Transformed into Love
Friday after Ash Wednesday, February 20, 2015
ABBOT LOT came to Abbot Joseph and said: “Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and according as I am able I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts: Now what more should I do?”
The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: “Why not be totally changed into fire?”
[Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, p. 50]
There was an old cartoon from the 1980’s that showed a woman sitting at her desk in a church office. She had a bit of charring on her clothing, and smoke was present in the room around her. She tapped the button on the intercom system at her desk and said, “Pastor, there is a man here to see you. He says he’s on fire for the Lord.”
The cartoon may have been especially meaningful to me because I saw it at a time in my life when I wanted always to be “on fire for the Lord!”
The Christian mystical tradition often used fire as an image for love. (St. John of the Cross in the 16th century wrote a lengthy poem entitled, “The Living Flame of Love,” for instance.)
Fire is a transforming presence. It changes what it touches. It purifies. Likewise, love.
Abba Joseph seems not all that impressed with Abba Lot’s many spiritual virtues and practices. He seems more concerned that Abba Lot be transformed by “fire,” that Lot be consumed by Love.
ABBOT LOT came to Abbot Joseph and said: “Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and according as I am able I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts: Now what more should I do?”
The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: “Why not be totally changed into fire?”
[Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, p. 50]
There was an old cartoon from the 1980’s that showed a woman sitting at her desk in a church office. She had a bit of charring on her clothing, and smoke was present in the room around her. She tapped the button on the intercom system at her desk and said, “Pastor, there is a man here to see you. He says he’s on fire for the Lord.”
The cartoon may have been especially meaningful to me because I saw it at a time in my life when I wanted always to be “on fire for the Lord!”
The Christian mystical tradition often used fire as an image for love. (St. John of the Cross in the 16th century wrote a lengthy poem entitled, “The Living Flame of Love,” for instance.)
Fire is a transforming presence. It changes what it touches. It purifies. Likewise, love.
Abba Joseph seems not all that impressed with Abba Lot’s many spiritual virtues and practices. He seems more concerned that Abba Lot be transformed by “fire,” that Lot be consumed by Love.
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