity and trust – a contemplative posture – to live out her own identity of mothering Divine Presence in her life, and to prepare her son to freely accept his identity as one with the Divine. So must our contemplative practice assure us of our Divine union, and ready us to be a gateway for Presence in the world!
Contemplative Corner #192 Merry Christmas from the Contemplative Core Team! May our practices lead us to the same presence to Presence that our animal friends possess. The Wild Natvity. We have our prophecies too you know, we tell our own tales, and so we knew to gather there that night, ambassadors of our varied kinds all. Before old Joseph came back with supplies from the inn...(click title for full article)
Andy Dapron reflects: As a contemplative practitioner for several years now, I can admit freely that, upon turning my gaze interiorly, I still find a good deal of clutter. I suppose this shouldn’t surprise me: the false, illusory selves that we think we are, with all their habits, processes, expectations, and reactions are built over our lifetimes. How audacious would I have to be to imagine it would take any less time than that to deconstruct my own false self? Where, then, is the joy to be found in this seemingly endless process of peeling back one more layer of illusion? The lighting of candles at this time of year helps me to have perspective. In the midst of a jam-packed run up to Christmas, simple candles remind us of the presence of Christ in the midst of it all, lighting the way. Likewise, in my prayer, in the midst of slowly divesting of the accumulated clutter of a lifetime, I catch the flicker, and grow in awareness of, that light of Christ, burning somehow both subtly and brightly in me, in you, in all of us from the first moment of our existence. That is cause for true joy.