How far do we have to go in order to get to God?  Where are we looking for the divine?  Are Sunday mornings in church the extent to which we “find” God?  What if we don’t have to go anywhere to find God?  Indeed, what if we don’t have to do anything at all to encounter the Divine?  Inasmuch as this would seriously foil the constant frenzy of our ego-operating-systems, could it be true that we don’t necessarily find God by achievements or ingenuity but rather by simply “being” and “resting” so to speak in who we are and where we are right now in the present moment? If so, this would not be a passivity at all but rather a full engagement of a heart full of compassion and courage.

Today is the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Many have a beautiful devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  If we consider the celebration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as the celebration that God is Love, then we can quickly ascertain that the distance between us and God is minimal if anything at all.  The “distance” in the Heart of God in its great Breadth is touching us closer than anything else even though we do not acknowledge or realize it.  Despite centuries of theology that leans toward a meritorious aspect of earning God’s love that demands that we go out of ourselves to look for and even accomplish it, there is another truth here telling us that God as love is available always everywhere to everyone.  We just don’t seem to know how to “grasp” that in a way that can impact us at the very core of our being.

John is hinting in his letter today (1 Jn 4:7-16), that because God is Love, the accessibility is actually right where you are, right where I am, right where we are together:

“…not that we have loved God, but that he loved us …if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.”

We start from the place of Love.  This is our sources!  So, we do not have to go looking for God, we are already being sustained in life and in this world by the loving Spirit of Christ that dwells here in everything and in us.  So the question is not how to find God but how to “remain” in God, as John underlines for us.  And the simple yet difficult way of remaining is to love one another.  And this love is one that we don’t have to “make up” since we are already nestled within it ourselves.  It’s then a matter of sharing that which is right here, i.e., passing on the love that we have already received.  Loving one another is making manifest the God who sustains us by consciously connecting to the Love in and through one another.  But how do we do this?  Is there one prescribed manner in which we love another?  Is it in service, prayer, compassion, listening, singing, resting, etc.?  I would say “yes.”  The ways that we love one another are as diverse as each one of us and within the ordinary contexts of the worlds that we already find ourselves in right now.

The French paleontologist and theologian, Teilhard de Chardin, brought up by a mother who had a strong devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, describes in his writings a mystical experience he had while looking at a picture of Christ offering his heart to the world[i].  During the experience, Teilhard’s eyes moved to the outlines of the picture when he suddenly realized that the outlines were melting, and then while focusing on the face of Christ, the mystical experience reached its climax as the FACE of Christ still unmoved had appear over it the “colours of the rainbow (a)float in a transparent bubble.”  The eyes of Christ as Teilhard looked at them, “which at first were so sweet and tender that I thought it was my mother…became in the next moment as full of passion and as dominating as those of a sovereign lady…and then again they were filled with a great and virile majesty akin to that which can be seen in the eyes of a man who has great courage or strength.”

What a curious and wonderful description of Christ’s Heart offered to the world.  I find in this description the dynamic ever-expansive and vibrating energy of a Love moving outward while bringing everything within its Heart Space – blurring boundaries and surfacing all the diverse colors of creation.  More than that, the focus of the heart for Teilhard is placed in the face of Christ, specifically in the eyes of Christ.  The eyes of Christ see with tenderness and compassion, as well as with passionate courage and strength.”

Matthew has Christ telling us something about this strong compassion in today’s Gospel (Mt 11:25-30):

“”Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

This is the invitation to remain in Christ by “seeing” with the eyes of Christ in the sacred heart-space of God’s self!  This willingness to bear burdens and relieve the beloved comes from an unimaginable strength grounded in unfathomable love.  And this love is the Christ in whom we move and have our being.  We live already within the Heart of Christ and this means we are living in Love.  The key is to find ways to nurture this love by sharing it simultaneously through receiving and giving it to each other.  And this giving and receiving is one motion – one gesture, the only one that Love can make.  This seems paradoxical perhaps, but Christ is showing us the way.  We share each other’s yoke and thereby lighten each other’s burdens because we are sharing with each other in Christ and sharing Christ with each other all at the same time.  Our hearts are “remaining in God” through Christ in the most intimate and powerful way possible.

The Heart of God is the universal organ of relatedness that allows us to be present within and present to each other in the loving divine embrace.   And when we “rest in a loving awareness of God,” as the author, James Finley puts it, we realize that “ultimately there is nowhere to go.”[ii]  There is no heroism or over-activity necessary, but simply the still and humble movements of accepting of receiving each moment of our lives as the grace it is, i.e., the opportunity to connect with the Heart of God through the faces of Christ all around us.  This is the simple perfection of God “remaining” in our lives – Christ’s sacred heart whose vibrating pulse moves beyond the frameworks of our sometimes small minds, revealing and including all the sacred colors of the new creation yet to beheld.

[i] Teilhard de Chardin, The Heart of Matter (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1978) pp. 63-65.

[ii] James Finley, Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God (New York: Harper Collins) p.217

Peace,

Thomas