DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Friday, February 1, 2019

Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.  I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. – John 15:4-5

I love the word, “abide”.  When I contemplate on that beautiful word, “abide”, the tone poem of the sparrows chirping in my sycamore tree while the squirrels are playing in my oak tree.  They abide in my parcel of Creation, but, even deeper than that, I abide with them.

I once believed in Christ, but now, I abide with Christ.  We peacefully and lovingly abide with each other.  I am becoming more and more by way of His Grace a human expression of His Divinity.  While at the same time, my humanity abides deep into His Presence, and His Divinity becomes all the beautifully humane.  It comes with abiding over time … this living as one.

My wife and I have reached that seasoning of our relationship … where we often finish each other’s sentences.  And I sense it is because our minds are becoming more and more sympathetic.  Though we are two unique and distinctive souls more and more of our inner selves can be found in the other.  After all these years, our souls abide.  This grace is all the more amazing for we each are by nature rather shy and private.

My prayer life has matured into an ongoing conversation between me and the Lord.  My daily life is a partnership in this work of lighting lanterns of faith in this world through which I journey.  I cannot even imagine ever being separated from each other, the Lord and I, for we have abiding with each other for so long.

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Charitas de la Cruz