Dear Friends,
The season of Lent is still pretty fresh, so we have lots of time to draw near to God, to allow ourselves to do our part to deepen our intimacy with God.
Intimacy is a word we either like or we don’t. If we don’t like it, it may be because the word has some negative connotation in our minds. But in its best meaning, intimacy is characterized by pronounced closeness, friendship, and association. It’s in this last sense that we can talk in a helpful way about intimacy with God.
Intimacy is not something we have to create. It exists in us as soon as we exist, and our life’s work is to discover it or recover it: the rooted connection we have with God and one another that sustains our life.
Speaking of God, St. Augustine wrote, “You are more inside of me than my most intimate part. You are the interior of my interior.”
“Not me,” you say. “I am not good enough, smart enough, important enough.” We want to run away, and sometimes we do. But God says to us over and over again…“I am here. I love you. I want you. Will you walk toward me even as I run toward you?”
Why are we so afraid to move toward God?
Maybe the work of Lent for us this year is to explore that question: “Why are we so afraid to move toward God?” Is it because we think that in moving toward God, we will lose our freedom to become what we want to be? In fact, we become more free, but don’t recognize that we do so.
The Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe writes that “God’s ways are very much simpler than ours. He does not have any complications. He is just simply in love with us…He loves us intimately and personally – more intimately and personally than we can love ourselves.” There it is. The wholeheartedness of God toward us. Another way of looking at the work of Lent is to embrace God’s love for us as real, immediate, true and tender.
God is always in touch with us, even when we are not in touch with God. You and I are always in the right setting to make intimacy with God possible, because everywhere we are is where God is.
God before me.
God behind me.
God within me.
God in my mind and heart and body.
God in the other person’s mind and heart and body.
We don’t need to be wordy with God. Have you ever watched a loving, seasoned couple together? They don’t talk to each other incessantly. They are simply in each other’s presence.
Whatever our Lenten practice, let it come from a heart in touch with God, a heart deeply attuned to God, a heart intimate with God.
~Sister Joan Sobala
The Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe writes that “God’s ways are very much simpler than ours. He does not have any complications. He is just simply in love with us…He loves us intimately and personally – more intimately and personally than we can love ourselves.” There it is. The wholeheartedness of God toward us. Another way of looking at the work of Lent is to embrace God’s love for us as real, immediate, true and tender.
God is always in touch with us, even when we are not in touch with God. You and I are always in the right setting to make intimacy with God possible, because everywhere we are is where God is.
God before me.
God behind me.
God within me.
God in my mind and heart and body.
God in the other person’s mind and heart and body.
We don’t need to be wordy with God. Have you ever watched a loving, seasoned couple together? They don’t talk to each other incessantly. They are simply in each other’s presence.
Whatever our Lenten practice, let it come from a heart in touch with God, a heart deeply attuned to God, a heart intimate with God.
~Sister Joan Sobala
