This week as we meditate let’s reflect on intimacy and love, given to us by Henri Nouwen in his book, Lifesigns. When we are now caught up at home and restricted in our physical movement, our outer freedom curtailed due to restrictions, the call of these words reminds us that the place of true belonging is not a place made by human hands, but fashioned by God.
- God came to pitch his tent among us, invite us to his place, and prepare a room for us in his own house. Jesus, in whom the fullness of God dwells, has become our home. By making his home in us he allows us to make our home in him. By entering into the intimacy of our innermost self he offers us the opportunity to enter into his own intimacy with God. He chooses us as his preferred dwelling place and invites us to choose him as our preferred dwelling place.
- Words for “home” are often used in the Old and New Testaments, with images such as under God’s wings, God’s holy temple, holy place, wonderful tent, firm refuge. It is highly significant that St John not only tells us that Jesus invites him and his brother Andrew to stay in his home, but he also show that Jesus gradually reveals himself as the new temple and the new refuge. This is most fully expressed in the farewell address, “Make your home in me, as I make mine in you” (John 15:4).
As you prepare to relax in body and mind, to slow your breathing, enter your meditation, centering your prayer on the images of God’s dwelling place in us, hear the words of Jesus say: “You have a home…I am your home…in your innermost being…in your heart.”
Love and every blessing
Kathryn
Lifesigns – Intimacy and Love, p 25 – 26.
