#iainmatthew — Public Fediverse posts

We can abide in [Christ’s] love because his love abides. The resurrection, the gaze of the risen Christ, God’s self-lavishing presence at the centre of the person, this ensures the possibility of contact, ensures that in ‘being with him’, something is taking place.

What John calls ‘contemplation’ is a special instance of this, a powerful impress of the resurrection on the world. It is special, not as esoteric, but as manifesting the reality of prayer with particular intensity.

When he spoke about the bewilderment that goes with night, he was thinking particularly of the loss of the familiar at the onset of contemplative prayer [cf. The Ascent II, 8; Dark Night I, 8]. But in itself, this night of prayer means positive growth. It is the gaze of Christ laying claim on the person at increasingly deep levels. It is a more total communication of God.

Father Iain Matthew, O.C.D.

Chapter 20, “Prayer, a ‘Being With’ ”

Note: In his address to the International Congress on Memory and Hope in St. John of the Cross on 9 May 2019, Father Iain said: “In this John of the Cross helps me to believe that God exists. He helps me to believe that death is not the end, that there is more to life than biology. He helps me to trust that God loves us and means to bring us to eternal life in heaven. In short, he helps me to believe that Christ is risen.”

Upon the death of her husband in 1901, the widow of United States President Benjamin Harrison commissioned Tiffany Studios to create a window in his memory. The design shows Michael, the Angel of the Resurrection, signaling the dead to rise at Christ’s second coming. In keeping with the romanticism of the time, Tiffany’s heroic angel is dressed in the chain mail suit of a crusading knight and seems like a figure from Sir Walter Scott’s novels. Image credit: Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields (Public domain)

Matthew, I 1995, The Impact of God: Soundings from St. John of the Cross, Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd, London.

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/05/08/iain-resurr/

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