Upward Movements
My dear child, God declares, Love without limits breaks through the limitations of your words.
I place in your heart and on your lips various ‘ascensions’ or upward movements, so that every word you use ‘explodes’ toward the infinite heights, surpassing every previous word and drawing you on to an ever greater mission.
You go. Everywhere you go, may you experience yourself as sent to be a bearer of a sacred message.
You come. From wherever you come, may you feel you are awaited. Be aware that you walk towards a well-defined goal, and that already within yourself you are bound to that goal. Hurry along, then, toward this encounter I have prepared for you.
You see. What I want for you is that you behold, and that everything you behold might become within you attentive contemplation.
You hear. My desire for you is that you listen, that you listen from the depths, and that you truly wish to receive what is beyond the physical senses.
You talk. I want you rather to speak, and that you transform mundane words into a personal and intimate communication.
You see these verbs rise, one beyond the other, to ever greater clarity. At the highest point there is a verb beyond which one simply cannot go. This is the verb to give. For the gift, the very act of giving, abolishes all sense of personal possession.
Yet at the heart of every true gift there resound callings that are ever more demanding. The divine logic of the gift—my logic—transforms it from partial to total, from the gift of some thing to the gift of one’s self.
My child, allow me to place these words on your lips. Learn to make of each one of them the verse of a hymn. Then, at last, at the final bend in the road, you will behold the land that you lost, the land you long for, the Promised Land.
Sparks
A man is walking in the dark of night, a winter night of bitter cold. It is snowing. The landscape and the atmosphere together crush all sense of hope.
Yet all at once, among the flakes of snow that bite into the traveler’s hands, there appear sparks.
Where could these sparks have come from? Does that mean there is some flame, some fire nearby? If so, then he can warm himself, then he can find a source of heat and light.
Yes, there is a flame. There is a fire, right close by. Infinitely close by.
I come to you in the little things
I come to you, my child, God assures us, in the smallest things, in the most humble details. Every gesture you make can give expression to Love without limits.
You wash a plate, then you wipe it dry. Make of that simple act an act of love toward those who have eaten from that plate, and toward all those who will eat from it.
A housewife walks out the back door. She hangs out the wash on a clothesline so it will dry. Does this rapid gesture of service remind you of anything? Do her two arms, extended for just a moment, make you think of two other arms that were stretched out on a sacred Tree?
All things can become sacred, if they are transfigured by love. That Love is forever with us, as one who serves.