An excerpt from John Main OSB, “Centre of our Being”, Meditatio Talks 2018 D, Medio Media (Singapore: Medio Media, 2018), pp. 8-9.
The ultimate goal of all religion is a relinking, and the relinking is a relinking with our own centre. That’s the purpose of all religion, that we are relinked to our own centre. In the Christian revelation, in our heart, in the depths of our own spirit, dwells the Spirit of God. And the truth we discover from our own experience, if only we will tread the pilgrimage, the truth we discover is that there is only one centre, and that centre is everywhere. And what I think each one of us has to discover from our own experience, is that this is the first responsibility of our lives. It’s the first responsibility of every life that would be fully human, to return to our own centre and to live out of the depths of our own profound capacity. And what we discover is that, being reconnected with our own centre, we are reconnected with every centre.
A truly spiritual man or woman learns to live in harmony with themselves and to live in harmony with the whole of creation. And what we can say is, to be in one’s own centre is to be in God. In the words of Jesus, ‘The kingdom of heaven is within you.’ (Lk 17:21) And we must remember the kingdom is not a place but an experience, and the experience that it is, is the experience of the reality of the power of God. In the Christian vision, it is knowing that that power is the power of love. St John of the Cross put it this way: ‘God is the centre of my soul.’ And at the centre we experience silence, stillness and the ‘peace that is beyond all understanding’ (Phil 4:7).
After Meditation, “Before The World Was Made” William Butler Yeats (Public-Domain-Poetry.com )
Before The World Was Made
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity’s displayed:
I’m looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.
What if I look upon a man
As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while
And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel
Or that he is betrayed?
I’d have him love the thing that was
Before the world was made.
Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash
