Truth walks toward us on the paths of our questions… Wait awhile in the stillness, and do not rush to conclusion, no matter how uncomfortable the unknowing.

Notice that here the truth is actively moving toward us, not elusive or fleeing us, and using our own questions as a means of reaching us.  If this is true, then people who tell us not to ask questions may be hindering our way to God, who is Truth. (Of course, for the questions themselves to become a path for divine Truth, we must make sure they are real questions, and not defiant certainties disguised as questions.)

The image of truth walking toward us is faithful to what we know of our God, who actively pursues us – who seeks us, even when we least deserve to be found.

We can also be confident that in our unknowing, before the questions are answered, we are already in God the All-Knowing.  We can sit quietly even in our darkness and confusion, trusting that we remain in God.

Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my arms;
but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love.

Hosea 11:3-4

The voice I overheard was talking about me.

“…but she couldn’t even find St. John’s Mercy Hospital.”

I recognized the speaker, as I had given her an ill-fated ride the day before. And yes, it’s true, I have what seems to be a genetic propensity for getting lost. At least I call it genetic. (Anne Tyler, in The Accidental Tourist, called the condition “geographical dyslexia.”) On the other hand, some people think that if I just concentrated, I wouldn’t have the problem at all. And others, like the owner of the voice speaking above, simply take my inability to navigate as a sign of mental deficiency.

Symptoms:

• I have been known to drive for a half hour on the interstate in the wrong direction.

• The words, “You can’t miss it,” send me into quivers.

• After giving up searching and telephoning for directions, I have had to admit that I had no idea where I was calling from (seriously hindering the direction-giver).

• I find highway signs woefully inadequate, disappearing just when I need then.

On the spiritual journey, however, there is a sense in which most of us, left to our own devices, are directionally challenged. The way is fraught with puzzling intersections and foggy back roads and trackless wastelands where we long for a GPS or a printout from Mapquest.

But happily, and often in spite of ourselves, we are being led, even when the haze appears so dense or the night so obscure that we can’t see our hands before our faces. And amazingly enough, we are being guided not just to where we ought to be, but to where we want to be.

The beautiful Latin verses of St. Thomas Aquinas, which we know as “Panis Angelicus,” end with this prayer:

Per tuas semitas
Duc nos quo tendimus,
Ad lucem quam inhabitas.

“Lead us,” we pray, “along your paths…” —

Lead us through everything:

• through interior struggles, through joy and pain, through knowledge and unknowing…

• through prayer, in the body and blood of Christ (panis angelicus: bread of angels), to the divine life of Christ that we receive and are called to live…

• from indifference to love, from judging to compassion, from violence to peace…

Lead us along your paths, because our own roads tend to get us lost.

“Lead us where we want to go,” continues the prayer, in the direction we are already leaning, if we are paying attention to our heart’s longing.

Lead us “to the light wherein you dwell.”

Where we are being led is indeed where we want to be. The goodness of God leads us, not to some desolate wasteland where we will still be wandering around hunting for a highway marker, nor even to a faraway or foreign land, but to the very place for which we were made and for which our hearts long: to the Light that is God’s dwelling and our home.

You show me the path of life.
In your presence there is fullness of joy;
in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.
(Psalm 16:11)

__________

P.S. There are many renditions of Cesar Franck’s “Panis Angelicus” on YouTube, performed by the likes of Luciano Pavarotti, Leontyne Price, and Placido Domingo. Unfortunately, Franck’s version uses only one verse of Aquinas’ hymn, omitting the words cited above.

There was no small number of runners, and they were a whole microcosm of humanity — every age and shade, including a baby in a stroller being pushed by his father. Some were obviously athletes. Others, out of shape, had given up running and were trudging along. Some were really dragging.

No spectators were in evidence on our street, but on the corner stood an official-looking woman who turned out to be the source of the clapping and cheering.

“Whoa! All right!” she called to one.

And to others, “Look at you go! Not even breaking a sweat! Good job!”

Everyone was cheered, no matter whether they were Olympics material or barely able to make it to the next block.

The cheering woman reminded me of God. In her voice it seemed as if I could hear God rooting for each of us as we travel our life’s path: “Yeah! You’re going to make it! Good job!” or “Whoops, try again! All right!”

Whether we are sailing smoothly along or whether we are stumbling and bumbling in our journey with and toward God, I could picture God clapping and cheering, encouraging us when we become discouraged, lifting us up when we fall.

In this race, being in the lead is no cause for boasting, and there is no cause for despair if we are slow or stumbling. What matters is that we are on the road with God our companion and headed toward God our destination.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

(Hebrews 12:1-2)

During one of those empty drives back from the Jacksonville airport, I realized (an insight breaking into the emptiness?) that this minor nothingness could be reminding me of a profound truth of the spiritual life, which is that joy resides in loving God more than we love God’s gifts.

Saint Therese Couderc, for example, the co-founder of the Cenacle, was a mystic whose whole life was given over to God. Even those among us who are most holy, however, have places deep in their hearts where God continues to call them closer, so that they may not cling to anything less than God. According to Abbé André Combes (“The Four Offerings of Blessed Therese Couderc”), this is what happened to St. Therese:

One day, finally given over without reserve to God, Mother Therese became aware that there was something abnormal in the fact that she continued to be filled with divine consolations. Immediately she said to Our Lord: “I would follow you just as well without that!”

Whether or not this is literally the way it happened, we do know that Mother Therese had reached the point where she loved God more than she loved the spiritual experiences God had given her. It was not that she was refusing God’s gifts – far from that, for to refuse what God wants to share with us would be the height of ingratitude – on the contrary, she accepted to move into a new stage in her life with God. This stage was marked by fewer consolations, but also by a deeper union in the Paschal Mystery with the One who was All in All for her.

Boring Prayer?
Our own prayer time may seem like an ordinary road revealing nothing beyond the hard pavement, the passing cars, and the swampy vegetation. We may find ourselves bored to tears and longing to come to the end. But brilliant insights and tangible spiritual experiences are not the confirmation of our prayer. It is rather the transformation in love that God is working in us, to bring us into union with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, for our own sanctification and for that of the world in which we live.

The more we draw near to God, the more we desire to draw near; the more we are united with God, the more we desire this union, because we understand more and more that God is the center of our hearts and that God alone can fill them and make them happy.

Saint Therese Couderc, Letter to Mother de Larochenégly, August 7, 1867

The Light that leads
To Jesus is His Own.
- St. Ambrose -

If it is true that we are all called to be God-bearers in this world, it is also true that we are God-borne – carried, held, sustained, and brought to birth by God. At times I am aware of being borne, sometimes through the desert and often in spite of myself. In these moments I am shown how my life’s journey has been bringing me to a holy freedom in Christ. Other times I grope about in the darkness, feeling more bound than free, and can only beg to trust that I am being led by a Star I cannot see to a Coming that remains totally mysterious and that I pray to recognize.

Yes, Jesus has indeed come. Emmanuel is closer to us than our small minds can grasp. Yet we always live in the paradox of the here and the not yet. On the one hand, what we most long for is already and always ours. On the other hand, what we long for is still to come.

We are always waiting and longing — for the Second Coming, of course, but also for our own fulfillment in the Mystery of God-with-us.

But our waiting is doubly blessed. Even as we wait, we are being led toward what we are waiting for, as the Magi were led toward the infant Jesus. Even as we say, “Come,” we are being borne toward the One who is here and is to come.

Not only that, but we are led by the Light that is Christ, and we are borne by the very One for whom we are longing — who is right here with us, breathing the divine Spirit into us, carrying us, transforming our hearts and minds into the heart and mind of that Jesus to whom and in whom we journey.

In the words of St. Ambrose, “The Light that leads to Jesus is his own.”

‘I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.’
(Revelation 22:16b)