O Lord, you search me and you know me....
Notes from a retreat given at St Clare’s Prayer and
Retreat Centre,
Newton,
April 98: It is a pleasure at being able to spend
some time with you in the presence of the Lord.
We are all very different in our needs and expectations.
Glory of creation - star differing from star in glory, as scripture says. We rejoice
in creation, and especially in ourselves as part of that creation, human beings
(Ps 58 / 138)
We celebrate our uniqueness with thanksgiving - God has made us in his image
and likeness, and that in itself is sufficient material to fill our week with praise
and thanksgiving, even before we
think of salvation, redemption and sanctification.
We begin this retreat with ourselves, hence
the title from Ps. 139; but not in a selfish way, but celebrating with thanksgiving
who l am now, where l am now, and then to discover a little more of what God might
want me to be. (Be patient – God has not yet finished with me. We are never “Has-beens”
in God’s eyes)
When we look at the catalogue of saints we find that each one is radically
herself or himself with certain gifts of nature and grace - God never repeating
himself. (C.f. our particular Saints – St. Francis, St. Clare…)
The thing about the saints with a capital S, and the saints we meet every day, is
that they became holy as they became more fully themselves - as they grew into what
God intended them to be; their divine blueprint, or DNA [although I’m never quite
sure what DNA exactly is] they realised their full human potential, shot through
with the grace of God, the Holy Spirit. “The glory of God is a person fully alive”
said Irenaeus nearly 2000 years ago. Fully alive with the body, soul and spirit
that is me, that is you. Here is the raw material of sanctity. I have only this
life, this body in which to become holy. We give glory to God by living the truth,
the reality that is ME, that is YOU.
My raw material has limitations; this is part and parcel of human existence. Our human destiny is to be human beings in a real world - a wondrous world, yes - but a world that is wounded, that knows failure, sin and suffering. But God loves us within these limitations and we have to understand and know ourselves within our own limitations of sin and failure. (The ultimate of our limitations is bodily death – FACE the REALITY of DEATH – “now and at the hour of our death”)
Saints are not people who erase their individual identity
by drinking a draught of a bland potion called sanctity; they become fully themselves
- they realize the potential that is in them according to the gifts of God in nature
and grace.
The Rabbi Zusya is reputed to have said: “When I die, God will not ask me, “Why
were you not Moses?” Surely he will ask me, “Why were you not Zusya?” (God doesn’t
need to repeat himself.)
We try so desperately to be
spiritual before we know who we are as human beings.
The seed of the divine life is planted in human soil; it grows in human soil - but
only in human soil that is nourished, fed and watered; not human soil that is thin,
dry and un-accepting. A healthy sense of the damp and fertile soil of my humanity
is the seed ground of sanctity.
Great saints are great human beings - fully aware of their own dignity, and of the dignity of their brothers and sisters made in God’s image and likeness; fully aware too of the glory of God’s creation in which they have been placed as stewards and of their responsibility within the created order.
“Lord, our God, how majestic is your name through
all the world.
What are human beings that you spare a though for them,
or the child of Adam that you care for him?
Yet you have made him little less than a god,
you have crowned him with glory and beauty,
made him lord of the works of your hands,
put all things under his feet” (Psalm 8)
God said: “Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves...
God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male
and female he created them. God blessed them… God saw all that he had made, and
indeed it was very good (Gen. 1)
Paul tells us in Ephesians [2: 10] that we are
God’s work of art. We are God’s poema -something that he has made, and God
doesn’t make junk. God saw all that he had made and indeed it was
very good. (How often do we think of ourselves in this way?)
We begin our retreat by reflecting on WHO we
are.
Too often we spend our lives in acting out a role (i.e. monk, prison chaplain or
whatever) or doing a job (teacher, administrator, etc) (e.g. I am the Abbot
of … - that is what I do, not who I am!)
or even trying to live other peoples lives for them, walking about in other people’s heads, while all the time we live unreflecting personal lives. (We need the sense of awareness of being reflecting people)
No wonder we
are anxious and stressed and depressed.
We get more concerned with WHAT we are amongst other people than with WHO we are
before
God. (All that striving and ambition to become something while forgetting to be someone.
We are human beings not human things)
First of all, think only of yourself and of Him in whose image and likeness you have been fashioned.
“You created my inmost self, knit me together in my mother’s womb. For so many marvels
I thank you; a wonder am I, and all your works are wonders.
You knew me through and through, my being
held no secrets from you, when I was being formed in secret, textured in the depths
of the earth.
Your eyes could see my embryo, in your book my days were inscribed, every one that
was fixed is there.” (Ps 138)
Think that he has called you BY NAME. God has written our name in his book - his book is his heart. (I do not ask for your prayers or penance; I ask that you believe that I love you)
Your name gives identity to You; your parents and family, your friends, all who
know you, associate all your characteristics - good, bad and indifferent with that
Name.
God knows you by name - he knows the very depths of your heart - he can pierce the
darkness that hides you from yourself.
He calls you by name (The REAL ME, not any false persona)
God said to Moses (Ex 33:1 7) “This very
thing that you have spoken I will do; for you have found favour in my sight, and
I know you by name.”
Jesus said “He calls his own sheep by name
and leads them out. “ (Jn I 0:3) &
“I am the Good Shepherd; I know my own and my own know me.”
(Shepherds in Israel have names for their sheep)
He has revealed
his name to us -- and he is asking us to reveal our name to Him; - he knows our
name, yes indeed, but we ourselves must discover and must reveal our Name
to him so that in the light of his presence, we get to know who we are and who he
wants us to be, and to discover his Name implanted in us through nature and grace.
(Marriage bond covenant Jerem 31:31)
When God in the garden of Eden told Adam to name the creatures, he
was letting him share in that mystery whereby He knows each of his creatures in
heaven and on earth- by name. Isaiah has that wonderful vision of God calling his
creation by Name, and especially his chosen ones:
“Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name by the greatness of his might, and because he is
strong in power not one is missing.” (Is 40:26)
“But now, says the Lord, he who created you, 0 Jacob, he who formed you, 0 Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called
you by name, you are mine.”
You are precious in my sight and I love you.
(Is 43)
He has truly created
and formed us as humans, but he has also redeemed us and given us a new name.
“Jesus looked at him and said: ‘You are Simon, son of John? You shall be called Cephas
(which means Peter’).”
This is not just a gift for Peter. -
Christ looks at each of us, gazes at us, sees in us the image and likeness of God, and sees the work of his redeeming love, and he calls us by a new name. (Jesus looked at the young man and loved him)
Prayer is the privileged place where we can let Christ gaze on us just as we are, and where we will not feel threatened but feel secure in that process of change and transformation that is the result of this loving gaze. (New name that no-one knows except the one who receives Rev. 2)
When God calls us by name, he states
his ownership of us: we are his people, the
sheep of his flock “Remember it is God himself who assures us all… of our
standing in Christ, and has anointed us, marking us with his seal and giving us
the pledge, the Spirit, that we carry it our hearts.” 2 Cor: 1:
22 (The “seal” of being HIS, of ownership)
When Jesus calls us by name, we
can respond to him with all our hearts. (Remember
Mary Magdalene after the crucifixion :-)
“Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him
away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to
her, “Mary” She turned to him and said “Rabboni”. (Jn 20:16)
‘ When Mary heard her name called by the Risen Lord she must have known
the thrill of new life - life in the midst of death, of participating in the risen
life Jesus instructs her not to hold on to him but to go and tell the brothers that
they have been given a new name, they are part of a new family:
“Tell the brethren that I am ascending to my God and to your God; to my Father and
to your Father” (Our name is changed as we enter into the new covenant – the marriage
bond of love – in Christ – with us.)
(BAPTISM - TRANSFIGURATION)
To see who I am, and to acknowledge with gratitude who I am, and to hear the Lord
call me by name is the first step of our journey of prayer. (Successful
prayer = comfortable prayer)
In prayer we stand before the mystery of God, the mystery
of ourselves. We live in a world where people want to know the technical details
of everything. (The internet has so much knowledge! Is the internet the new tree
of the knowledge of good and evil, the new Tower of Babel?) There is even
the desire now to quantize the human soul. Here,
like in the days of the tower of Babel, men are reaching beyond themselves. [God
resists the proud and is attracted to the humble] The humble stand before
the mystery and say with the psalmist (138)
“Such amazing knowledge is beyond me, a height to which I cannot attain.”
“How hard for me to grasp your thoughts, how many, 0 God, there are.”
We can only stand in awe before the mystery of God, of his love, of his mercy,
of his will, of our own being.
This is where true humility is to be found - and praise - 0 God, you are; I am -
I don’t understand, I bow down and adore.
All that I am and have is gift - and all wisdom and insight into your mystery comes
from you alone as gift. You give it to the humble of heart.
We stand before the mystery of God with open hearts, waiting to be filled.
And because God calls us by name - we are his, because in the Beloved Son, we are
called, chosen and consecrated,
and we find favour, God delights in us,
and if earthly fathers do not refuse good things to their children,
how much more will our heavenly Father not refuse to give us all the riches
of his Spirit?
(READ if only we would grasp God’s love Eph. 3)
One often hears people talk about the God of the Old Testament being a God of wrath
and anger. This perhaps is a typically human way of focussing on something - being
absorbed in the drama of the storm while forgetting the serenity of God’s delight
in his people. [The Lord takes delight in his people PS 149] God’s anger was provoked
because his people failed to respond to the tender love which he had bestowed upon
them in his covenant - his marriage bond - with them. It was the result of their
infidelity - the hurt that was inflicted on the tender heart of God by a forgetful
and unstable people; a people who sought after the false gods which could never
live up to their false promises.
“I will remove the names of the baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned
by name no more. “ Hosea 2:17
The shallowness of the love of God’s chosen people was a cause of great
distress and pain to the Lord (We know how shallow is our own response to God’s love)
“For your love is like the morning mist,
like the dew that quickly disappears.” Hos. 6:4
That is why God’s sentence will blaze forth like the dawn -
“for faithful love is what pleases me, not sacrifice;
knowledge of God, not burnt offerings”. Hos 6:.6 -
God delights in his people too greatly to let them go
I am going to seduce her
and lead her into the desert
and speak to her heart
There she will respond
as when she was young...
I shall betroth you to myself for ever,
I shall betroth you in uprightness and justice,
and faithful love and tenderness. (Hos 2: 16, 17, 21)
Part of the great mystery is the paradox of the desert.
God leads us into the desert of ourselves, not to punish us,
but to let us feel the pain of absence from him, our desire for him;
so that we can learn that without his love, mercy and compassion our hearts wither,
and we become less than human, we fail to reflect his glory in our lives.
It is there that we learn that our clinging to the baals (false gods) - whatever
forms those baals take - dehumanizes us, drains us of that life planted in us as
his creation, is in the silence of the desert (of hearts on retreat) if our ears
are open, we hear him call us by name,
he calls us because he delights in us, he knows what he has made, nothing is hidden
from him; what we fear most about ourselves is already accepted and loved by God.
That is why he teaches us to love our neighbour as ourselves:
How can we hate - in ourselves, in others - that in which God delights?
The image of himself of his Son, the seal of his Spirit: - (Cf. the compassion of
God, mother, ourselves)
“You are my beloved, in you my heart delights, on you my favour rests”
What then do I see when I look at ME?
“Who am I that God should keep me in mind - care for me?”
Am I convinced of this incredible, unshakeable fidelity?
St Francis de Sales in his Treatise on the love of God says this:
What is our reason for loving ourselves?
Surely because we are made in the image and likeness of Cod.
And since all men and women possess this same dignity we love them as ourselves,
that is, as holy and living images of the Godhead. It must always be understood
that we love our neighbours for this reason: that they are made in the image and
likeness of Cod, created to communicate in his goodness, share in his grace and
rejoice in his glory.
[19th
century hymn writers had a way of expressing deep theological truths in a poetic,
even though somewhat sentimental way - and a hymn that seems to have been suppressed
in most modem hymn books, probably because of its somewhat sentimental and personal
appeal, is ‘0 love that wilt not let me go” - it was one of my mother’s favourites,
and I find that it has often said the right things to me when I needed them:
“0 Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
that in thine ocean depths its flow
may richer fuller be.
0 Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
and feel the promise is not vain
that morn shall tearless be.” G. Matheson.
1881 ]
This expresses the faithful love of a God who delights in me, his creation, in whom
his image is found, and whose fidelity is constant in the midst of my straying,
whose forgiveness covers the depths of my sin and whose compassion heals the pain
I have caused myself through sin. This God gives me the confidence to consider WHO
I am and where I am at the beginning of these days of reflection. (God’s love is
faithful – He delights in me!)
And to bring what I find in my heart to him for forgiveness, healing, assurance,
new direction... and most of all, for his loving mercy.