Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.
- John 17:17-19
- John 17:17-19
Our transformations, however painful yet consoling and joyous, are the means by which we are consecrated (set apart or made holy) for the mission we are all made for; we are called forth from our former selves for that which is ours to do. For myself personally, be they those moments of greater understanding which fill my heart and soul with an ecstasy that pierces through all earthly sense of my surroundings, revealing only that which is of heaven as I am able to stand before our Father with nothing less than the dignity of being His child. Or, be they those transformations which purge all superficial, self-centered perceptions of my relationship with God when I seem to be completely empty, bringing me back to the reality of my heavenly exile; when I feel neither hot nor cold, light nor darkness, life nor death. In all things pleasant or painful, bitter or sweet, we can gain a greater sense of the balance between what God brings us or keeps from us while on this earthly journey. Divine wisdom, incompressible to a mind of what is here and now, truly holds in her hands with a maternal love all that which knows only what will keep us one, true, and good: beautiful.
So, an ecstatic joy of the most intimate communion with God is tempered by a painful sense of confused loneliness and the most horrible awareness of wretched indignity is uplifted to enthralling heights never before known by the perfect love of Christ’s forgiving embrace; THANKS BE TO GOD! Divine wisdom created us good and therefore can know only that which is good for us. There is no growth to a greater and truer relationship with God by keeping our senses dulled with the intoxication of eternal “spiritual highs” just as nothing good comes from nor is a loving response generated from us by keeping us down in the dumps of perpetual desolation. The most comforting truth I can possess as a Christian is knowing that between what happens to me or doesn’t happen to me, everything lies in hands which are capable only of manifesting truth, goodness, and beauty…more so than I could ever possibly conjure by my own doing.
Sometimes, that which dilutes our spiritual concoction comes to us from the outside. I sit in prayerful bliss and happiness while my brother jokingly snickers in my direction while texting on his cell phone. Do I shoot him with the sharp stare of indignation? No, no Jamie Ford that would be an expression of cold, self-centered religiosity, and we know of this impulse all too well; there is nothing generous about it. No, we continue to sit in the joy of knowing that even our most pleasurable moments of prayer might not even be prayer at all. We need these events which we may see as distractions to bring us out of ourselves and into the God who speaks with us through the beauty of the world which surrounds us. The rising of the sun, the setting of the sun, the raising of the Son; we are embraced with an everlasting beauty greater than we will ever know. The most perfect response one can give to the highs and lows we experience in our daily lives is that which is Immaculate: fiat, fiat.
Like the mystery of our faith, beauty can be contradictory to human perceptions. How beautiful it is to proclaim the Word in a smelly, humid, muddied chapel of a homeless shelter. How beautiful it is, while in heart-tearing sorrowfulness, to make the sign of the cross before a priest in the confessional. How beautiful it is to forgive those who have caused us pain. There is great joy in knowing that despite our senses and emotional response, there is something greater beneath the present moment. Our reaction to beauty, to goodness and truth, is that which truly brings us closer to God. Indeed, our spiritual growth can be seen as an evolution of our response to beauty, however contradictory that beauty may seem to be, and the maturation of how we choose to respond can come only from the command Jesus leaves us: love God and love one another. We have been created to live as artists alongside the Divine Artist, and we are capable of creating such beauty with God by our own moral actions, creating art that is pleasing to God and to one another. The way to God is truly a two-way street: The beauty made manifest by the bond of the Trinity coming into our lives meeting the beauty created by our prayers, words, and actions going into that perfect, heavenly bond who continues to beckon us home.
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| Canyon de Chelley Navajo Reservation, Arizona (Photo by Author) |
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