Yesterday I went to St. Benedict’s Monastery to have lunch with my Studium friends, Srs. Ann Marie and Theresa. I timed my arrival so as to be there for noon prayer, something I always love attending during the periods I stayed there to work on my writing.
The second reading for the noon prayer was from Thomas Merton. From which of Merton’s writings the passage came, I don’t know, but in it, Merton spoke of us as being the Word of God. I can’t recall the actual words of the passage, but I was struck by the description of us.
We think of the Scripture of the Word of God. And from the beginning of John’s Gospel, we speak of Jesus as the Word.
I had never before thought, at least in those words, of us being the Word of God. But it makes perfect sense to think of it that way (God spoke and we came into being, in God’s image and likeness) – and it is a very powerful thought. We, of course, don’t echo God perfectly in our words or deeds, but hopefully we grow closer and closer to doing so as we proceed on our life’s journey.
Although not the passage I heard today, in New Seeds of Contamplation, Merton writes that
God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of Himself…[I]f I am true to the concept that God utters in me, if I am true to thought of Him I was meant to embody, I shall be full of His actuality and find Him everywhere in myself, and find myself nowhere. I shall be lost in Him.
You might spend some time reflecting on what it means to you to be the Word of God.
Creo en Dios! 