Saturday, October 11, 2014

The Wedding Garment



"While the king gives everything away with total generosity and at no cost, his one condition is that his gift be received on his own terms. These terms require that the receiver become conformed to the splendid glory of his Son..."p.525


"In the most real and emphatic way, we Christians are called by the Father to impersonate Christ, that is, to allow the full reality of the Person of the Word, along with all his virtues, to permeate and vivify every cell of our being so that at length our hearts become the Heart of Christ, perceiving , thinking, and loving, with all the wisdom, strength, and magnificence of Christ. Only such "impersonation" of the divine Lover (because it is most intimate communion with the Source of our being) will, paradoxically, bring out our own deepest, most original, and genuine selves. For we know that of ourselves - of our poor static, isolated selves - we have no real substance. Only rooted in the Divine Logos, the creative Principle of all that is, now incarnate in our nature, can we finally blossom into the fulness of our God-intended being." p. 525


...the just man justices; 

      Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is - 

      Christ - for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

      To the Father through the feature of men's faces. (Hopkins) p. 522


The Fire of Mercy, Heart of the World, Volume III, by Erasmo Leiva-Kerikakis