‘Our real journey,’ wrote Thomas Merton, ‘is
interior. It is a matter of growth, deepening and of an ever-greater surrender
to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts. Never was it more
necessary to respond to that action. I
pray that we may all do so.’
So many people today hunger for the things of the
spirit which all too often they do not find within our churches or synagogues.
And yet the treasure that is beyond all price is waiting there for us, as
Teilhard de Chardin discovered:
And
so, for the first time in my life perhaps – although I am supposed to meditate
every day!- I took the lamp and leaving the zone of every day preoccupations and
relationships where everything seems clear, I went down into my inmost self, to
the deep abyss whence I felt that my power of action emanates… but I became
aware that I was losing contact with myself. At each step of the descent a new
person was disclosed within me… And when I had tostop my exploration because the path faded from
beneath my steps, I found a bottomless pit at my feet, and out of it came –
arising I know not where – the current which I dare to call my life.