Living, not in Ourselves, in Our Own Name, but in Jesus' Name
I've decided to form a new society, 'The Society for the Systematic Frustration of Communication," which will be open to worldwide membership. There are basically four ways you can frustrate communication:1) Since man is an animal, communication implies some kind of sign, which is speech, so there can be inarticulation of speech so no one can even hear the words.
2) Then there can be, since communication is a two-way process, frustration on the part of the agent communicating and on the part of the one receiving.
3) Then there could be ambiguity, or
4) there is a special operation, you could call it sadistic or masochistic, when you realize the other person is dying to understand, you say something intelligible, and just as he breathes a sigh of relief, you add something and lose it entirely.
In most places people are afraid of silence, because when you’re silent, the fact that there is no communication becomes very obvious, since words give the impression that there is communication. Jesus said, "wherever two or more are gathered in My name, there am I with them,"(Mt,. 18:2u) that is, where there is communication. Otherwise, if each one is gathered in his own name, there is no basis for communication.
What do you think the expression "in My name”(Jn 14:13f;l6:23f) means, "gathered together in My name"(Mt 18:20) "whatever is done is done in My name”(cf Col 3:17) or when a guard says, stop in the name of the king? It's the same idea, isn't it?
COMMENT: Is it like being united to Him?
Well, it's similar to being united. But what does it mean to be united to Him? The way you're united with Him is in baptism isn't it.? And baptism would be a principle of operation; wouldn't it? A new nature. But you could have a roomful of baptized people and that wouldn’t mean they are all in Jesus. "In His name" would express an actuality, being in Him now, and that would mean you would renounce anything in you which doesn't flow from Him. So it really comes down to hating your own soul because unless you hate the evil in you which is contrary to your life in Him, to that extent you would want to united with Him in your own name.
COMMENT: And that is what recollection is?
Yes, to turn away from all the things which would be contrary to him. Then "in His name” would also mean something in conformity to our own nature, because being animals, we live by sensible expression or signs, so the simple expression of His name would be a mode of union, because by nature we depend on signs. When you do something in someone’s name it means the principle is the same; it doesn't mean you're not doing it, but that it flows directly from Him.
Conversely, it means that if you're not united in His name, but in your own name, then you have all the social amenities which produce the illusion of peace and harmony when actually peace is impossible, because when two persons are opposed there can't be any order. If you're gathered in your name and I'm gathered in mine and you want what comes from you and I want what comes from me, there can't be any order. When you're together with a person you want to be united and you can't be unless there is something which keeps you together.
COMMENT: There used to be a time when people did things together for the good of the community or to be patriotic, but now there isn't even that.
Patriotism is a love of the common good, and since God is the ultimate common good, you can't really be patriotic without the order to God. You can't have genuine patriotism unless you are in Christ. Otherwise you would be affirming a union which at the same time affirmed your own being as opposed to the ultimate union with God.
Another important thing to remember is that we're attracted by sweetness. Well, God knows that too. So he tells us, "Taste and see that the Lord is sweet." (Ps 34:8) The more vigilant you are, the more you conform to God's will, and that is the perfection of sweetness. Whenever you eat anything which conforms to you, you enjoy it. Sometimes it takes practice - not everyone enjoys olives the first time he eats them. If you're not vigilant, you never get conformed to God and you always look for the sweetness somewhere else, seeking sweetness outside of God.
So you have an obligation to conform yourself to God so He will become sweet to you, and then everything else will be unattractive to you. That also gives rise to meditation, particularly as it relates to the misgivings we have about ourselves, since we know that God is holy and we know that we're not. But remember the words of the Canticle: "...kiss me with the kiss of his mouth, for thy breasts are better than wine."(1:1) The essential conformity that we have to God is not because of anything we have in ourselves but because of the Holy Mother of God, who is the principle of our conformity to God, and begets us into God’s divine life. That would dissolve all the misgivings that you're not loved, because all those secret fears arise because you don't think you deserve God's love in yourself. But remember, if you have something, you have it. Just as the body is alive because of the soul, so our desire for intimacy with God is right when God wants us to desire that, as long as we realize that the principle is in Jesus and in his Mother, and our Mother, not in ourselves.
In the beginning God said to Eve, "In pain thou shalt bring forth."(Gen 3:16) You might have thought this meant that after Eve all women would suffer in childbirth. But when Jesus said to John "Behold thy mother," (Jn 19:27) that was the labor pain God referred to. She would be the mother of our supernatural life, the new Eve, as Eve was the mother of all the living. The Virgin Mary's pain was Jesus' suffering. She was so united with Him that she was crucified with Him, and her labor pains brought forth the whole Church. Jesus also said to us, "Unless you pick up your cross and follow Me ..."(Mt 16:24; Mk 8:32; Lk 9:23) - the cross of the realization of our sins.
It is very important for you to understand all of this about God's Mother, because you instinctively think that you're not worthy of God, that even the desire to give yourself would be wrong, because you have to keep sinless on your own.
COMMENT: The chief thing in our meditation, then, should be how to remove the obstacles to our love of the Holy Virgin.
The most important thing is to realize that Jesus and His Mother want to love you, so the end is not the meditation but the giving of yourself to them. We give ourselves to Jesus and the giving is in the darkness of faith. You turn away from all the desires and preoccupations that would keep you away and you focus your mind on that one thing. That means also that when I tell you about this, you might realize it doesn't have much reality to you, but that is also God's will, because when you give yourself to him now and you recognize that it doesn't mean too much to you, you realize the truth of the words, "He who eats of Me will yet hunger."(Sir 24:29) God has enough desire for both of you, so don't try to fix yourself up.
There is a certain impatience in the desire to be loved. You want to kiss someone today, not tomorrow. You have to be contented with the state you're in, imperfect as it is, trusting in the embrace itself to make you perfect, because God wants you to be united, not your idea about being united. This doesn't mean that you don't think, because there is a rational process, but the thought must come from God and go to God.
Since your Life is not that of a contemplative religious, you have to learn how to feed your activities with contemplation and thus operate in a contemplative manner. Otherwise you’ll try to justify your existence by what you do and you’ll be carried away by anxiety. It is significant that Jesus didn't tell Martha to sit at His feet the way Mary was doing. He told her to learn from Mary the spirit of contemplation. And that is important because if you spend your whole day dissipating yourself in all kinds of activities, you won't be very disposed to go to God. So working in the spirit of contemplation is an important part of this discipline.
2) Then there can be, since communication is a two-way process, frustration on the part of the agent communicating and on the part of the one receiving.
3) Then there could be ambiguity, or
4) there is a special operation, you could call it sadistic or masochistic, when you realize the other person is dying to understand, you say something intelligible, and just as he breathes a sigh of relief, you add something and lose it entirely.
In most places people are afraid of silence, because when you’re silent, the fact that there is no communication becomes very obvious, since words give the impression that there is communication. Jesus said, "wherever two or more are gathered in My name, there am I with them,"(Mt,. 18:2u) that is, where there is communication. Otherwise, if each one is gathered in his own name, there is no basis for communication.
What do you think the expression "in My name”(Jn 14:13f;l6:23f) means, "gathered together in My name"(Mt 18:20) "whatever is done is done in My name”(cf Col 3:17) or when a guard says, stop in the name of the king? It's the same idea, isn't it?
COMMENT: Is it like being united to Him?
Well, it's similar to being united. But what does it mean to be united to Him? The way you're united with Him is in baptism isn't it.? And baptism would be a principle of operation; wouldn't it? A new nature. But you could have a roomful of baptized people and that wouldn’t mean they are all in Jesus. "In His name" would express an actuality, being in Him now, and that would mean you would renounce anything in you which doesn't flow from Him. So it really comes down to hating your own soul because unless you hate the evil in you which is contrary to your life in Him, to that extent you would want to united with Him in your own name.
COMMENT: And that is what recollection is?
Yes, to turn away from all the things which would be contrary to him. Then "in His name” would also mean something in conformity to our own nature, because being animals, we live by sensible expression or signs, so the simple expression of His name would be a mode of union, because by nature we depend on signs. When you do something in someone’s name it means the principle is the same; it doesn't mean you're not doing it, but that it flows directly from Him.
Conversely, it means that if you're not united in His name, but in your own name, then you have all the social amenities which produce the illusion of peace and harmony when actually peace is impossible, because when two persons are opposed there can't be any order. If you're gathered in your name and I'm gathered in mine and you want what comes from you and I want what comes from me, there can't be any order. When you're together with a person you want to be united and you can't be unless there is something which keeps you together.
COMMENT: There used to be a time when people did things together for the good of the community or to be patriotic, but now there isn't even that.
Patriotism is a love of the common good, and since God is the ultimate common good, you can't really be patriotic without the order to God. You can't have genuine patriotism unless you are in Christ. Otherwise you would be affirming a union which at the same time affirmed your own being as opposed to the ultimate union with God.
Another important thing to remember is that we're attracted by sweetness. Well, God knows that too. So he tells us, "Taste and see that the Lord is sweet." (Ps 34:8) The more vigilant you are, the more you conform to God's will, and that is the perfection of sweetness. Whenever you eat anything which conforms to you, you enjoy it. Sometimes it takes practice - not everyone enjoys olives the first time he eats them. If you're not vigilant, you never get conformed to God and you always look for the sweetness somewhere else, seeking sweetness outside of God.
So you have an obligation to conform yourself to God so He will become sweet to you, and then everything else will be unattractive to you. That also gives rise to meditation, particularly as it relates to the misgivings we have about ourselves, since we know that God is holy and we know that we're not. But remember the words of the Canticle: "...kiss me with the kiss of his mouth, for thy breasts are better than wine."(1:1) The essential conformity that we have to God is not because of anything we have in ourselves but because of the Holy Mother of God, who is the principle of our conformity to God, and begets us into God’s divine life. That would dissolve all the misgivings that you're not loved, because all those secret fears arise because you don't think you deserve God's love in yourself. But remember, if you have something, you have it. Just as the body is alive because of the soul, so our desire for intimacy with God is right when God wants us to desire that, as long as we realize that the principle is in Jesus and in his Mother, and our Mother, not in ourselves.
In the beginning God said to Eve, "In pain thou shalt bring forth."(Gen 3:16) You might have thought this meant that after Eve all women would suffer in childbirth. But when Jesus said to John "Behold thy mother," (Jn 19:27) that was the labor pain God referred to. She would be the mother of our supernatural life, the new Eve, as Eve was the mother of all the living. The Virgin Mary's pain was Jesus' suffering. She was so united with Him that she was crucified with Him, and her labor pains brought forth the whole Church. Jesus also said to us, "Unless you pick up your cross and follow Me ..."(Mt 16:24; Mk 8:32; Lk 9:23) - the cross of the realization of our sins.
It is very important for you to understand all of this about God's Mother, because you instinctively think that you're not worthy of God, that even the desire to give yourself would be wrong, because you have to keep sinless on your own.
COMMENT: The chief thing in our meditation, then, should be how to remove the obstacles to our love of the Holy Virgin.
The most important thing is to realize that Jesus and His Mother want to love you, so the end is not the meditation but the giving of yourself to them. We give ourselves to Jesus and the giving is in the darkness of faith. You turn away from all the desires and preoccupations that would keep you away and you focus your mind on that one thing. That means also that when I tell you about this, you might realize it doesn't have much reality to you, but that is also God's will, because when you give yourself to him now and you recognize that it doesn't mean too much to you, you realize the truth of the words, "He who eats of Me will yet hunger."(Sir 24:29) God has enough desire for both of you, so don't try to fix yourself up.
There is a certain impatience in the desire to be loved. You want to kiss someone today, not tomorrow. You have to be contented with the state you're in, imperfect as it is, trusting in the embrace itself to make you perfect, because God wants you to be united, not your idea about being united. This doesn't mean that you don't think, because there is a rational process, but the thought must come from God and go to God.
Since your Life is not that of a contemplative religious, you have to learn how to feed your activities with contemplation and thus operate in a contemplative manner. Otherwise you’ll try to justify your existence by what you do and you’ll be carried away by anxiety. It is significant that Jesus didn't tell Martha to sit at His feet the way Mary was doing. He told her to learn from Mary the spirit of contemplation. And that is important because if you spend your whole day dissipating yourself in all kinds of activities, you won't be very disposed to go to God. So working in the spirit of contemplation is an important part of this discipline.