We are a wounded people;
we can love each other, forgive each other
and celebrate together our oneness.
Perhaps we can only truly accept this humiliation
if we live an experience similar to the one
lived by the prodigal son.
If we discover that we are loved and forgiven
and accepted by the Father just as we are,
in all our brokenness,
with all the darkness and pain inside us,
then we too can weep in the arms of God,
rejoicing in his forgiveness.
Yes the cry and the anguish of the poor
triggers off our own cry and anguish;
we touch our point of pain and helplessness.
But then we discover the new name of God,
the name revealed by Jesus,
of the Spirit, by the Holy Spirit;
the Father will send a "Paraclete."
It is a beautiful name, meaning literally
"the one who answers the cry or the call,"
like a mother
who takes in her arms her weeping child.
She is a paraclete.
The name of god is "the one who answers the cry,"
Mercy and misery embrace!
We can only know the incredible mercy and love of God
if we accept to descend into our misery
and there cry out to him.
Then he will answer, "Here I am, Beloved,"
and will enfold us in his arms
with a long embrace.
Jean Vernier
And so in our making, God almighty is our father by nature; and God all wisdom is our mother by nature, along with the love and goodness of the Holy Ghost; and these are all one God, one Lord....
For our whole life falls into three parts. In the first we exist, in the second we grow and in the third we are completed. The first is nature, the second is mercy, the third is grace. As for the first, I saw and understood that the great power of the Trinity is our father, and the deep wisdom of the Trinity is our mother, and the great love of the Trinity is our lord; and we have all this by nature and in our essential being. And furthermore, I saw that as the second Person of is mother of our essential being, so that same well-loved Person has become mother of our sensory being; for God makes us double, as essential and sensory beings. Our essential part is the higher part, which we have in our Father, God almighty; and the second Person of the Trinity is our mother in nature and our essential creation, in whom we are grounded and rooted, and he is our mother in mercy taking on our sensory being. And so our Mother, in whom our parts are kept unparted, works in us in various ways; for in our Mother, Christ, we profit and grow, and in mercy he reforms and restores us, and through the power of his Passion and his death and rising again, he unites us to our essential being. This is how our Mother mercifully acts to all his children who are submissive and obedient to him.
But Jesus, who in this vision informed me of all that I needed to know, answered with this assurance: 'Sin is befitting, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.'
With this bare word 'sin" our Lord brought to my mind the whole extent of all that is not good, and the shameful scorn and the utter humiliation that he bore for us in this life, and his dying, and all the pains and sufferings of his creatures, both in body and spirit--for we are all to some extent brought to nothing and shall be brought to nothing as our master Jesus was, until we are fully purged: that is to say until our mortal flesh is brought completely to nothing, and all those of our inward feelings which are not truly good. Have me insight into these things, along with all pains that ever were and ever shall be; and compared with these I realize that Christ's Passion was the greatest pain and went beyond them all. And all this was shown in a flash, an quickly changed into comfort; for our good Lord did not want the soul to be afraid at this ugly sight.
....And because of the tender love which our Lord feels for all who shall be saved, he supports us willingly and sweetly, meaning this: 'It is true that sin is the cause of all this suffering, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.'
--Julian of Norwich
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