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But far be it from me to boast except
in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which
the world has been crucified to me
and I to the world.
*Galatians 6.14 (ESV)
WISDOM QUOTE
Ilia Delio, in Clare of Assisi: A Heart Full of Love, shares regarding Clare’s vision of contemplation and the love of God within it:
The path to God through contemplative vision for Clare takes seriously the outrageous love of God visible in the scandal of the cross. What we in our own time consider absurd~fragility, weakness, suffering and death~Clare, like many women mystics of her time, understood as the ensured path into divine love. The key to uncovering this love hidden in the field of the human heart is contemplation. For Clare, as for Francis, the contemplation means looking upon the Earth while seeing the things of heaven. It means seeing things for what they truly are, even in their weakness and brokenness, and not what we project onto them or want them to be. Her path of contemplation impels us to ask, What do we see as we travel the Earth? What are we looking for when we go into the world? Clare reminds us that contemplation is the vision of a heart centered on Christ. Unless we can see God concealed in the fragility of our created world and love the God we see, our blindness remains and the world persists in darkness. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus we foolishly ask, “Have you not heard? Did you not see?” Never realizing all the while that Christ is in our midst.
SUGGESTED REFLECTIONS
Are you able to see God in the fragility and brokenness that is part of your life and the world around you?
How is the cross a sign of the profoundly humble path to spiritual Enlightenment? Is there any other way to experience the depths of Divine Love but a profoundly humble way?
How does the cross speak to us of the “outrageous love of God”? In what sense might we say that Divine Love is “outrageous”?
Are you willing to pray and seek to follow Christ by living out self-offering in “outrageous love” for others and the Divine?
Why is the cross a stumbling block to many persons?
What is the relationship between the transformation that occurs in contemplative living and the cross of Christ?
*My book An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love can be ordered at major online booksellers or at most bookstores. Thanks! Brian K. Wilcox
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