The world is cold…

Being the living Christ today means being filled with the same Spirit that filled Jesus. Jesus and his Father are breathing the same breath, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the intimate communion that makes Jesus and his Father one. Jesus says: “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:10) and “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30). It is this unity that Jesus wants to give us. That is the gift of his Holy Spirit.

Living a spiritual life, therefore, means living in the same communion with the Father as Jesus did, and thus making God present in the world.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

I’ve been thinking a lot about this being present in the world, being an outpost, a lighthouse, of Christ in this present darkness.

In Poustinia, Ch. V, Catherine Doherty says:

The presence of  a person who is in love with God is enough… nothing else is needed…

When you are hanging on a cross you can’t do anything, because you are crucified. That is the essence of a poustinik’s contribution… The poustinik’s loneliness is of salvific and cosmic proportions… By hanging on the cross of his loneliness, his healing rays, like the rays of the sun, will penetrate the earth…

The world is cold. Someone must be on fire so that people can come and put their cold hands and feet against that fire.

In Ch. IX, she goes on to say:

The poustinik’s whole reason for going into loneliness—into solitude—his whole reason for exposing himself to temptation, is always for others. It is always in identification with… Christ, with his whole life, with his crucifixion. It is then the way to our resurrection and that of others.

[I am awaiting a copy of my own – the notes above were made from an old copy of Poustinia in the library at Hilfield—my apologies for any errors in my hasty transcription!]

I am shocked at the depth with which this book resonated with me. At last, I seem to have found someone who speaks the hidden language of my own heart!