The Reality of God, John Main, Meditatio Talks 2017Â
Sainthood, wisdom, are simply names for reality. God is real. And what we discover in our meditation is that this godliness flows freely in the depths of our own heart. Just listen to this excerpt from the Letter to the Colossians:
Therefore, since Jesus was delivered to you as Christ and Lord, live your lives in union with him. Be rooted in him; be built in him; be consolidated in the faith you were taught; let your hearts overflow with thankfulness… For it is in Christ that the complete being of the Godhead dwells em-bodied, and in him you have been brought to completion. (Col 2:6-7, 9-10)
Those are very remarkable words, addressed to each one of us. ‘Live your lives in union with him’ – this is the Christian invitation. Not to admire from a distance, not even to worship from afar, but to live in union. That is the staggering invitation that the gospel gives to each one of us.
As you all know from your own experience, union requires self-lessness, loss of self; in union we surrender ourselves into the greater reality of the union. In the union, each finds the other, and in finding the other, we discover our own essential personhood. We discover ourselves because in union we experience ourselves as known, loved, cherished, cared for. The Christian gospel says to each of us that this is what we have been created for – for union, for this perfection that comes to us from knowing ourselves known, from discovering ourselves in love. ‘Live your lives in union with him.’ This is the invitation we respond to in our meditation. We respond to it just as St Paul describes it, by being rooted in him, by being built in him.
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, Chapter 56.Â
God is nearer to us than our own Soul: for He is the Ground in whom our Soul standeth… For our Soul sitteth in God in very rest, and our Soul standeth in God in very strength, and our Soul is kindly rooted in God in endless love.
