Dale Matson
“One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold
the beauty of the LORD and to
meditate in His temple.” Psalm 27:4 (NASB)
Benedict Groeschel, OFM Cap.
(Priest, Psychologist and Friar) maintains that most of us seek God in one
of four ways (Spiritual Passages: The Psychology of Spiritual Development,
1993 Crossroad, N.Y.). He used the saints of the church as examples to
illustrate his point. The call of St. Catherine of Genoa was to Unity, St. Francis saw God as the Good, St. Thomas Aquinas saw God as True. St Augustine saw God as Beauty.
St. Augustine had the following to say about beauty. “But
what is it that I love when I love you? Not the beauty of any bodily
thing, nor the order of
any seasons, not
the brightness of light that rejoices
the eye, nor
the sweet melodies
of all songs, nor
the sweet fragrance of flowers and
ointments and spices; not
manna or honey, not the limbs
that carnal love embraces. None of these things do I love in loving my God. Yet in a sense I do love
light and melody
and fragrance and food and
embrace when I love my God - the
light and the voice and the
fragrance and the food
and embrace of the
soul. When that light shines upon my soul which no place can contain, that
voice which no time can take from me, I breathe that fragrance which no wind
scatters, I eat the food which is not lessened by eating, and I lie in the
embrace which satiety never comes to sunder. This it is that I love, when I
love my God.
Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new; late
have I loved Thee! For behold Thou wert within me, and I outside; and I sought
Thee outside and in my unloveliness fell
upon those lovely things that Thou hast
made. Thou wert with me and I was not with Thee. I was kept from
Thee by those things, yet
had they
not been in Thee, they would not have been
at all. Thou didst call and cry to me and
break open my deafness; and Thou didst
send forth Thy beams and
shine upon me and
chase away my blindness; Thou
didst breathe fragrance upon me,
and I drew in my
breath and do now pant for Thee; I tasted Thee and
now hunger and thirst for Thee. Thou didst touch me, and I have
burned for Thy peace.” Confessions
These mountain places are where I fellowship with God too
for it was He who made these things and us also. It can at times be as intimate an occasion
for me as when I proclaim the words of the Great Thanksgiving during the Holy
Eucharist.
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