“The more you lose yourself in contemplation of God, the more yourself do you really become” –Murray Bodo, OFM
I would be interested in how my readers would describe their own experiences of contemplation and becoming more fully who they are called to be.
Don’t let the word “contemplation” throw you off course. Think of it as seeing God and speaking to him in whatever way he has revealed himself to you.
For me, my experience of contemplation has changed over the years. For a while, it was a very personal experience of God and me. Then it developed into God’s self-revelation in creation and relationships with others. Now, it has a lot to do with marital spirituality and the incarnated Body of Christ in his Church. At each step, I have become a little more fully human, hopefully, and an instrument of God’s love for the world.
God’s self-revelation was most complete in his Son Jesus. We need only to look to him to comtemplate God. The first reading from Mass this morning reminds us of this. St. John said that God’s testimony to us was his Son Jesus, and God’s testimony is true. If we acknowledge (contemplate) Jesus as the Son of God, we have eternal life within us, which is in many ways a sharing of the beatific vision of the saints in heaven. God’s testimony is true. Jesus is the witness, the face of the Father, the one we can see, and hear, and touch in our lives. I do this through reception of his Body and Blood, hearing the Gospel proclaimed, and recognizing him in the lives of the poor and marginalized of our world.
How about you?
