Wednesday 2 March 2011

A Carthusian : A Mystery of Glory

'
'
'


A Carthusian

A Mystery of Glory

- - -

The Liturgy does not offer us a didactic, logically ordered treatise about Christ. It makes us enter into the living reality of Easter by presenting us with the whole mystery of Christ, successively evoked in his greatest prefigurations (Jeremiah, the suffering Servant of Isaiah, etc.) and the interpretations of the person and work of Christ (St John and the Synoptics, the Letter to the Hebrews, St Paul). No picture fully grasps it, no concept can express it, the Liturgy does not try to make the synthesis. It places us before the reality of Christ; it permits us to contemplate him, to unite ourselves to him by our love, to be formed, in our heart, in his image. Let us not approach Christ as a subjct to be analysed 'objectively', as a thing, or a dead man. Christ is alive, his mystery is a current reality, and this reality is none other than our own deepest reality. Only a heart that loves has the right to look intimately at the countenance of another, for only love can see the heart, that of Christ and ours. The face of Christ is the face of Love, his mystery is totally a mystery of love. Christ is a gift of love, a gift of the Father. Everything starts here.

- - -

Book: A Carthusian : From Advent to Pentecost. Carthusian Novice Conferences.  / Darton, Longman & Todd, London 1999.


No comments: