Our awareness of God is a syntax of the silence in which our souls mingle with the divine, in which the ineffable in us communes with the ineffable beyond us. It is the afterglow of years in which soul and sky are silent together, the out-growth of accumulated certainty of the abundant, never-ebbing presence of the divine. All we are called to do is to let the insight be able to listen to the soul's recessed certainty of its being a parenthesis in the immense script of God's eternal speech.
The following quotation from a new biography of Thomas Merton by Fr. Basil Pennington, seems to reflect the spirit of our prayer:
When we attain true freedom, we live in the spontaneity of the Spirit. And we do not know if we are coming or going. And others don't either ... Usually, we become a problem for those who want to have everything under control. Yet, there is within every one of us, IF WE DARE TO BE FREE ENOUGH TO LISTEN, an instinct for newness, for renewal, for a liberation of our creative energies and power ... If we dare to listen, we will soon enough realize that the change we seek is actually a recovery of that which is deepest, most original, and most personal in ourselves. To be born again is not to become somebody else, but to become ourselves, our true selves, in the One who is Christ" ... the Beloved of our hearts.
~ from THOMAS MERTON MY BROTHER by Fr. Basil Pennington
