Friday after Ash Wednesday
A Healing Revelation
“Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly.” Isaiah 58:8
In the light of divine love, we are encouraged to enter into our deepest hearts, often hidden even to ourselves. There we actually touch God’s light, and discover more and more our desire for that presence within. It’s where we experience God saying, “I love you so deeply. I want to be present to you in all your ‘lost’ places so you will know not just your lostness but also in how many places I long to find you.”
This is an exercise of communion: to sit with God in the inner chapel of your heart and to say, “I’ve heard so often of your love but I just don’t believe it. Mostly I believe that you only wish to judge me, but today I’ll remain here in your loving presence, and present myself to you in all my vulnerability.” Heart speaks to heart.
This is not to say, “Well, you’d better start thinking about how awfully dissipated and resentful you are. “No! This is to say, “When you’re in touch with your dissipation and resentment, you’re in touch with the very places that God waits to touch in you more deeply, and to heal you.”
- Forgiving God, I fear to stop. I need love and want love, but I fear what you might ask of me.
Lenten Reflections on the Parable of the Prodigal Son by Henri J. M. Nouwen