Posted on

Thanksgiving Manna

The manna that God provided for the Israelites in the dessert is described as flakes like hoarfrost or dew upon the ground. It was not recognizable as bread, and they did not see it falling from heaven, it just appeared in the morning as naturally as the dew.

Here we have a mysterious interplay between nature and grace. The morning dew tastes like sweet bread, and the evening birds are real flesh. Strangely natural and supernatural.

The Eucharist presents a similar mystery. It is just a wafer of bread in a liturgical service, a shared meal, and yet through the eyes of faith it becomes Christ, our passover, and real spiritual food for the journey.

Does the Eucharistic (Thanksgiving) presence of Christ appear everywhere that love is shared? Does it fall as naturally as the morning dew, for all who are journeying within the pascal mystery of life?

It seems as if the spirit by its very nature is drawn into matter.  God descending into our humanity in Jesus, and then even further down to become bread to eat.  A divine mist condensing on the ground of our lives like  the morning dew.

Our own lives are also to become a kind of Eucharist, a bread for others, and a descent into nature.  As we are led  into this vulnerable land  we learn its language of trust and self emptying, and then manna appears all around us.

Posted on

The Silent House

The entrance way is constricted, and cloaked,
my own breath I breathe, and I’m choked

A single candle flickers in the hall,
and my thoughts cast shadows on the wall

I move quickly past this scary host
of haunting, taunting, self-ghosts.

The faint smell of embers in hearth,
Gives courage to draw me further in.

The fire, just embers unattended,
I draw near, a stranger, undefended.

The fire awakens, fed upon my breath,
And then rises to the rhythm of my chest.

And the light rises into luminous depth,
revealing no walls or boundaries.

I feel someone else  here in this space,
A palpable presence with no face.

Posted on

The Tension of the Tenses

“For by one offering he has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated”

Hebrews 10:14

How can we  have already been “made perfect” (past tense) through the redemptive act of this great high priest, and  yet are still “being consecrated” (present tense)? Why are we given this assurance of the final end state, which is essentially a gift,  but at same time left to work it out within our frail and vulnerable humanity ? How do we understand this mystery of struggling to become that which we already are ?

How can this be?

It is as if God holds us in this creative tension, straddling what is and what could be, and inviting us to be co-creators.

Jesus the high priest makes an offering that is seemingly all sufficient and for all time, but then invites us to participate in his eternal priesthood, by taking up our own priesthood in time. We lift up the cup of our own lives and Christ fills that cup, completing in time what he has already accomplished in eternity.

God does the initiating, and His Love is the catalyst of creation, but it is also a Love that waits on a response from us.  God is sufficient yet makes himself vulnerable to his own creation. We are his children already, his identity and image stamped in us, and yet  “creation (still) waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God” Rom 8:19.

So how do we navigate this existential space, between Egypt and the promised land ? How do we live in the tension of the tenses?

The strength we need is found in the supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and love.  The gift of faith to perceive what is not yet ours, and the hope that is a seal or downpayment of our inheritance, and the love that transforms us fully into His likeness.