Sacred Heart, 19th June 2020
This time needs poetry, so heavy is it with meaning. John’s first letter is written with something of this ‘heaviness’ in view and yet with a poetic lightness that brings God close, or better, introduces us gently into the furnace of God’s love – the love that moves the stars but moves us also. It’s a dynamo or power which could tear us apart but instead brings us together. It’s a movement which carries us along in a wild dance to destinations unknown and yet stills us. It’s passion – and rest. It’s many – and one. It’s paradoxical because, try as we might, it’s not our love for God but God’s love for us. We are created, anew and anew and anew.
My years stretch backward, forward,
‘Tideless Shore’ by Anne Dover (Sr. Giles of the Poor Clares)
To the point where time laps, tideless,
To the shores of a star-bright density:
And seas I voyaged, misty lands I touched,
(That eager search!) have yielded emptiness
Beside the unencompassed present of this hour.
And now I know that heaven is not far –
No long dimension of a distant sphere –
Nor are our fetters more than fragile bonds
Swift-broken as an outgrown chrysalis:
For love is the enduring moment, love alone,
And the whole world might crumble into dust
With silence curled around the circumference
Yet love still burn – this love – unquenchable.
Yes, that, I think, is the heart of the matter.
And Jesus its definitive expression.