The moment we surrender to the truth that God is not present to us in the way we would like God to be—namely, at our beck and call—we begin to rise; we start to resemble the Risen Christ. And if we persevere in letting Christ live in and through us, we die a death that is really new life, whose secret password is “Into Your hands, O God, I commend my spirit” (see Luke 23:46).
It may be that the seeming barrenness of God’s abandonment comes and goes for the rest of our lives, but the slowly transforming self sees those varieties of feelings and emotions not as signs of God’s presence or absence, but rather as manifestations of God’s work within, forming the unique face of Christ that each one of us is becoming.
—from the book God’s Love Song: The Vision of Francis and Clare
by Murray Bodo, OFM, and Susan Saint Sing
