Hunger For The Holy
Lynne Elwinger, O.C.D.
Today more than ever before, people seem to be seeking the sacred, hungry for the holy. All around us the banquet is spread, and though we are always invited to the feast, few seem to take advantage of the invitation. Perhaps they just don’t know about it. The sacred dimension of life with which we are seeking connection, both embraces and resides within all of life. It is impossible to escape it, but it is possible to miss it. God’s presence hidden in the ordinary is passed by unrecognized, concealed as it is in everyday disguises.
All The While, God Is Calling
We have lost touch with the mystery at the core of our own being, making it hard also to see and feel that mystery as it manifests within the natural world and/or in our encounters with other people. Immersed in wonders, we fail to see or hear them, regularly overlooking them. We thirst for spirit water by the sides of dry wells, when the source of that water lies within and around us. All the while, God is calling to us, in nature; through encounters with others; in art, poetry, music, writings, etc.; and most of all within our souls. I believe that our loving and compassionate God, who set in motion the entire cosmos, has created it in such a way that when we acknowledge and sit with our hunger for the holy, the entire Universe rushes to our aid. All we have to do is be still and wait, or be active but totally mindful in that activity.
Summer provides an ideal time to renew our spirits and satisfy our souls’ hungers for the sacred in life. Nature herself seems to be inviting and encouraging us to lighten up, to take time to more fully appreciate the depth of things – to relax and come home to ourselves, to go with the flow. According to George McDonald, there is such a thing as sacred idleness. The summertime slowdown seems to provide an especially ideal opportunity to try out the theory.
A seemingly insatiable desire for speed, for instant gratification and immediate solutions to problems, has come to characterize our modern lifestyle, along with a propensity to look for answers outside ourselves. We expect the extravagant and dramatic when we think or talk about the interventions of God in our daily round, without suspecting that the Divine Presence comes in the guise of the ordinary. The lifestyle of our ancestors of a few generations past moved at a much slower pace. In their time, the savoring of experiences, be it work, play, rest, church activities, or get-togethers with others, was much more common. For us, it sometimes seems that the art of savoring, of deeply enjoying and being in tune with nature and with other people, has been shipwrecked on the rocks and sandbars of our fast-paced lives. Our connections with the sacred in life all too often end up on the casualty list, as we rush from one thing to another.
Allowing Ourselves To Be Grasped By God
Can we once again remember how to open the doors and windows of our souls to welcome in and savor that Divine Presence which seeks to enter and commune with us? Can we reconnect with the dimension of the sacred that is intended to be our true dwelling place? When we allow ourselves to be grasped by God, we come home to ourselves in a new way as a result of the sacred encounter. We emerge changed. Our Blessed Mother exemplified this openness to Divine Mystery, and its transforming effects, in her life and pondered it in her heart. Now she beckons to us to rediscover the Divine Presence in which we live and move and have our being, as we journey together deeper into the heart of God.
Sr. Lynne Thérèse Elwinger of the Resurrection O.C.D.