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JMJ
Some food for thought!
P^3
"The Window in the Wall"
A collection of sermons on the Holy Eucharist (R. Knox)
"And
now he is standing on the other side of this very wall; now he is
looking through each window in turn, peering through every chink. I can
hear my true love calling to me, Rise up, rise up quickly, dear heart,
so gentle, so beautiful, rise up and come with me." Canticles 2
Set
in the middle of the Old Testament, in striking contrast to those
collections of dry aphorisms which come before and after it, the
Canticle of Canticles occupies a position unique in Sacred Literature.
...And
that book, as we all know, is a kind of palimset, in which the saints
of every age have read between the lines, and found there the
appropriate language in which to express their love for God, God's love
for them.
No part of the Old Testament gives rise more easily
to outraged astonishment, to Pharisaical scandal, when it comes into the
hands of the profane: that this should be reckoned as Sacred Scripture!
No
part of the Old Testament, I suppose, has more endeared itself to the
greatest friends of Christ; they would have spared all the rest to save
this.
In the passage from which I have just
taken my text....the voice of the Beloved is understood of Christ
speaking to the faithful soul. And that voice at the window brings to my
own mind a fancy which I have often had, which I suppose many of us
have had before now, in looking at the Sacred Host enthroned in the
monstrance...that the glittering Disc of whiteness which we see
occupying that round opening is not reflecting the light of the candles
in front of it, but is penetrated with a light of its Own; a light not
of this world, shining through it from behind, as if through a window.
..Is
it an illusion? Is it not rather the truth, but a truth hidden from our
eyes, that the Host in the monstrance...or rather those accidents of
it...are a kind of window through which a heavenly light streams into
our world; a window giving access on a spiritual world outside our human
experience?
Behold, He stands behind "our wall"; the wall of our corrupt nature, which shuts us off from breathing ..the airs of heaven; the wall of sense which cheats us when we try to imagine eternity; the wall of unmortified affection which shuts us in with creatures and allows them to dominate our desires; the wall of pride, which makes us feel ...so independent and self-sufficient
Our
wall- we raised it against God...when Adam sinned...and through that
wall the Incarnation and Passion of Jesus Christ have made a great
window....He Himself, in His glorified Body is the window between the
two worlds.
As the window belongs both to the room inside and
to the open air outside, so His glorified Body belongs at once to time
and to eternity.
....And now that He reigns in heaven, He will
make Himself manifest, but His glory will be veiled....that white
Disc...hiding the ineffable light of glory which shines in and through
the substance of Christ's ascended Body.
A veil is what you
look at; a curtain drawn over the window, as you may curtain the windows
of a sick room, because the patient's eyes are not strong enough to
face the full glare of daylight. But behind that curtain...is the window
which lets our world communicate with the world of the supernatural.
And
at the window, behind the wall of partition..., stands the Beloved
Himself, calling us out into the open; calling us away from the
ointments and the spikenard of Solomon's court...to the gardens and
vineyards...to the pure airs of eternity.
Arise (He says), make haste and come.
Come
away from the blind pursuit of creatures,... from all the plans your
busy brain revolves...from the frivolous distractions it clings to.
Come away from the pettiness and meanness of your everyday life.
Come
away from the cares and solicitudes...your heavy anxieties about the
world's future and your own, so short and so uncertain.
Come away into the wilderness of prayer, where My love will follow you and My hand will hold you.
Learn
to live, with the innermost part of your soul, with all your secret
aspirations...in that supernatural world which can be yours now
which must be yours hereafter.
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