Becoming the Beloved, day one

“From the moment we claim the truth of being the Beloved,

we are faced with the call to become who we are.

Becoming the Beloved is the great spiritual journey we have to make.”

~Henri Nouwen

Most of us believe (at least our minds would assert) that we are loved by God.

Yet we often live our lives, feeling defined by:

• what we do

• what people say about us

• what we have

And so much of our energy goes into maintaining our own particular set of "what I do, what people say, what I have" identities. If anything challenges those parameters -- when a loved one dies, someone says something mean about us, we lose our job or our health falters -- we can fall into darkness and depression. There is a limit to how much we can keep grasping for our identities through things, achievements, and other people.

But in scripture God tells us: I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have engraved your name in the palm of my hand, I have knitted you together in your mothers womb. You are mine. I am yours. You belong to me.

God has created us with a heart that only God's love can satisfy. Every other love will be partial: real but limited. God is our First Love. As St. Augustine has written, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord. and my heart is restless until it rests in you."

We are created to seek our First Love...

Music: "Restless" by Audrey Assad

https://youtu.be/UuhYZrn4flo

"Becoming the Beloved" means letting the truth of our Belovedness become enfleshed in everything we think, say, or do... When our deepest truth is that we are the Beloved... It becomes visible and tangible in all the ways we eat and drink, talk and love, play and work. (Nouwen)

The manifestation of our Belovedness in our ordinary days is unique for each of us.

Fall in Love

Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination,

will affect everything.

It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in Love, stay in love, and it will decide everything. - Joseph Whelan, S.J., former provincial of the Maryland Province (sometimes attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J.)

For reflection:

1) How does being the Beloved affect how you see yourself?

2) What helps you see and claim your belovedness?

3) What are the "visible and tangible" ways your belovedness is reflected in your everyday life? How would you like it to be?

Resources:

Henri Nouwen, "Life of the Beloved."