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Opening Prayer
Grace of Christ, enable me to see You, with eyes of pure faith, as One spoken forth by the Father and illumined by the Spirit in all creation. May I kneel at the altar of the unseen church. May my heart remain in reverent gratitude and awed surrender, as I acknowledge, by word and silence, my nothingness in myself. May I overflow with gratitude that You, the All of all, have gifted me to join in union with all, while each creature in its particular hue of divine Light joins with me by You and in You, through the transformation of our separate beings into the life of Grace. Amen.
*Brian K. Wilcox
Wisdom Quote
The inner mystery of the one whom we have touched in our contemplative experience has been revealed to us in the image of a most loving Father who engenders us as most dear children and gives us the Spirit of Life so that we may adequately respond to his great love as we so desperately need to respond.
*M. Basil Pennington. Centering Prayer.
Wisdom Story
J.. David Muyskens, in Forty Days to a Closer Walk with God, tells the following story with comment ...
One summer my wife, Donna, and I visited a cousin and her husband in Gig Harbor, Washington. We stayed overnight with them. In the morning we expressed a desire to drive to Mount Rainier, which was visible from our cousin's kitchen window on this clear morning. Often cloudy in that region, many days the mountain is not seen. My cousin encouraged us in our plans for the day. She looked out the window and said, "Today the mountain is out."
The mountain is is always there, of course, but the fog can obscure the view. God's loving presence is always there; God is not absent. The triune God is always with us and at work in every moment. But the fog of anxiety and attachment obscures the view.
Comments
The intent of contemplation is responsive relationship with the Divine, Who is Love. This Love is always present; this Love awaits my becoming present. I do not make God become present, however, Grace urges me to become present to God.
What I am not present to is, as far as my conscious experience, nonexistent. If I am not present to God, God being present to me is nonexistent, again as pertains to my conscious experience.
So, the Divine Presence summons from me two things for conscious relationship. First, I am to respond to the initiation of Grace, a Grace that summons forth my initial yearnings to know God intimately. Then, I am so to live my life as to engage an ever-increasing conscious experience of the Divine, and this consciousness is one by which I will be conscious of my responding to God and, also, God responding to me.
Indeed, I will find that God responding to me flows from the spontaneous emulation of the initial summoning of Grace, for I, with the same Grace, will initiate response from the God, Who in Love initiated the initiation.
Suggested Reflection
Describe how you have seen your relationship with God growing over time? What roles does Grace play in that process? In what sense do we emulate Grace in our response to God?
Brian is available to respond to requests pertaining to seeking a Spiritual Director, his speaking, doing classes, workshops, or retreats for churches or other spiritual groups.
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