Under the appearance of…

See Soulwork Toward Sunday: self-guided retreat
Proper 14 (year B), August 12, 2012
“under the appearance of…”

http://www.edgeofenclosure.org

 

Because of a death in the family I have not prepared a blog/meditation. But here’s the intro to the self-guided retreat on the website. -sg

I’ve sat inside a monastery rotunda to good profit in my soul, contemplating a golden starburst monstrance enclosing a pale host. Sacramental objects teach me to see sacramentally. Sacristans, altar guild members, priests, handle chalices and fair linens as an almost remedial lesson in caring for ordinary things. Architects create beautiful orderly spaces of worship to open people’s hearts to beauty in an unorderly world. Devout men and women eat the bread of Holy Communion in order to help awaken their consciousness to recognizing the bread of life everywhere.

If God lived in a tabernacle in a church only, I would never leave church. Liturgy lets me linger with the thought of Presence, then pushes me out the door with the insistent dismissal to seek and recognize God elsewhere, that is, in the places most difficult to perceive Divine Love. When I’m weary, I come back to renew the process, each Eucharist giving me, hopefully, a deeper and wider insight into the next adventure. -Suzanne

Eucharist in Fruit Wreath, De Heem, 1648