Transformed in the Light of His Gaze

The immense love of God, touching the heart, draws it, throughout the succeeding days and years, in an ever deepening pursuit of the Divine Beauty. The Bridegroom’s touch pierces the depths of the soul, and in piercing, it both wounds and heals: heals by enveloping in the security and shelter of Eternal Love, and wounds by awakening a thirst for another encounter, for a deeper intimacy, for a more total belonging (and this wound is simply a yet deeper form of healing). The human heart is awakened by the vivifying touch of the God of Love, and through this touch is ravished—forever changed by this awesome and loving encounter.

The heart is restless for the Love that it has glimpsed, and feels that the whole of creation is like a veil shrouding the Face that it seeks, hiding the Beauty that alone can give rest. This makes the creation not less beautiful, but more…for now it is beautiful, not in itself alone, but because it allows something of the Beloved’s light to filter through, something of the living water of his love to trickle in to the reach of the thirsty heart. But these glimpses, these sips, are not enough to satisfy. The mystery of union consists, mysteriously, in a constant pursuit of his face, a continuous movement toward him who is both within and beyond.

But over time the restless heart begins to experience something new, something yet deeper than this restless thirst. It continues to thirst, to yearn, to seek—but what before was restless, anguished, and perhaps confused, comes to be irradiated with a gentle light and enveloped in an all-encompassing peace. This is the peace of Presence…the Presence of the One who is near (intimately near!) even in the sense of his absence, and who shows himself even as he remains hidden. The heart which was seeking so much to transcend itself, to go out of itself into him, now relaxes into his embrace which already cradles it, and always has.

Yes, and this, mysteriously, is what allows true self-forgetfulness, the complete abandonment of oneself into his arms: the simple openness to the gift of his love ever given. The thirsting heart comes to know that, in all of its thirsting, he has been thirsting more…in all of its seeking, he has been seeking first…in all of its desire, it has already been contained in his ever present Love sustaining it. It relaxes, therefore, its feverish desire; it learns, little by little, to let go of self, saying simply:

Take me, my Love, I am all yours. I give myself to you—yes, I let myself be given, given by the very gift that I first receive. At every moment, this Love comes to me; at every moment this Love cradles me in itself. Ah, yes, my God, my Life, my Joy, my All… I belong to you. I belong to you, and only because I am yours am I also mine. And I do not cling to myself, as if clinging would protect or shelter me. My only shelter, God, is you and your Love, received in utter poverty of heart and life, with open and empty hands and heart. I need not grasp or possess…for in the matter of love, to possess is, rather, to be possessed. And this is my only desire, my only wish: to be possessed by you, eternal Love.

From this profound openness, this childlike and spousal abandonment of self into God’s loving arms, a union is effected between the Trinity and the human heart. This union, however, occurs in a place so deep, so pure, that it is invisible to human eyes and transparent for human thought and feeling. It is like the light, radiant and true, in which all things are seen, but which itself cannot be grasped or possessed. Its radiance is so pure that it is felt and seen in everything, and yet slips through one’s fingers if one wishes to take it as one’s own. It belongs, already, entirely, to the human heart, to the heart that lets itself be irradiated by this gift. All that is necessary is to be present, to not flee, and to let oneself be looked upon by those piercing Eyes of Love.

This is the presence of God that enfolds the beloved heart, already in this life, and cradles it unceasingly. It is the truth of God’s loving, enduring gaze, which nothing—no darkness, no pain, no suffering, nor even any failure or sin—can take away. For he looks, he looks, unceasingly…and his gaze pierces every darkness, scattering the mists more surely than the rising sun does the lingering moisture of the night.

To rest within his gaze, his knowledge, his love…always enduring and always sure. This is what allows the heart to give itself away to him. And at the same time, to give oneself away simply means to allow oneself to be looked upon, and to let this gaze reveal the inner truth and bring it forth fully into the light.

Still another reality begins to mature here in this place of spiritual poverty, in this abandonment of oneself to God’s loving and enduring gaze. It is simply an element of what is already given in the Love received and cradling, and yet a blossoming of love outward from this endless source. When the heart is given away to God, opened to his gaze, then it learns to give itself away to others too, totally and unreservedly.

The heart, touched by the divine touch, wounded and healed by the divine Beauty, and at rest in the majesty of the Trinity’s Love, expands within the dimensions of this eternal Light. Yes, as it is seen it begins to see, and, knowing what it means to give itself away to God, it gives itself away, also, to every thirsting child of God. It’s every moment becomes a response, in childlike receptivity, wonder, and contemplation, to the reality that comes to it from without—touching and awakening in it a reciprocal gift. But this gift, indeed, first of all, is simply making one’s heart a dwelling place, a home, for the other—a space where they are accepted, loved, and cherished unreservedly. Only then, from this womb-like mystery of receptivity, can a reciprocal gift—in word, in act, in movement—be born.

The human heart, a little child infinitely loved, has been touched by the divine Beauty that ravishes. Thus it becomes more and more, through the movement of reciprocal surrender and the nakedness of trust before God’s loving gaze, a true spouse of the heavenly Bridegroom. And this union, in which two hearts are made one flesh, one spirit, in a Love that binds them together indissolubly, brings forth in the heart an expansive fruit of love for each person, and for all. The heart becomes mother or father—conceiving through God’s gift, this heavenly seed, and giving through the transparency of the Father’s eternal Light—a mother or father for the many children of God within this world, each of whom is breathtakingly beautiful and precious, cradled and held by eternal Love, and yearning to return, fully, into the joy and peace of this abiding embrace.