The Gospel everywhere urges us to allow the irresistible tenderness of
Christ to invade our person and take over our every thought, feeling and
action. Realistically, however, none of us can by nature be as selfless as
Christ, the Good Samaritan who has only to glance at a wounded or needy person
to shudder with mercy. The problem is not so much that of willfully imposing on
ourselves a strict consistency between faith and action; it is more a matter of
allowing the power of the Christ, who has given himself to me with love, to
have its full effect in my person, rather like a pregnant mother-to-be who
allows the child to grow in her womb and simply nourishes it by offering it her
whole being and doing nothing to harm it. This is not our work, but the work of God in us. Christ in us is never a
mere static object that we dispose of; he is the Subject acting in my soul, the
risen Lord who lives in me and strengthens me, the true Protagonist of my life
and personal history.
Photograph by Charles O'Connor. Meditation by Father Simeon.
