Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States - Center for Action and Contemplation's Father Richard Rohr's Meditation "The Meaning of Spiritual Love" for Monday, 24 November 2014

Photograph by pedrojperez

Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States - Center for Action and Contemplation's Father Richard Rohr's Meditation "The Meaning of Spiritual Love" for Monday, 24 November 2014 - Love does not need or demand anything back, because you know you are participating in a single, Bigger Gazing and Loving—one that fully satisfies and creates an immense Inner Aliveness.
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

Love

"The Meaning of Spiritual Love"
Monday, 24 November 2014
When you regarded me
Your eyes imprinted your grace in me,
In this, you loved me again,
And thus my eyes merited
To also love what you see in me….
Let us go forth together to see ourselves in Your beauty.[St. John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle, pp. 32, 33]
When we read poetry as beautiful and profound as this verse, we can see why John of the Cross was far ahead of his time in the spiritual and psychological understanding of how love works and how true love changes us at a deep level. He consistently speaks of divine love as the template and model for all human love, and human love as the necessary school and preparation for any transcendent encounter. If you have never experienced human love, it will be very hard for you to access God as Love. If you have never let God love you, you will not know how to love humanly in the deepest way. Of course, grace can overcome both of these limitations.
In this inspired passage, John describes the very process of love at its best:
You give a piece of yourself to the other.
You see a piece of yourself in the other (usually unconsciously).
This allows the other to do the same in return. 
You do not need or demand anything back from them, because you know you are both participating in a single Bigger Gazing and Loving—one that fully satisfies and creates an immense Inner Aliveness.(Simply to love is its own reward.)
You accept being accepted—for no reason and by no criteria whatsoever!
This is the key that unlocks everything in me, for others, and toward God. So much so that we call it “salvation”!
Adapted from The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, pages 140-141
Gateway to Silence: Love is What Is.
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Center for Action and Contemplation
1705 Five Points Rd SW
Albuquerque, NM 87105 United States (physical) 
PO Box 12464
Albuquerque, NM 87195-2464 United States (mailing) 
(505) 242-9588
cac.org
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