July 28, 2011 Thursday: 17th Week in Ordinary Time (A)
A Pencil in God's Hand
from Mother Teresa's Secret Fire by Fr. Joseph Langford, MC
Mother Teresa was so conscious of her mission to communicate the "light and love" she had received, that she defined herself in terms of her message, describing herself as "a pencil in God's hand, that He might write His love letter to the world." In service of that message, she never shied away from using the most ardent language to describe the intimacy to which Jesus' thirst invites us, a language that fills the pages of Scripture itself:
For the Lord delights in you,
and your land shall be married.
For as a young man marries a virgin
so shall your sons marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you. (Is 62:4-5)
Mother Teresa understood that the only way to approach God's thirst for us is to open to it, without insisting on understanding or being worthy. As theologian Karl Rahner observed, "Some things are understood not by grasping, but by allowing oneself to be grasped." Such a love can never be earned, nor fully understood... It is a love that can always be believed in and welcomed into our hearts, entirely free, and ever close at hand.
