Nouwen-3

LIFE OF THE BELOVED

(Spiritual Living in a Secular World)

(Taken, Blessed, Broken, and given)-these words summarize my life as a priest because each day…I take bread, bless it, break it, and give it.

These words summarize my life as a Christian, because, as a Christian, I am called to become bread for the world: bread that is taken, broken and given.

Taken or broken: Every time you feel hurt, offended or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself." These feelings. strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth …is that I am the chosen child of God…We must dare to opt consciously for our chosenness and not allow our emotions, feelings…to seduce us into self-rejection.

Gratitude: You have to celebrate your chosenness constantly. This means saying “ Thank you “ to God for having chosen you and “Thank you to all who remind you of your chosenness. Gratitude is the most fruitful way of deepening your consciousness that you are not an “accident”, but a divine choice.

What fascinates me so much is that every time we decide to be grateful, it will be easier to see new things to be grateful for. Gratitude begets gratitude, just as love begets love.

Instead of making us feel that we are better, more precious or valuable than others, our awareness of being chosen opens our eyes to the chosenness of others. That is the great joy of being chosen: the discovery that others are chosen as well.

No one has lived your life or my life before, and no one will ever live them again. Our lives are unique stones in the mosaic of human existence-priceless and irreplaceable.

BLESSED:

I am increasingly aware of how much fearful, anxious, insecure human beings are in need of blessing…We all need each other’s blessings.

Without affirmation, it is hard to live well. To give someone a blessing is the most significant affirmation we can offer.

I know how moody you and I can be. One day we feel great, the next we feel miserable. These mood swings show that we no longer hear the blessing that was heard by Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca.

When we continue to hear the deep gentle voice that blesses us, we can walk through life with a stable sense of well-being and true belonging.

Prayer and presence are ways of claiming blessedness. Prayer is a way to listen to the blessing.

By presence, I mean, attentiveness to the blessings that come to you day after day. Often when people say good things about us… we banish them aside. That means…we are not truly present to receive the blessings.

We need have attentive presence to the blessings of the poor … blessings of the blossoming trees and fresh flowers, of music, painting etc.

There is always something in us searching for an explanation of what takes place in our lives and if we have already yielded to the temptation of self-rejection, and then every form of misfortune only deepens it.

The great spiritual call of the Beloved children of God. is to pull their brokeneness away from the shadow of the curse and put it under the light of blessing.

Living our brokeneness is an opportunity to purify and deepen the blessing that rests upon us.

OUR GREATEST GIFT

(Caring) contd.

Speaking about his secretary, Connie’s illness:

We human beings cannot live without meaning. Whatever happens to us, we ask, “Why is this happening to me? What does it mean?”

Reflecting on Jesus’s words to Peter (John 21: 18):

We too mus t move from action to “passion”, from being in control to being dependent, from taking initiatives to having to wait, from living to dying.

Just as the ground can only bear fruit if broken by the plow, our own lives can only be fruitful if opened through passion. Suffering is precisely “undergoing” action by others, over which we have no control. Dying is always suffering, because dying always puts us in the place where do to us whatever they decide to do good or bad.

But passion is God’s way, shown to us through the cross of Jesus. It is the way we try to avoid at all costs, but it is the way to salvation.

The Mystery of the Cross:

When Jesus was on the cross, his life became infinitely fruitful. There, the greatest weakness and the greatest strength met. We can participate in this mystery through our death.

Our thoughts and feelings, our words and writings, our dreams and visions are not just our own, they belong also to the many men and women who have died already and are now living within us. The lives and deaths of these people are still bearing fruit in our lives. Their joy, hope, courage, confidence, and trust have not died with them but continue to blossom in our hearts.

Resurrection of Jesus:

To write about dying and death without mentioning the resurrection is like writing about sailing without mentioning the wind.

Jesus’ Resurrection was the full affirmation of his Father’s love. The Resurrection is the expression of God’s faithfulness to Jesus and to all God’s children. Through the Resurrection, God has said to Jesus “ You are my beloved son “ and to us, God has said: “You indeed are my beloved children.” The Resurrection is God’s way of revealing to us that nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste.