Transcript of Abbot Clement’s talk on Monday, July 15, 2002
I want to continue with the talk I gave on the feast of St. Benedict to add to it a little bit.
Yesterday’s picture from the Hubble telescope was on the Nebula, the crab Nebula. It’s kind of aqua-marine color basically and then it has reds, yellows and filaments of white, it’s very impressive and really gripping and if you know what’s going on it’s even more so. But you know, that is a dim reflection of the presence of God. You know that creation reflects God by His power, wisdom and His goodness. But you know each of us is created in the image and likeness of God. Now if we could see that we would stand in awe of each other. But it’s also a great gift because Jesus was the fullness of the image of God, means when we meet Him we vibe with Him uniquely. We’re not all the same. We all have a different participation in the image of God. So for instance, once I was talking with my sisters, I asked, "what really excites you about Jesus?" Well my older sister says, "that He’s a person." My younger sister, not so young any more said, "His gentleness." I said for me "Jesus is truth." And so that’s just three examples but the truth is that there’s infinite variety it could be God’s goodness, it could be God’s power, it could be anything that’s good. And so if we want to deepen in the spiritual life, which means according to scripture, "He who knows you and in him who you sent has eternal life" to know the Lord is the deepening of our life.
So since we are made in the image and likeness of God if we pay attention to what excites us about Jesus, then we open ourselves up to know the Lord instead of simply knowing about Him. And so this is a very important awareness and a certain growth in the awareness of how to read God in my life. How to sense His presence. Of all the different titles of God you can pick something that we take for granted. For instance we say, "God is with us." So we use the word Emmanuel. Well what does that mean to say God is with us? Does that mean He’s next to us? The altar is here with me? What kind of meaning does this withness have? Well for God to be with us means that He has to have compassion. And the word for compassion in Hebrew is rahamin. Which means the relationship the mother has with the child in the womb. Compassion means, of course, in it’s etymology word means to suffer with. But it’s more than that, it’s empathy, it’s to feel your feelings. To know what’s going on in you all the time. And so when we say "God is with us" this is what is really the meaning of that. And so how do we stand in that and open ourselves up to it? So you know here’s a mother reminding her daughter " I’m sending you to the store and when you get everything come back home immediately." Well, she didn’t show up so the mother’s kind of worried and the daughter comes out before the mother can scold her she says, " I know I’m late, I’m sorry. But Jane’s doll broke and I had to help her fix it." The mother says, "how could you help to fix the doll?" She says, "well, the first thing I did was sit down and help her cry." That’s empathy. And so the issue that we have to look at is just how do we enter into the relationship of God in such a way that we begin to know Him more? Now Fr. Fellenbach is a SVD, he tried to help us with this one on "I am with you" and he has a series of statements that try to help us reflect on this. I am with you when you are alone. I am with you when you are full of consternation. I am with when others reject you and cast you out. I am with you when you cannot see any progress in your spiritual life. I am with you when you despair and are saddened. I am with you when you are anxious and afraid. I am with you when no one likes you. I am with you when there seems to be a wall between you and me. And etc.
How would you express God’s presence with you, in your life in which there’s a real vibe going on between you and God? So that you come to really know the Lord. It’s in knowing the Lord that it’s easy for us to follow Him. But if we have only knowledge about Him then we want to do His will, we are good people, we try to do what’s right, but we have no real empowerment. Because we haven’t met the Lord deep enough to know Him. So we know about His compassion, we know about His kindness, we know about His goodness but we don’t know the goodness, we don’t know the compassion, we don’t know the sympathy, etc. So there’s a story told about a great actor who came and was invited to use his talent and recite verses before the little faith community. And so he did his performance and then he turned to the audience and says, "is there anything you want me to recite?" And the pastor raised his hand and said, "how about reciting Psalm 23 the Good Shepherd?" So he starts reciting it and of course he’s got a good voice, good tone, good inflection, and everybody’s highly impressed and when he’s finished everybody’s clapping. Then the actor turned to the pastor and said, "now, how about you reciting?" Well the pastor said, "I don’t have much of a voice, I don’t really think I’m that good," "please do it." So the pastor starts reciting the Psalm 23 and everybody begins to cry and weep and all of a sudden there’s deep silence and a kind of sense of prayerful presence. And the actor kind of breaks the tension and says, "You see the pastor is different than me. I could touch your ears and your eyes, he touched your heart. I know the psalm, he knows the Shepherd."