Day 3: The Descending Way

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Friday After Ash Wednesday

For I am certain of this: neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nothing already in existence and nothing still to come, nor any power, nor the heights nor the depths, nor any created thing whatever, will be able to come between us and the love of God, known to us in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom. 8:38-39

The love of God has become visible in Jesus. How is that love made visible through Jesus? It is made visible in the descending way. That is the great mystery of the Incarnation. God has descended to us human beings to become a human being with us; and once among us, descended to the total dereliction of one condemned to death. It isn't easy really to feel and understand from the inside this descending way of Jesus. Every fiber of our being rebels against it. We don't mind paying attention to poor people from time to time; but descending to a state of poverty and becoming poor with the poor, that we don't want to do. And yet that is the way Jesus chose as the way to know God...

God's way can be grasped only in prayer. The more you listen to God speaking within you, the sooner you will hear that voice inviting you to follow the way of Jesus. For Jesus' way is God's way and God's way is not for Jesus only but for everyone who is truly seeking God. Here we come up against the hard truth that the descending way of Jesus is also the way for us to find God. Jesus doesn't hesitate for a moment to make that clear.

The mystery of God's presence can be touched only by a deep awareness of his absence. It is in the center of our longing for the absent God that we discover his footprints and realize that our desire to love God is born out of the love with which he has touched us. In the patient waiting for the loved one, we discover how much he has filled our lives already. Just as the love of a mother for her son can grow deeper when he is far away, just as children can learn to appreciate their parents more when they have left the home, just as lovers can rediscover each other during long periods of absence, so our intimate relationship with God can become deeper and more mature by the purifying experience of his absence. By listening to our longings, we hear God as their creator. By toughing the center of our solitude, we sense that we have been touched by loving hands. By watching carefully our endless desire to love, we come to the growing awareness that we can love only because we have been loved first and that we can offer intimacy only because we are born out of the inner intimacy of God himself.

In our violent times, in which destruction of life is so rampant and the raw wounds of humanity so visible, it is very hard to tolerate the experience of God as a purifying absence and to keep our hearts open to patiently and reverently prepare his way. We are tempted to grasp rapid solutions instead of inquiring about the validity of the questions. Our inclination to put faith in any suggestion that promises quick healing is so great that it is not surprising that spiritual experience are mushrooming all over the place and have become highly sought after commercial items. Many people flock to places and persons who promise intensive experience of togetherness, cathartic emotions of exhilaration and sweetness, and liberating sensations of rapture and ecstasy. In our desperate need for fulfillment and our restless search for the experience of divine intimacy, we are all too prone to construct our own spiritual events. In our impatient culture, it has indeed become extremely difficult to see much salvation in waiting.

But still . . . the God who saves is not made by human hands. He transcends our psychological distinctions between "already" and not yet," absence and presence, leaving and returning. Only in a patient waiting in expectation can we slowly break away from our illusions and pray as the psalmist prayed.

Our Prayer

God, you are my God, I am seeking you,

my soul is thirsting for you,

my flesh is longing for you,

a land parched, weary and waterless.

I long to gaze on you in the Sanctuary,

and to see your power and glory.

Your love is better than life itself,

my lips will recite your praise;

all my life I will bless you,

in your name lift up my hands;

my soul will feast most richly,

on my lips a song of joy and, in my mouth, praise.

On my bed I think of you,

I meditate on you all night long,

for you have always helped me.

I sing for joy in the shadow of your wings;

my soul clings close to you,

your right hand supports me.

— Ps. 63:1-8