Probing the Wounds

The Voice of Christ

The Catholic Online Magazine

PROBING THE WOUNDS OF THE RISEN CHRIST:

INVITATION TO DIVINE INTIMACY

Have you ever lived thinking that you understood a mystery of a parable heard from childhood but came to see that the writer/ storyteller had really caught us by surprise? Relying on our own ability to understand, think, reason, anticipate, as a natural first response we had been truly caught off guard in the delightful, playful sense. This is the secret of the saints. This is the secret of the call to contemplative prayer. We can never let our guard down as we are always being caught by surprise by the One we have chosen to Love because He has first loved us. This spontaneity and endless creativity must certainly be Divine as the human experience has no equal, is constantly startled by it, and is taken aback in the personal shock that such Love exists and is so personally manifested. Faithfulness in prayer through our observations, thoughts, and desires has prepared us to glimpse a move toward integration which is healing. The life in the desert of wonder and desire as well as pain leads to our own Resurrection encounter with Jesus. In light of our own experiences, we have been opened recurring surprise at the action of the Holy Spirit Who has raised Jesus from the dead and has called me to come forth from my own tomb as well. This Wisdom experience captures and supplants my understanding the nature of inspiration both in the evangelist's writing of Holy Scripture: the parables, the events related, the Psalms, the Wisdom writings, the Gospels, the letters of St. Paul, etc.; the nature of inspiration proceeding from prayer; and the unique role of inspiration that intimately links past experience with that of the present moving in the realm of grace toward an inspired response. The Holy Spirit captures individual experience into the unity of a shared, joyful understanding which is the legacy of Holy Church . The watchword of Easter is experience as it is the same Person of the Holy Spirit Who lead those who anticipated and longed for the meaning of Jesus' Resurrection in the Old Testament, Who guided Our Lord's Paschal Mystery to completion, Who creatively lead the evangelists to capture the meaning of Jesus' life in the Gospels, Who has personally tugged at my heart to open myself to Love's Mystery in prayer is constantly present and at work. This is the call of prayer both in its awareness and preparation for a Good response.

Precisely because the unity of the Resurrection is manifested by the Person of the Holy Spirit the Source of endless creativity for achieving Goodness, startling surprise has come to be the hallmark of our mediations and ongoing faith experiences in the realm of prayer and even the encounters of everyday life. People love delightful surprises. Moreover, we love to be surprised especially when such playful Love activity elicits such feelings of gratitude at the constant attention of Jesus the Bridegroom of our soul. This is the fruit of a growing prayer life. The Holy Spirit is the very same Love Jesus shares with the Father known in all the Spirit's transforming effects and spiritual gifts. Jesus gazes at us with such Love! How happy and fortunate are we to know that preparing to grow in His Love is the root of our lives and our attention. As we have seen, this is our vocation to prayer: a gifted and effective prayer leading to our Transformation in Christ.

This element of surprise as the hallmark of a personal call to the enjoyment of Divine Intimacy in its vital ever-present attraction known and recognized by us from the depths of our personal and universal sense of poverty and need. In fact, effective, transforming prayer leads us to realize that it is only to the extent that we are or have been present to our deepest sufferings, alienation, personal sinfulness, doubt, bewilderment, loneliness, abandonment, misunderstanding all within the context of prayer which is making sense of life as it is in the light of hearing of God's Love for us can we hope to grasp the action of Jesus Who saves and redeems us. The Easter account of Thomas the Apostle who encounters the Risen Jesus somewhat belatedly though ironically more personally belies such an understanding and experience: his and ours. It is a startling discovery to say the least. On the surface, Our Lord seems to chide Thomas for not accepting the account of His being alive and present to the disciples through their oral report of the happenings of the previous days in Jerusalem . Certainly this has been the most common though superficial reading of this encounter. Thomas' dilemma is much like our own. We want to believe. We want to give ourselves totally to the dream that such Love exists and is possible. But, there is so much that stands in the way, and it would be foolish to give oneself to an idle dream or fairytale. After all, what is the value of the Lord being risen if we remain in our sin, confusion, lack of Love, lack of power to do Good. What is the value in believing if I remain broken in myself, my inward recriminations, and lack of healing? Moreover, we have been hurt before, and there are so many people who seem to chase illusions and wild dreams. The world is full of them. We will not be hurt again! We may be locked in the prison of ourselves, but we will not give ourselves to idle hopes and wishes. We will not accept hearing about a Risen Jesus Who cannot come to us in our misery and Transform us! If your "stubbornness" proceeds from your experience, conviction, and resonates with this "doubting Thomas," then, how truly happy and blessed you are indeed! For it is only to such people who will not miss Easter's Good News and come to experience the glory known only in contrast to a world that groans awaiting the bright dawn of the Resurrection. Resurrection will be known intimately only by heroes! Heroes are saints in this world, lead through the discipline of transforming prayer, who will have the courage that Jesus beckons us to. Like Thomas, we are invited to hold up our individual pain, mental sufferings, discontent with the superficial and facile answers, and have the courage to gaze and probe His wounds and find our internal awareness of our own wretchedness as well as that of the world swallowed in His personal victory over sin, death, and disconnectedness. For, the glory of all shines only in the prism of His Wounds and His experience. This is the call to prayer as an effective, lifelong discipline. We have embraced the Father's will with Jesus Risen in our midst. Our thoughts and our growing awareness in the light of the call of Love is guided by the Holy Spirit. It began with Thomas! Let us dare to respond to the Lord Jesus' command to truly probe His Wounds and be Surprised to find the Life we have deeply sought there. This can be recognized only and shared with others only in passing through the crucible of life's pain and there find ourselves Transformed in this experience! Lord Jesus, Rabbuni! Shalom, at last!

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