"A New Season"
"Relationship" (Relational Love: part
5)
Because God desires the deepest
intimacy of relationship with each of us in our hearts, Jesus has entered
within us to prepare a "place" so that this sacred encounter can occur: " I
am going to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2). Jesus 'prepares' by
building each of us "into a spiritual house" (1 Pet. 2:5). As St. Augustine
says, "It is the Lord Jesus who builds his own dwelling...he builds from
within" ("From a discourse on the Psalms" by Saint Augustine, bishop. Cited
in Liturgy of the Hours, vol. III, p. 478). One notes it is "his own dwelling".
Jesus is Master of the house that he builds--no longer I!
Jesus promises to fulfill the deepest desire
in my heart--the desire to be with him: "And if I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I
am you also may be" (John 14:3).
If Jesus
builds me into a spiritual house, it is so that my heart can become a
spiritual "home". What makes my heart a spiritual home is the abiding
presence of Jesus in my heart: "We will come to him and make our dwelling
with him" (John 14:23). He wants each of us to have " a spiritual union
with himself in the bond of perfect love" (New American Bible: A Saint Joseph
Edition, p. 1135). As Jesus prays his "high priestly prayer" found in John's
Gospel, he asks the Father, "that the love with which you loved me may
be in them and I in them" (John 17:26).
Hence, now the "old order" has passed
away: "Forget your people and your father's house" (your old way of life
in the flesh)(Psalm 45:11). Now in the "secret recesses" of my heart "He brings
me into the banquet hall" (Songs 2:4 )
of a "new home"-- "my father's house" (John 14:2)--where "I eat my honey
and my sweetmeats, I drink my wine and my milk" (Songs 5:1). There, my
relationship is nourished by the living word and the Spirit of the "King"!
The truth is that Jesus is king of my
heart and must reign there now as sovereign Lord. I am led by the Spirit into
my heart: "the palace of the king" (Psalm 45:9): "The king has brought me into
his rooms" (Songs 1:4—New Jerusalem Bible trans.) that he has made "furnished
and ready" (Mark 14:15). They are now "royal chambers": "These chambers are
filled with exquisite fragrances" (Saint Bernard. "Sermons: Sermon 28", p.
271); "This is a royal chamber filled with countless and immense riches"
(Origen, "In Canticum Canticorum",99). I am home!
Questions:
1) How
"at home" am I in my heart?
2) Where
does the "old order" still have a hold on my life?
Scriptures:
Any scripture from the text; Luke 19:5; John 10:38B
