An excerpt from John Main OSB, “The Present Christ” (April 1981) in MONASTERY WITHOUT WALLS: The Spiritual Letters of John Main (Norwich: Canterbury, 2006), p. 170.
The power of the Resurrection of Jesus collects all time and space into a single, universal focus. Within the microcosm of the human heart the cosmos is radically transformed by this power condensed into the single point of pure and limitless love. We are freed from the illusion that we are outside creation or outside God. Through the power that dwells in the open space in the center of our being, we pass beyond ourselves into divine fullness of being, into the pleroma of Christ.
After meditation: “WHITE OWL FLIES INTO AND OUT OF THE FIELD” by Mary Oliver in DEVOTIONS (New York: Penguin, 2020) Kindle edition, pp. 323-24.
WHITE OWL FLIES INTO AND OUT OF THE FIELD
Coming down
out of the freezing sky
with its depths of light,
like an angel,
or a buddha with wings,
it was beautiful
and accurate,
striking the snow and whatever was there
with a force that left the imprint
of the tips of its wings—
five feet apart—and the grabbing
thrust of its feet,
and the indentation of what had been running
through the white valleys
of the snow—
and then it rose, gracefully,
and flew back to the frozen marshes,
to lurk there,
like a little lighthouse,
in the blue shadows—
so I thought:
maybe death
isn’t darkness, after all,
but so much light
wrapping itself around us—
as soft as feathers—
that we are instantly weary
of looking, and shut our eyes,
not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
to the river
that is without the least dapple or shadow—
that is nothing but light—scalding, aortal light—
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.
Image by Thomas B, from Pixabay
