The Ladder of Divine Ascent - Chapter XXX, Part II

What does it mean to be drawn into the mystery of Divine Love? Even as beautifully as John writes, it is difficult to wrap our minds around the experience of the living God; the experience of a love that is free of every impediment and passion, a love that makes us sons and daughters of God and so shapes are identity in such a way that it is unshakable. 

What is it that can overcome such a love? Our identity is often shaped by anxieties and fears, the unexpected and unknown, and our insecurities. Yet, as we are immersed in the love of God, all fear dissipates and is overtaken by an urgent longing for God and the thirst for his love. 

We often resist opening ourselves up and becoming vulnerable to this love. One famous author wrote, “humankind can only bear so much reality.“ Yet the love of God, the more that it is experienced, allows us to run toward that reality rather than avoid it . It  reveals to us that even our weaknesses, the things that we perhaps hate about ourselves or the wounds that we bear, draw us toward him. Love reveals to us that we experience nothing in isolation. Christ is always present to us and within us. This being so allows us to offer Him all that we are without shame.

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Text of chat during the group:

00:06:36 Una: Byzantine Carmelite nuns https://www.byzantinediscalcedcarmelites.com/index.html

 

00:06:55 Una: In Sugarloaf, Pennsylvania

 

00:08:46 Bob Cihak, AZ: The author was one of the lecturers at Acton University when I attended over 10 years ago.

"The Glory that is Pittsburgh" at 

https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/the-glory-that-is-pittsburgh-5753572

 

00:12:33 Una: A line from that article that has me ROFL

 

00:12:35 Una: Pittsburgh is a town that makes me want to rhapsodize like a follower of Ayn Rand.

 

00:14:05 carol_000: Does this Zoom start a bit before 5:30 E Time ?

 

00:14:28 Una: Just chat before 5:30

 

00:15:10 carol_000: Una ..Thanks

 

00:16:00 Sr Barbara Jean Mihalchick: Is it the same material as Father posts on FB?

 

00:16:01 Bob Cihak, AZ: P. 244, #9

 

00:19:08 Daniel Allen: What page are we on again? Sorry I missed it.

 

00:19:16 Bob Cihak, AZ: P. 244, #9

 

00:19:21 Daniel Allen: Thank you

 

00:46:02 Anthony: Part of the issue is how we receive the Gospel and Apocalypse....these are written with fearful language.

 

00:48:36 susan: some of the teaching seems so hard to do or embrace and seems like climbing Mt Everest lol so I have decided to become a micro ascetic  offer the smallest, micro offerings tiny tiny acts

 

00:50:21 Anthony: Should peter have been confident of forgiveness , even before the Lord forgave him?

 

00:51:12 David: Isn't there a process of letting go of things that leads us from obedience and caring to devotion. It seems love itself has stages and perhaps devotion is a joy in itself. But without letting go we lack faith and trust in the beloved.

 

01:04:11 David: My grandfather one time had me write down everything I was worried about for weeks. He kept it and showed it to me a year later and I realized how much time I wasted on that. While it took me years to understand it did help me move from belief to faith.

 

01:04:29 Daniel Allen: How do you give God “those things” in a concrete way? For instance how do you give God your anxiety in a concrete way, because sometimes offering it in prayer seems somewhat abstract.

 

01:05:19 Wayne: Reacted to "My grandfather one t..." with 👍

 

01:08:28 David: A beautiful tradition I saw in Potes, Spain was at collection people would give both money but what concerned them or what sins they were struggling with written on small pieces of paper to bring to the altar. I wonder which this is just a small town and (small t tradition) rather than more common. Just struck me as beautiful and I still think of that when I put something in the collection basket.

 

01:09:07 Sr Barbara Jean Mihalchick: Some find writing helpful - a note or letter to the Lord in one's journal. Or an expression in art...

 

01:09:14 Anna Lalonde: More frequent mystery of Repentance and gratitude are so important for this! Seen it with grief in my children and I.

 

01:14:41 Cindy Moran: Thank you Father!

 

01:14:48 Rachel: Thank you

 

01:14:49 Rebecca Thérèse: Thank you🙂

 

01:14:50 David: Thank you father. May God bless you!

 

01:15:33 Jeff O.: Thank you so much!