God of My Daily Routine (9)
God Comes to Us Continually
Again and again I must take out the old notebook in which I copied that short but vital passage from Ruysbroeck many years ago. I must reread it, so that my heart can regrasp it. I always find consolation in rediscovering how this truly pious man felt about his own life. And the fact that I still love these words after so many years of routine living is to me a sacred pledge that You will one day bless my ordinary actions too.
God comes to us continually, both directly and indirectly. He demands of us both work and pleasure, and wills that each should not be hindered, but rather strengthened, by the other. Thus the interior man possesses his life in both these ways, in activity and in rest. And he is whole and undivided in each of them, for he is entirely in God when he joyfully rests, and he is entirely in himself when he actively loves.
The interior man is constantly being challenged and admonished by God to renew both his rest and his work. Thus, he finds justice; thus, he makes his way to God with sincere love and everlasting works. He enters into God by means of the pleasure-giving tendency to eternal rest. And while he abides in God, still he goes out to all creatures in an all-embracing love, in virtue and justice. And that is the highest stage of the interior life.
Those who do not possess both rest and work in one and the same exercise, have not yet attained this kind of justice. No just man can be hindered in his interior recollection, for he recollects himself as much in pleasure as in activity. He is like a double mirror, reflecting images on both sides. In the higher part of his spirit he receives God together with all His gifts; in the lower he takes in corporeal images through his senses
Rahner, Karl. “Encounters with Silence.” In Spiritual Classics: Selected Readings on the Twelve Spiritual Disciplines. Edited by Richard J. Foster and Emilie Griffin. New York: HarperOne, 2000
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