There are two kinds of intimacy
in our life in Christ, my Father,
two gifts freely given and beautifully received.
But so often we only recognize one,
if we are even mindful of this one, at the least.
There is the intimacy for which we yearn,
and this is often more obvious to us…
the holiness of mind, heart, and life
that we aspire to and which we seek.
The heart, touched by divine beauty,
is drawn out of itself, to grasp, to surrender,
to enter ever more into the mystery of love.
The heart, touched by your silent beauty,
seeks yet deeper silence, in meditation, prayer,
in the contemplation that expands the heart,
as a drop of water falling into the infinite ocean,
not lost, but sheltered, immersed,
as the drop of water in the chalice,
transformed, with the wine,
into the Precious Blood of Christ.
The heart, touched by the gentle Bridegroom,
feeling the impress of his loving hand,
lives no longer at rest and ease,
but, love-wounded by his powerful touch,
seeks ceaselessly to encounter him again,
to lose self so as to find him, alone in love,
and, alone in him, to be found within his arms.
But this love-wounded longing
springs from a primary truth,
an intimacy that goes before,
that envelops the other at every moment,
and to which the other leads again
yet more deeply still.
This is the intimacy…ah, what beauty!…
of the present moment, here and now.
I am, dear Father, your child above all else,
dwelling now in the pure gift of your love,
the grace of existence, adoption into your life…
and at every moment I can return to this place,
relaxing back into your enfolding arms.
It is as though I am in an immense ocean
of gratuitous, undeserved, but freely given Love,
and I need only lean back, letting-go…
and I find myself buoyed up, reposing,
on the gentle surging of the water, caressing.
Yes, this is the primary contemplation,
the gift of grace first springing up in the heart.
And here…precisely here, the heart is touched,
touched by the hands of the Bridegroom-Son,
to yearn to repose yet more fully, purely,
in the spousehood that is childhood’s blossoming,
in the spousehood that flows back, beautifully,
into the mystery of childhood once again.
Present and future, time and eternity,
are thus mysteriously wed together,
espoused in the gift of this present moment.
This is so, dear Father, because, for you,
there is no separation or division,
but all is enfolded, as one, within your arms.
Thus, to make contact with you, now,
is to enter into the fullness of mystery,
the intimacy of the present, within grace,
united to the fullness of intimacy yet to come.