Quote of the day, 29 July: Ruth Burrows

[T]he New Testament proclaims—it is the good news it bears—that “God,” however we might conceive of “God” (and inevitably the human heart, consciously or unconsciously, forms some idea of God to affirm or deny), can be known only through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ as crucified.

This is the revelation that stuns merely human wisdom and all those ideas of God that derive from the human mind and heart. It is the revelation of the divine that to the Jews was an obstacle they could not surmount, a scandal pure and simple, and to the pagans was ludicrous folly. Jesus of Nazareth, in his unprotected, raw human-ness, in his weak and suffering flesh and, supremely, in his terrible Passion and death, is clean contrary to human ideas of the divine (1 Cor 1:22–4).

This may seem a startling affirmation. What about the Resurrection? Jesus’ earthly life, his Passion and death, belong to the past. Surely it is the glorious, risen Christ with whom we have to do, and it is this glorious One who is the image of God? Undoubtedly.

But what can we see of this Risen One? As Luke tells us clearly, the holy cloud of the divine Mystery took him from human sight (Acts 1:9). We know the heart of the Risen One, how he is to us, what he does for and in us, precisely through his earthly life and in his Passion and death.

The Risen One, “at the right hand of the Father,” is Jesus and none other. We know that within the very heart of the Trinity, in “heaven,” there is that same passion of love for us, that same Self-expending outreach, that “nothing spared,” that sheer excess of love which, in the reality of this world and ourselves as we are, found its most expressive form in the denuded, dispossessed man on the gibbet.

This is the Christian God, the living God, the God who really is.

Sister Rachel Gregory, O.C.D. (Ruth Burrows)

Chapter 2, The Gift of God

Burrows, R & Jones, M 2019, Ruth Burrows: Essential Writings, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York.

Featured image: Resurrection (Triptych), Mikhail Vrubel. Watercolor on paper, 1887, Museum of Russian Art, Kiev. Image credit: Wikiart (Public domain).

#Christ #divineMystery #resurrection #RuthBurrows #SrRachelGregoryOCD

We think of prayer as something we do for God whereas prayer is essentially a gift.

Prayer is intimacy with God and it is God who offers us this intimacy. We respond. There is only one Christian prayer and that is Jesus, the New and Eternal Covenant, the union in person of God and man. All Christian prayer is essentially through him, with him, and in him….

This God longs and longs to give, not just gifts, but himself; and it is only this supreme Gift that makes us utterly happy. We don’t have to bribe him with our good works or make ourselves desirable and “worthy.” His love makes us lovely.

The little story of Martha and Mary expresses the truth graphically (Cf. Lk 10:38–42).

What Jesus is saying is that, when he enters our house, that is, when we are in direct contact with him, then it is for him to give to us, to serve and feed us, not the other way round.

This, I believe, represents the reality of Christian existence: receiving God, All-Love, in Christ, letting God love us, nourish us, bring us to our total fulfillment. Well-nourished, we turn to our neighbors and share our nourishment with them. Freely we have received and freely we must give.

Sister Rachel Gregory, O.C.D. (Ruth Burrows)

Chapter 5, Receiving the Gift of God
Choose to Trust

Burrows, R & Jones, M 2019, Ruth Burrows: Essential Writings, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York.

Featured image: This oil on canvas painting of the Kitchen Scene with Christ in the House of Martha and Mary by the Spanish master Diego Velázquez (1599–1660) was probably painted in 1618, according to art historians and scholars at the National Gallery in London. Their gallery label provides fascinating detail concerning this artwork:

A maid pounds garlic in a mortar, and other ingredients lie scattered on the table: fish, eggs, a shrivelled red pepper and an earthenware jug probably containing olive oil. An older woman points towards her, as if giving her instructions or telling her off for working too hard, or she may be drawing our attention to the figures in the background.

The scene visible in the upper right is taken from the New Testament (Luke 10: 38–42). As Mary sits at Jesus’s feet, listening to him, her sister Martha complains that she should not be left to serve the food alone. Christ replies, ‘Mary has taken that good part, which shall not be taken away from her’. We view it through an opening, although it has also been read as a reflection in a mirror or a picture hung on the wall.

The figures in the foreground, dressed in contemporary costume, may be intended as a latter-day Martha and Mary.
Image credit: Art UK (Public domain)

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#Christ #gift #love #nourishment #prayer #RuthBurrows #spiritualDirection #SrRachelGregoryOCD #StMartha #StMaryOfBethany