Destined for More

     It’s already near the end of the fifth week of Lent and a reflection that I read on Ash Wednesday has stayed within my heart and soul. 

     It’s a continuing theme that resonates deep within me, and in talking with different spiritual friends, I hear it echoed in our conversations.

     We experience a longing, an ache, a not quite belonging in this life. There is a longing within us that is searching for something to satisfy this draw. Some of us are aware of the what or Who we’re looking for, while others search throughout their world, not realizing the magnetic-like force to which they are attracted, IS a WHO… so we do our best to take the next step, hoping it will complete what is lacking within.

     For those of us aware of “the One,” Bishop Varden explains, “To take ashes is to confess kinship with this world of dust, to declare our readiness to abdicate pretensions to omnipotence. Standing before God in this way, I profess that I am not God. I admit the chasm that separates me from Him. I accept the uncomfortable otherness of God. He is what I am not, yet my being bears His mark. I crave a completion no created thing can give. I walk this earth as yearning incarnate. I am at home, yet a stranger, homesick for a homeland I recall but have not seen.” 

     The bishop’s words are by far the best explanation of who and Whose I am, and what I need to do to become the woman I have been called by God to be from all eternity.

     I must accept my kinship with the dust of this world and grow in humility and littleness. I must continue to let go of wanting to fix or control things because God, not I, is omnipotent. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are My ways above your ways and My thoughts above your thoughts” Isiah 55: 8-9.     

     I must “come to accept the otherness of God and the chasm that separates me from Him.” And yet in the spiritual life, I experience so many contradictions, that sometimes adds to my confusion.

     In my acceptance of who God is, I still long to come to know Him, and yet, it is not something I can make happen. But at the same time, there are ways I believe I do know Him because He IS calling me to Himself. “I bear His mark,” and by Baptism, He lives within my heart! He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for me so I could be with Him one day, in heaven. 

     Only God can complete me. Only God can fulfill this yearning for more. Only He can fill the void and bring me to my full potential. I must come to want this as much as He does. I have to be willing to give Him my time and attention in prayer…in a fuller, more determined way as never before. 

    For more than thirty-five years, I have practiced quiet prayer. I was introduced by a spiritual director, to this Carmelite form of prayer, as a way to grow in union with God and allow Him to fill me and heal me. Now, as a Secular Carmelite, I am committed to thirty minutes of quiet prayer a day…minimally. I now also have the great privileged to be schooled in the Carmelite Spirituality with the two masters on prayer: St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. 

     St. Teresa wrote under obedience, the great work on prayer, the Interior Castle. She likens the soul to a Castle, made out of diamonds or very clear crystal, in which God resides in its center. She explains the intricacies of the seven dwelling places in the castle, along with the way to entrance and what to expect.

     St. Teresa lived in Avila, Spain, a walled city with castles surrounded with motes and drawbridges to protect them from predators.  

     She tells us that the entry to this castle is prayer and reflection. Teresa cautions us to beware, there are many vile things that we must forsake to succeed in reaching His Majesty, the King, in the center of the castle. We must be determined to rid ourselves of self-love, self-esteem, and lack of charity.  Prayer will help us accomplish that.  We must be willing to die to all the ways that obstruct our moving forward. St. Teresa advises that only with determined determination will we arrive at union with God, by our commitment to prayer and fixing our wills on what is God’s will. We must not allow our distractions in our prayer time to discourage us. Instead, we must gently bring our mind back to our loving God, knowing He is delighted with our feeble efforts. St. Teresa tells us that the essence of prayer is not to think much but to love much.

     St. John of the Cross teaches, “It is to be observed, that the Word, the Son of God, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is hidden, in essence and in presence, in the inmost being of the soul. Wherefore, the soul that would find Him must go forth from all things according to the affection and will, and enter within itself in the deepest recollection, so that all things are to it as though they were not…. God, then is hidden within the soul and there the good contemplative must seek Him with love.” 

     St. John invites us to “go forth,” and travel the path of nothing, or nada. We are to detach, deprive, renounce and annihilate ourselves and put to death the “old man,” so we can find the hidden God and in doing so, find ourselves free, possibly for the first time in our lives.

     St. John cautions us that this purification needed to achieve union with God will be very painful, and that God needs to remove the roots to our imperfections that we ourselves are unable to remove. This happens in contemplative prayer which only God can bring about. But we must do our part and participate everyday to allow His purifying love to transform us in love.

     This will take a lot of faith, love, trust, determination, perseverance and humility to stay under the fire of God’s great love when it feels like suffering. We can only reach this fire by our faithful commitment to God and prayer.

     Bishop Varden finishes his reflections with these words of promise: “When I remember that I am dust I also recall that I was destined for more. The confession echoes with a lost potential. To conduct my life with eyes set on Easter is to trust that what was lost has been restored and can be found again. How?.... Through humility. When we humble ourselves, God responds with flexibility…. Our humility calls on God’s inclination to bend down, to touch and reform us.”

     May we always remember we are destined for more, that our potential is not lost, and with humility, along with our commitment to prayer, we can trust that God will bend down to touch and reform us, holding us close to His precious Sacred Heart.

     As we continue on our journey, let us keep our eyes riveted on Christ triumphant, and the joy and alleluia of Easter. Jesusa has overcome death and enables us to place our hope in Him and not in ourselves. May we practice prayer and humility as never before bringing us closer to our full potential. 

     “If a soul wishes to speak with its Father and enjoy His company, it does not have to go to heaven…. It needs no wings to go in search of Him but only to find a place where it can be alone and look upon Him present within itself” St. Teresa of Avila.

St. Teresa and St. John, please, pray for us!