“The soul that deosn’t fly with meditation, in the wings of faith till it gets to the Creator of all things, and which is more beautiful than all these things… the soul to which prayer has never given it (because he has not done it) the anticipated relish of the infinite delights of heaven, this defenselessness against the attractions of the earthly beauty; passing from one idol to another, will end up adoring all except God as it is noted by the experience of all centuries and it is read also in history. Fruit of the flesh, when it is not the beginning of the deviation of understanding, it is always its consequence”
(Ascetic letter… to the president of one of the choirs of the Academy of Saint Michael. Barcelona 1862, p. 25).
ADORE THE TRUE GOD
Isaac Newton said: “I can take up my telescope and scan millions of kilometers in the space, but also I can isolate myself in my room and be closer to the God of the heaven with prayer better than with all those telescopes from the earth”. Prayer and meditation bring down heaven to earth or, better, through them we get closer to God.
The providential presence of God is found in all creation and he who searches always find Him in all, because He is in all that He has created. And so, all we encounter here on earth should illumine our internal vision so as to perceive them. When that which is created doesn’t manifest the Creator himself, rather it captivates us to itself, whether persons or things, it transforms into idol that traps our senses and imprisons our interior until we become its prisoners by expiration or insignificance.
The carnal love, as in the days of Claret, is one of the enslaving idolatries whose tentacles is extended till today even among priests and religious; there are recent sad histories. The love of money is another uncontrolled idol that makes even the more sublime human relations to be converted into cold commerce. The more confined and imprisoned the human spirit is, the more it experiments in its interior the desire for transcendence and liberty. Today many of these signs are perceived.
Detachment is the mantra that one has to follow in what refers to created things, already only God merits our unconditional adhesion. And it is only like this that we can have something to tell the world today. Today people expect to see in the believers an authentic experience of God, and if they don’t see it in them, they search for it elsewhere. Priests, religious and lay people we must be persons of prayer, with experience in the way of God, with all our thought and life centered in Him. You and I, we have inherited a rich spirituality of contemplation in action. Do we cultivate it?