And in Jesus Christ this God shows himself to be the God who
identifies with us, enters our struggles and sorrows, and gives his life for the world. This God seeks to make all things well.
Lady Julian of Norwich, the English mystic, talks about the wideness of God’s love. “God is the power and goodness of fatherhood; God is the wisdom and loving kindness of motherhood.”62
This God, beyond human gender, is a God of sovereignty and power and a God of nurture and care. All children and women and men can find a place of safety and refreshment in the love of this God.
Reflection
Embrace God as true mother and father. Be directed by this God. Be
nurtured by this God known in the face of Christ.
Proverbs 8:30–31
March 4
The Joy of the Trinity
The thought that there is great joy in the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit means that joy rather than chaos or despair lies at the heart of the universe. The dancing God rather than the vengeful God is revealed in the biblical narrative.
When in alarm and dismay we see the way in which war, poverty,
injustice, and environmental degradation continue to mar our world, then it is hardly surprising that some would embrace the politics of despair. There does not seem to be a lot of good news in our world.
And when one thinks of the bleakness of the crucifixion of Christ, one can easily think that the weight of the world’s madness dominates the heart of God. But this is not so. Love and joy are at the heart of the Trinity. The mission of God, while a painful one, comes from the generosity of God’s love.
The German mystic Meister Eckhart writes “When the Father laughs to the Son and the Son laughs back to the Father, that laughter gives
pleasure, that pleasure gives joy, that joy gives love.”63
To see God merely as one who is burdened by the world’s realities and difficulties is to miss something fundamental about the nature of God. God is first and foremost a community of mutual love and care marked by joy. And it is out of this inner joy and love that God loves our world. Thus love—not chaos and craziness—is our central impulse.
Thought
If we were also marked by joy maybe our loving would have a greater depth and endurance, and our exploitation and warmongering would diminish and finally cease.
1 Timothy 3:16
March 5
A Vision of the Christ
Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Man, is central to the Christian faith. Truly God, he is also truly one of us and took upon himself the sin and suffering of all humanity.
The mystery of God is not cleared up or resolved in the person of Jesus Christ. It is only deepened. For he too is bathed in mystery as the eternal Son of the Father, who in time becomes one of us and shows us the love of the Father in his life, death, and resurrection.
The early church father St. Ignatius puts this mystery in dialectical terms. He writes, “There is only one physician, who is both flesh and spirit, born and unborn, God in man, true life in death, both from Mary and God, first subject to suffering and then beyond it, Jesus Christ our Lord.”64 To talk about Christ in this way only deepens the mystery of the Savior of the world.
While in our modern world we may be enamored with rational
clarity and precision, the Christian faith is as much an invitation to
mystery as it is a passion for a faith seeking understanding.
Jesus of Nazareth so clearly portrayed in the Gospel narratives, and further revealed in the Pauline and Johannine reflections, is a man of
mystery as much as he is the healer and redeemer of humanity. Thus we are invited to embrace him in faith in his radical otherness as well as in our supposed familiarity.
Thought
Jesus is the God-man. This is already profoundly paradoxical. Thus Christ is both other and one of us.
1 Chronicles 28:9
March 6
The Ever-Seeking God
The good news of the biblical story is not that we find God through our own efforts, but that God seeks us out and wins us over to seek his face. The welcoming God has drawn us into his presence.
God created the world and humanity out of love and joy and for the purpose of relationship and friendship. And it is clear from the biblical story that this God seeks us with passion and persistence. God is ever the Hound of Heaven.
St. Augustine made this confession, “I sighed, and thou didst hear me. I vacillated, and thou guided me. I roamed the broad way of the world, and thou didst not desert me.”65 Thus even in Augustine’s waywardness God was already at work.
All of this was true before this church father came to faith in the
living God. Augustine knew God was already with him and was
already somehow present in his life. How much more then is this true when one has surrendered in faith to this seeking God. All the more, this God will then sustain us and draw us into his presence.
God the Father seeks us out and calls us by name. God the Son goes looking for us and brings us home to his healing arms. God the Spirit broods over us and with renewing breath wings us on our way into the welcoming presence of God and into service in our world.
Reflection
The God who seeks me out truly identifies me, marks me for God’s
purposes, and shapes my very identity.
Mark 1:32–39
March 7
Contemplation and Action
There are two extremes in the Christian life that should be avoided. The one is to work and serve but not to pray. The other is to pray but not be willing to immerse oneself in the suffering and needs of our world.
Whenever the church in the past has thought in dualistic terms it has
emphasized the personal over the social, the soul over the body, the
spiritual over the material, celibacy over marriage, and contemplation over action. This has led to a one-sided Christianity.
But the church has also thought in much more integrated ways,
recognizing that life is a whole and things belong together. The inner and outer worlds should not be separated and all dualisms should be transcended.
The Desert Father Abbot Silvanus from Mt. Sinai commented to a brother monk, “So Martha is necessary to Mary, for because of Martha is Mary praised.”66 Thus it is important to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn. It is also important to prepare food. It is important to pray. But it is equally important to engage in the work of justice.
Now it is one thing to say that some Christians have the gift to pray and meditate, while others have the gift to work and serve. But to live the Christian life in an integrated way all of us are called to both pray and serve.
Reflection
We pray in order to be with God. We pray to be nurtured. We pray to hear God’s voice. We pray in order to serve. And in the very midst of our serving we also pray.
James 1:13–15
March 8
Temptation
Temptation comes to all of us. Most often it comes