The Lowest Part of your Need

Thursday, March 23, 2017

For our reflection today I’d like to draw your attention to a single phrase from Dame Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love:

“The highest prayer is to the goodness of God, which comes down to us in the lowest part of our need.”

Breathe deeply, and let the breath you inhale represent “the goodness of God,” and allow that breath to enter deeply into your soul and spirit, more deeply than ever before. Let it touch those inmost parts of you which you would prefer remain hidden not only to others but also to yourself, except in the darkest hours of your existence.

Let the breath of His goodness touch that very part of you which you fear may drive Him away forever. You fear is an illusion, because the goodness of God’s love cannot be driven away by anything that lies within us if our intention is to turn to Him and stay open to the workings of His grace. Breathe deeply. Drink deeply of His love. Let the food of His Eucharist, which is Him in all reality, nourish that part of you which is starving, thirsting, literally dying for lack of Him. Let Him come to you in that place and tend to it, feed it, succor it and envelop it in his love. If you are held by Him there, then you are held by Him everywhere. Nothing will keep Him from you. Consider the words of Saint Paul:

For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:39)

And now, for a moment, think on your enemy. Think on the person who causes you the most distress in your life, that one person you find it so hard to get along with, so difficult to endure, the one you most dislike, the one you find it most difficult to think of with kindness, forbearance and love. Consider that this love of God which has touched you so deeply also touches the other person in the very places you find it so hard to tolerate. Consider that the process of God’s compassion is unfolding within that person as much as it is unfolding within you, and that person is loved by God as deeply and completely as you are yourself. Perhaps, with God’s grace, thinking like this will help to ease your dis-ease and help you to begin to see the other as God sees—even if just only for an instant, even if just only for a small opening in time.

And then return to yourself. Consider that this part of you which is so addicted to disliking another is also a part of you God’s goodness is reaching down to embrace and enfold. Let His loving compassion continue to do its work in you, because that work was begun long before you ever came upon these words. Make a prayer to this goodness, the goodness that “comes down to us in the lowest part of our existence.”  Amen.

God bless you!