Let us consider the idea that God is present in relationship. When we say that God is love, we acknowledge an understanding of relationship as love. Therefore love is not perceived as an object, but as a relationship. We know love in relationship; we know God in relationship. God is the creator or the knower; everthing that has been or is being created and everything that can be known is the result of God's relationship with the cosmos. God the Father makes the divine mystery known through Christ. Christ is the known. This is made very explicit in the Prologue of the Gospel of John. Sometimes it is useful to look at familiar words in less familiar translations. In the Revised English Bible (REB), the opening words of the Fourth Gospel are: In the beginning the Word already was. The Word was in God's presence, and what God was, the Word was. He was with God at the beginning, and through him all things came into being. In him was life, and that life was the light of mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never mastered it. (Jn 1:1-5). The Word was what God was, and the Word became the light of mankind. We know God through the Word, and the Word is Christ. The Word requires a relationship, the communication of love from Christ to us that we learn the larger meaning of love. St. Paul writes about our relationship to Christ: If then our common life in Christ yields anything to stir up the heart, any consolation of love, any participation in the Spirit, any warmth of affection or compassion, fill up my cup of happiness by thinking and feeling alike, with the same love for one another and a common attitude of mind" (Phil 2:1-2 REB). That relationship is one of mutual caring, compassion and mercy. Jesus Christ walked the face of the earth and by his teaching and actions provided us with an exemplar of how God desires to act. The question is not so much what Jesus did as it is what the Spirit of Jesus would have us do today in our circumstances. He said to love one another as he loves us. We often sell ourselves short when we say, " I can't do that! " God says to us, "You CAN, and if you fail, do not give up. I am there supporting every attempt until you succeed" One definition of the kingdom of God is when our will and God's will coincide. Jesus shows God's will. St. Benedict began his Rule with the word "listen." Let us listen and learn.
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So what does it mean for us that Christ thirsts? Christ will thirst until each one of us accepts the call to be in Christ and to have Christ in us. This is Christ's bodily thirst. We are the Body of Christ, the People of God, and until we understand that we are to be united with Christ, indeed, to be Christ, Christ will continue to thirst after us. In his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus said, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never be thirsty. The water I shall give will be a spring water within him, welling up and bringing eternal life" ( Jn 4:13-14 REB ). Those who receive the water Jesus offers will never again be thirsty. Christ thirsts in the hope that we will become more Christ-like in our living and help to satisfy his thirst. When we, the Body of Christ, no longer block the flow of the water of life, we will satisfy Christ's thirst as well. Christ will not thirst. If we but choose to draw from his well. |