Fire and Freedom

Before His gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with Him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves… His gaze, the touch of His heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of His love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God.
– Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi

I love the Pope. I love this challenging invitation from the Holy Father, a man anointed and appointed by the Holy Spirit to guide and govern the Church on earth. And though this invitation speaks of great pain, I take the greatest comfort from these “burning” words of his, because…

1. I know they are true, and
2. He has the courage to tell us this truth.

Christianity is not a sugar-coated religion, an escape, or a crutch. It is not unrealistic, or naive. It is standing arms outstretched in the midst of scorching winds; it is stepping into the white hot furnace where the three young man danced before an evil king of this world in the Old Testament. It is a New Testament. It is a test, it is our testimony…. a blessed pain, in which the holy power of His love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God.

And as a dear professor of theology once told me, “Everything that happened to Jesus must happen to us.” So when we find ourselves in this fire of sorrow, then we find ourselves in the best of company.

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org

Crossbeams

Two beams have shot out through human history, each on a course and each on a quest. One is horizontal, passing through time, looking on the world as on a linear plane, longing for the infinite but finding only finite things. The top is spun and the circle runs and days pass, but all is vanity, passing away in clouds of half-knowledge. It is man’s search for meaning.

Everyone is seeking something. Every soul is longing and working and sweating out its days in a quest for a paradigm that will offer insight into the enigma of being here, of being human. We awake every morning and we rub our eyes and we look out across time; our horizontal beams like beacons, scanning the vast sea of humanity, eager to find its edge and its end. We lay out the tracks of our thoughts so that our hearts may have a Way to travel, a Path to navigate, a Destiny to reach. But all is vanity, and there is nothing new under the sun.

But a second beam has fallen, and ever falls, perpendicular to the thoughts of men, streaming down from infinite fields, vast and limitless. This beam intersects our history, personal and collective, and impregnates it with meaning, with purpose, with life. It’s the gaze of God. But this beam of Love does not break or sever our horizontal gaze. Rather, it permeates and radiates and lets run backwards and forwards through the long line of human longings, of births and deaths, life and love, and gives it a New Fire. This beam bends our stubborn necks and gives us cause to look up.

Into the finite descends the Infinite, into space comes spirit, throughout time there now breathes Eternity. The Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross is the celebration of Heaven penetrating Earth. Of God breaking into our story and giving our plane of existence a vibrant new dimension. The Cross is the stamp on every letter God sends us, to say “Look up… your redemption is near at hand.”

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Inspiration for the New Evangelization
http://www.missionmoment.org