six days later jesus to peter james and john off by themselves with him and he led them have a high mountain
he was transfigured before their eyes and his clothes became dazzling white whiter than the work of have any bleacher to make them
light up here to them along with moses and the to were in conversation with jesus
then peter spoke to jesus rabbi how good it is for us to be here let us erect three booze on this site one for you one for moses and one for elijah
he hardly knew what to say where they were all overcome with awe
a cloud came overshadowing down and out of the cloud of noise this is my son my beloved listen to him
suddenly looking around they no longer saw anyone with them only jesus
as they were coming down the mountain he strictly enjoying them not to tell anyone what they had seen before the son of man had risen from the dead
and they kept this word of his to themselves though they continued to discuss what to rise from the dead man
huh
your eyes aren't open you can open them now
i hope that just a simple way of beginning each morning will teach you the power of listening when you've calmed yourself down and we try to clear our minds some
one and then when someone reads slowly and carefully you feel the weightiness of the words and you could perhaps here my breath
as i said the words maybe and between the words and maybe you could hear the silence in the background words are always spoken against silence
i'm an example of how important it is to set the right conditions for truly listening to god's word for truly listening to god's truth about who we all are as a river of love
blowing out of itself and raising to new life
as we begin this morning
continuing on with our reflection on the transfiguration story in this glory when i'd like to do now just for a moment
and hour called time so you have to try to be do this as long as i say hopefully won't be too difficult i want you to find someone near you and it has to be kind of one to one this sort of thing and i want to do not set three or five feet away but try to set maybe a few feet away from that and i want you in silence know
speaking to just look at the glory in their face and in their eyes without speaking and don't divert your attention or your eyes until i say time
just look at the glory in their face and in their eyes find someone if you can
you have to turn toward them
i know it's not an easy thing to do
but you're gonna spend eternity doing this will get used to it
looking at the glory
see the glory of god
and an ordinary human face and eyes that we see every day many faces of many i did we see take time to see the glory
has the story of the transfiguration tells us suddenly there was no one with them only jesus
all they could see as jesus and his glory
okay now give that person the kiss of peace the exchange of this
while bags for coming wasn't that one that was worth it right a paper
i've added another painting of father authors not that we're getting rid of the river of life are we god forbid we need the river of life image for the rest of our lives this side of death to keep reminding us that what we think's as is fixed in life isn't
life keeps moving but i keep moving the sense of identity is not a fixed thing it's a river of love who i really am deep within me well now i bet on the rather odd i don't know odds the right word of a different kind of painting a different kind of image and use
see in this life and darkness don't you
and you see a mountain and valley so rising and falling and you see a tree and the middle of it and you see light and darkness and you see red and black and the talk a little bit more about those course of my hawk this morning
but this is still about this there's just a different image we used to try to understand this river of love that we are that's our true identity i want to begin with telling you a true story a true experience that happened to me it was a very very powerful experience in my life
let's see this was about
ten years ago i was not a commodities benedictine monk at the time i was a member of another religious order a missionary order and i was the novice mass to put that order what that meant as i did all the basic training for the new recruits that came and i was like the drill sergeant and i ran a novitiate year so it's a twelve month program
i'm and i did it for the three provinces of that order in the united states the east province the west coast province and they have a hawaiian province they would send their candidates to near hemet southern california from you may know south of riverside and it was out semi desert area out in the hills and we had eighty acre
years and several buildings and we had a path that went around most of the eighty acres and i used to sometimes jog or brisk walk around that path early in the morning for my exercise and they were hills various points somewhat like here and there was one high hill ah that was pretty high
hi though not a mountain exactly on the property and on top of that hill and the path would go up the hill was a cross it was a large cross made a railroad ties and all those big
dark old and with a crossbeam and stuck in the ground and this is what i did almost every morning walking around so i walked up this was before dawn so it was early i walked up the hill to with the cross was announced standing in front of the cross and i was looking towards mt
idlewild the other side of which is palm springs okay give you some idea where we were so i was looking at mount our which which is huge and i could see light starting to show along the ridges of the mountain which meant the sun was already up in palm springs but was slowly rising up and i said gee maybe i should wait it looks like could only be a few minutes
and i'll see the sunrise to the a glorious sunrise so i'm standing there waiting and everything is sort of greg and before the sun comes up and it's a bit cold and no one's up and then i noticed to my right eye where we lived was following a an old road that went through a little valley and the valley would narrow to the scored and i looked at my
right and i noticed this fog this blanket of fog starting to come in
from the ocean side which was forty miles away but still creeping in and it was a low lying fog was almost as if this if this was hollywood and or cecil b demille some the ten commandments remember when the ten plague is this green bug that comes i thought of that you know and it was a very well defined farm it was almost like a fog machine was made
making it was very low and had very definite boundaries to it and it was creeping along creeping along and i said wow i've never quite seen a fog like this usually just sort of have this cloud that comes in all this looked like this blanket of fog and i'm looking at the mountain waiting for the sun to rise and this fog is coming i said gee i hope it doesn't come up all the way
here and then i won't see the sunrise so i'm looking at the fog and suddenly it's down below on our property and it's enveloping the buildings we had to double mobile homes in a main house and i couldn't see them anymore and suddenly sure enough the fog is slowly working its way up towards the valley the mountains and starting to go come up the mouth
done very slowly
and i'm standing there and it's getting brighter right around the mountain top i'm saying oh my gosh hurry up some her next given when the pod comes i won't say anything the fog comes and then it slowly reaches the top and it was a very very eerie kind of experience this low lying fog was only about this high when it got to me got to my knees and sudden i couldn't see my knees and started
working its way up my body and i'm looking at for the sun starts working with and it just hits me my head and abeles me and the spur shafts of light breakthrough about the mountain now you can imagine what happened with those first rays of light catching that very concept
rated fog you know it was one of those spots where you can almost see the droplets they all caught the rays of sun and radiated and i was immediately in this progress and light and seeing all these droplets which were magnifying the life i remember it took my breath away as a swirling all around me and i was in
light and
i thought of right away the transfiguration story to be totally caught up in the light and before i realized that i was leaning against the cross in order to hold myself up because i was so overwhelmed by this light radiating light i was kind of prop up and leaning against the cross and it was my
most magnificent experience that i had ever had of life and my life
but what really struck me was a new understanding of the transfiguration mystery and that was the fact that i was leaning against the cross that i had an experience of glory and cross at the same moment
that's what i want to pursue today the road to glory what is the road to glory that's why we have these two paintings
i think this experience revealed to me in a deeper way
glory and the cross and how they're interconnected
as strange as it may seem it was the cross and that experienced that was supporting me we don't normally think of a cross supporting us we think of it as a burden don't want to get through as fast as possible to get to the glory that was not my experience the cross was support
putting me enabling me to stand in the glory otherwise i probably would have fallen over i was so overwhelmed by it
the cross on my back was not a burden
it was something to lean on
it was like a crutch supporting someone who's lame
or scaffolding supporting a building that is just rising
or perhaps like a trellis that you put for a plant to grow that cannot stand on its own supporting it
the relationship between the cross and glory is essential for our lives
the boy we've said is a love which on the cross pores itself out in other self giving them in the emptying out of love is the filling up of new birth
remember that text and philippians two
huh didn't bring my glasses heritage look to though he wasn't a form of god we're not deem equality with god something to be grasp that but rather he emptied himself and took the floor form of a slave being born in the likeness of human beings
he was known to be of human estate and was thus that he humbled himself obediently accepting even death death on the cross because of this god highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name above every other name
so that a jesus's name every new must bend in the heavens on the earth and under the earth and every time proclaim the glory of god the father jesus christ is lord and the very matter him that paul is quoting the very him talks about what this emptying and the spilling of this lowering
this dying and this rising up in one him
in the emptying out of love is the filling up a new birth of new life
the cross is therefore necessary for us what i'm suggesting we need the cross to stand in the glory that we are which is a river of love pouring itself out and raising up to new life
every act of true loving requires the cross or it's not true love or it's not the river of love
it's not the glory of god every true act of loving is a dying is a death
and every true act of loving which is a death is a berth at the same time know it's interesting and john's crucifixion scene
that's the one probably most often depicted in icons and paintings with what john the beloved disciple on one side of mary on the other you remember that image and it's very interesting because you have a mother there who gave birth to jesus but as jesus is dying there the whole thing is portrayed as a death scene and the birds seen one of the same scene because jesus
is giving birth to something
that's what he's telling mary and the disciple he's because of him some new relationship between the two of them
is now happening mother behold your son remember the tax sign behold your mother the birth scene and the final scene ends with his side is pierced and blood and water come out the early fathers of the church side as the the the womb of jesus the birth canal of jesus and he is
mother he is giving birth birth scene and john seems to put the whole thing at again he's trying to put the mystery of what glory and the cross together and he's saying the glory is not just what happens three days later there is a cross in glory and there was a glory him the cross
remember also after the resurrection when jesus appears to the eleven and thomas is not there to the and then he comes back and thomas' their the doubting thomas and jesus appears what with his wounds that ever strike you as odd why would he still have wounds if he's now glorified
and made whole why wouldn't have wounds
he needs those wounds glory needs wounds
glory needs to pour it fell out glory needs openings glory needs open doors
the cross that for is not just something we pass through to get to glory it is somehow an expression of the glory which is love poured out
thus the cross is both a symbol of death and a symbol of life
we see in this painting there's kind of a dark macabre sense about this darkness and the tree is down and this down place in this valley and but you have a slight behind like my experience waiting for the sun come up in this darkness this play of up and down this play of light and darkness this the tree
three and you can't really see any leads so it looks like it to bear like it represents death but that through it as the slice of a moon the slice of light coming through suggesting this unity between light and darkness between up and down between life and the between laurie and the crash
ross
so the cross is both a symbol of death and of life
a tree of life elsewhere in john's gospel in tells us he has he tells us about jesus raised upon the cross comparing it to moses who in the desert after the israelites had been bitten by the fiery serpents and were dying remember what
moses has told to do he's told to get a poll a tree and to put
the serpent on the and to raise it up and whoever will look on the serpent will be healed now doesn't that strike you as odd the very thing that kills you will heal you
because we know the ancients even to this day the symbol for medicine is the serpent
and that's used by john and his gospel to talk about the mystery of christ
christ is raised on a pole and we see death
but that death is our healing is a source of life
that emptying out his glories what i'm saying
and recently you've really got it right
you've got the glorified price
you know and we only know about the costs because of a glorified christ we only know the meaning of his death because it's the glorified jesus and the spirit who teaches us to the death happened two thousand and usual that's over but the one who's now living as the reserve price with his wounds
and we enter into his glory and he shows us the meaning of that boy which is this love that pours itself out you cannot separate glory from the cross
it's like the cross planted in the garden of eden and were all brought back in all of humanity that was cast out because of the sin of adam and eve on now brought back in and that cross starting to bud
and sprout and that cross represents member in the story of adam and eve they were told not to eat from the tree of life eternal life in the middle of the garden and now that cross becomes the tree of eternal life
jesus conquerors death
what kind of death the death of love the death of glory
he conquers that death with another death which is the death that is love
the giving over that is love the river that pours itself out is a death it's a kind of death and that's how jesus conquerors this other kind of death which is the death of love which is what the clinging and holding on
that's what that other death represents that's the death of sin member for the hebrew people physical death is what a consequence of what sin
so it's a strange mysteries of strange paradox it's through death that jesus congress death but it's one kind of death is contrary and it's another kind of death with which he conquers
then the road to glory when we understand this becomes the road oh glory
when i are not just on a journey to get to glory but the very road we're on is the glory
it's the road of glory glory happens glory breaks through we get a glimpse of true glory
when there is death
love the this kind of dying this kind of letting go this kind of getting over of yourself and of your love to others
this kind of love requires a the each and every time it is expressed
it is the would have the cross that enables the fire of god's love to keep burning brightly in us
and this is why the transfiguration scene is preceded by jesus as prediction you would read a little bit earlier than the text and mark jesus predicts the son of man is going to suffer and is going to be handed over and is going to die and then the story ends with a dozen it as i read it today they're coming day
down the mountain so you have this kind of up and down again and what jesus tells them don't tell anyone from the son of man rises from the dead there's that bad news and tells them and they're pondering what does it mean to rise from the dead
what does that mean to put the word rise and dead together what does that mean they're pondering it so the whole transfiguration story is in case in death and suffering and it's right in the center of it
a number of years back when i was helping to start our little monastery in new hampshire i was watching the news one night on television and this was the time when the horrors were happening in the former yugoslavia and the war was going on and if you remember surrey eva was under shelf
fire and all those terrible things we'd see on the news every day and ah
the the interviewer the news interviewer i interviewed a young couple they were both had both been in college until all the conflict erupted and they were lovers they weren't married yet one was a muslim and this was probably why the news right thought it was an interesting story one was a muslim in one was a christian and as you know they weren't getting along and all this com
flicked
and they had asked both of their family's permission to try to escape from the city because there was no future for them they wanted to get out continue with the schooling and mary and so they got permission and the cameras showed them sneaking out at dusk
and though there was a area of the city that was called you know we use the expression no man's land what it meant was kind of a dangerous zone and were a lot of sniper fire took place and the telling this nice story your kind of move by it you know this wonderful example of how to opposing people can actually be lovers and their new you know your kind of cheering for them and they're sniffing
out and all of a sudden you're not prepared for it she gets shot and you see it right on and it this was i think it must have been live because they never told us this was gonna happen and so i was i run by let out a yell i stood up and it was so angry you know angry at god angry at whoever's no no no i'm screaming and it was
like romeo and juliet you know but one of them gets killed and she goes down and then he gets hit and he goes down just this tragedy and i'm i'm starting to weep you know i'm just so upset about it an angry and then i'm shocked to see her put up her hand
in a clenched fist of triumph and then open it and profit and reach out over to him
that's the crucifixion scene
that's gloria isn't it
that's triumph
these seemingly two unarmed powerless people were more powerful than all the tanks than all the guns than all the warriors than all the politics
this is sort of what i'm trying to get at the road to glory is the road of laurie the cross is planted right in glory
this giving up of ourselves
being the river of love who we are requires across
requires the support of across requires the opening of across
the road to glory is not a popular road the road of glory is not a wide road is it it's a narrow road it's not mainstream life it's not the path that people take
it's everything that mock throughout his gospel shows the disciples wanting glory you know seeing jesus as exorcisms we read that especially in and he likes to show the power of jesus jesus as glory has a certain power so rock likes to show us that and how odd the people are and how odd his disciples are and more and more they want to get some of that
power they want to get some of that glory
but they don't want the cross since they weren't glory without the cross
and we know that in that scene and cecilia philip pie when
peter seems to have an inside boy this glory yeah you're the messiah you're the son of god and jesus then says blessed are you pete and you don't know that from your own ingenuity that's a grace god has given you and peter mustn't say yeah that affect the advantages as back if bag you and then jesus as well the son of man is going to have to suffer and die
no you don't have to go to jerusalem to remember that and jesus as get they behind me stay
peter you don't understand my glory which is your glory you don't understand it
my glory requires a kind of suffering mike law requires a kind of cross
this road to jerusalem this road to glory is the road of laurie
it's a steep road it's not a flat road
the transfiguration story begins how jesus leads the three disciples up a high mountain it's a symbol isn't it
the high mountain has something to do with the glory the experience they will glory they will have of the glory
and it ends with them going down the mountain there's a reason that's in the story
they represent us being called to make that journey up the mountain and down the mountain
now we know for the ancient people mountains were places where they thought you would meet god
mountains were places where you could see maybe and get a better perspective of your life
but we also know it takes a lot of effort to climb a mountain especially a high mountain takes preparation and equipment it takes sweat and perseverance and that's what the journey of our lives is all about the road to glory the road of glory is the cross and the cross for
feels like climbing a mountain that's just how it feels like to us it's tough it's difficult it's hard work we get out of breath we want to stop we want to rest we want to eat we want to go back down
and this whole idea of journey is another kind of theme
and we know in the bible that begins with to key people to ancestors of faith abraham and sarah they begin to take that journey up a mountain they make a difficult journey don't think they decide to leave everything safe everything comfortable everything familiar all the support systems
and to journey into a land with no aaa map
a land they don't know they don't know what's going to happen to them and why do they take this risk why do they make this journey which is the journey every one of us must make
because they hear a whisper deep inside them that makes a promise
and the promise gives rise to hope
and he decided to make a journey
now suppose that whisper was indigestion
they took a risk
because not a real voice we hear means we should do that kind of thing there was something about this voice they took a chance they took a risk they heard this whisper they thought it was making some kind of promise they didn't fully even understand the promise they interpret it you know according to their own lights and graces and prejudices
and you know when you're given a promise what happens you would get hope don't you
and then once the whole prizes you have to then trust don't you
biblical trust his faith the bible suspect that really need to trust
no it was a french essayist and philosopher from the nineteenth century charles pic guy and he wrote about faith hope and love or trust hope and love and he said you know when we think of these we normally think of three virtues you know when you that have faith that you don't even have hope you don't know you
i have lover you don't and he said that's not really true he said we should think of these three
realities as three movements of the soul
that have to keep on moving think of them he says imagine them as three young girls
so imagine them as feminine feminine movements of the soul whether your man or woman their feminine movements and he says and imagined picture the same these three young girls are walking down the street on their way to school
you see faith hope and love have to keep learning throughout our life is what he's implying were never finished with faith hope and love they have to mature they have to grow so we never have enough faith or enough hope or enough love the faith and hope and love you and i had yesterday is not enough for today
it's not like you study a catechism and boom you have faith hope and love and that's it you just hold onto that know life keeps presenting us with more mountains with more challenges and my faith has to stretch to embrace more and my hope has to stretch and my love has to stretch that's what he's a fine so they're young girls they're not mature
sure they have to grow the runaway to school because they're in the school of life
and he says imagine they're holding hands you can't separate them there's no such thing as say well i have faith but i need to work on my love
why of love but i don't have faith and hope he's saying no when one goes they all grow their interconnected you can't really separate trust hope and love and he says so they're walking hand in hand down the street going to school mrs that most people would imagine well probably faith is the one in the middle or maybe you
think love is the one in the middle he says ah hope is the one in the middle holding the hands of faith
and love and he says hope is the smallest one is the littlest girl the others are the two older sisters
interesting image
and he says and if you look more closely at your life it's little hope that's pulling the other two forward
is ahead of the other two pulling them along
what he's saying is a little hope goes a long way
no hope but why do we have hope hope for the bible's point of view hope springs up from something you've heard
you see an abraham and sarah move forward because they heard this voice that whispers what they think there's a promise and it gives rise to a deep open them and they decide to trust that
and it's going to be challenged throughout the story if you remember that's not over once they'd go on a journey continues they continue to go up mountains
they face many crosses to put it another way many deaths and many renewed acts of trust and hope and love
it's a risk for them it's it cost them a great deal as it costs us
it costs us safety
and false glory and protection the protection of all our illusions
i believe every person i think inside the heart of every person god is whispering something that is a promise
that gives rise to a hope
and i don't think any of us fully know the hope in us that carries us forward i think we only know a piece of it
and i don't think we fully even understand the promise you know abraham and sarah thought they did what did they think the promise was a kind of immortality right for the ancients how do you become immortal progeny you'll live on in your children and land as permanent right it's solid they that's that's all that symbolizes it's a promise of
of eternal life a kind of eternal life
but how to christians we we say well there was sort of getting a little bit of it but remember we suggest a still the back of god right they don't still fully understand that we say in price we see that it's not really about a specific jury geography of land that your own that's not necessarily about having presence
eternal life and glory is not about that
christ reveals the true promise because he's the only one that can truly hear it he is the only one as john says who knows the father and the father knows him and anyone who chooses to reveal him
jesus you see has heard the voice you and me before you and i will ever hear it
jesus knows this voice of god whispering in us and he knows the promise
that's why we go to him that's why the transfigured story transfiguration story they only see jesus he's the one we must see is the one we must go to to learn what is this promise
what is this voice whispering in us and what is the whole
that's in us it's the hope of glory
of true glory which is this love seeking the poor itself out and raise up to new life
and so it's this hope that leads us forward along the journey it's this hope that leads up the mountain of transfiguration which is the same as mount calvary one in
it's the glory and the cross the cross in the glory
the road to glory is the road of laurie
how else can i say this the cross is a symbol of the river that we are
to become whom we already are requires a process that's what journey means a process so the cross has a double meaning
when my normal consciousness has to let go of all the false identities it feels like across it's a process like across it's a dying it's a letting go it's and emptying out but what do we discover hopefully we discover who we really are as a river of life but what is this river of life
it's a letting go it's across to a different kind it's a cross of life it's a pouring out
so to become who we already are requires a process which is the cross but also who we already are is a process is in process is a river of love pouring itself out
and it will always be that heaven is not some static place heaven is where we will all be one in the river that we are in the river that is love pouring itself out all the time you hear what i'm saying
the process a double meaning them the cross symbolizes all the suffering that human beings go through because we cling to the wrong thing that the cross also reveals who god is
god is a reality that pours itself out
and that's what happens on crisis people pour their guts out for their blood up for their lives on jesus reveals the true nature the to face that and that's god's glory
that's what makes god life
to create life you must pour yourself out that is god's glory
and that's what i mean when i say the gloria's in the cross the cross as him the glory
that's what eliot the poet meant when he said know we travel we leave the place where we started we traveled for our whole life on the journey and what we what we find his we're back at the place where we started but we know it for the first time he writes
we think we travel the road of the cross but you don't suddenly land and heaven and earth there's no emptying out know you find what you i'm back to the cross again but now i understand a different kind of cross
a different kind of journey st gregory of nyssa said eternal life is eternal journeying is eternal progress is eternal discovery is eternal pouring out
when i'm saying is you never arrive at the end of the journey once you realize is that the journey is the thing heaven is the journey heaven is the pouring out of your life that's what heaven is and the way to heaven is the pouring out of your life
the way is the destiny
it sounds like double-time but i think there's a truth in there let me give you a little bit of an example from a real life experience back to new hampshire when i was there i used to have to come back to california a couple of times for some meetings and i returned back to new hampshire in the middle of a snowstorm and little bit of a shaky
landing and landed and the other month therefore the bruno came pick me up and you know we could barely reach the car we were slipping and sliding because in the snow was also some sleep it was forming ice along the way and the airport was about twenty minute drive from our little monastery and so i could slide and trying to get in with my luggage and i said wow this is written so
the roads like this as yeah there's ice patches all along some drive carefully so we're driving along and were two miles from the house and he hits an ice have those cars behind us and the car goes into a spin and course the first thing i yelled here in new england it you know what you're supposed to but you never do and i said stared to the direction of the skid row
which is not the natural thing that goes that way you go the opposite which just makes it spin and of course it was too late he had already follow their natural reactions and the cost started spinning why didn't the what else could i say enjoy the ride so i just sat there and i was shocked that i wasn't afraid and of course you've gotta remember this is the middle of a storm and so we're spinning around and as as heh
lights for going around all you're seeing is sparkling snow with icicles because remember it had been sleep and it was the most mesmerizing experience as were spinning and spinning i felt like i gotta just like like in the new some winter wonderland and my mouth was opening were spinning and spinning and i said ups wonderful
i was spinning around we get out of the spin and we go off to the side of the road and we hit fortunately they've been plowing and right in front of the tree line with his big banks of snow so we just went into the snow still upright
and there was silence and father gruner you got to understand he's an older man and he he i tend to find him emotionally understated so there was silence and then he said we're almost with a mumble that was something
and i could hardly contain myself and i couldn't get out so we had to get out we couldn't back out so he went to a nearby farmhouse to get some help so i'm standing there and i'm feeling wonderful and glorious so this was a fantastic and i'm beside myself wondering
what in the past i would have been scared to death why do i not feel fear
and then i remember a car came with a young guy driving the other way and he stopped to say do you need some help and i all over to him and i said hey how are you know i felt like i loved him you know and i were a long lost friend i felt this connection
and he got out of the car oh yeah oh yeah i'm going to them i only i know so into all of this stuff and we forgot about the kind that finally bruno came and somebody was pulling us out i couldn't sleep for hours and i i journaled what on earth this is an unusual experience for me normally i would have been frightened i said why do i feel so
so alive and i remember reflecting back the sense i had as we were spinning as that i was in a doorway between two worlds
life and death i was right on the doorway right on the meeting point
and it was spinning around because either could have happened i could have died into another life where return spinning around and i felt an energy and an a power being in that middle point that still point that elliot also has another poem of is the world is turning but there's still point around which everything turn and i thought a power and an energy
that's the cross and the glory the relationship of death and life of glory and the crop is somehow this threshold and you realize that's where you really want to be like you want to stand at the meeting point of the to stand right dead center that's me
the up on the mountain in this fog that's all lit up with the cross on my back there right join together
and if we could only stand on this threshold between life and death between the glory and the cross i think we'd meet price there
if we can only do that with an abundance of faith
hope and love you know the older i get why realize how difficult to this to truly embrace the road to glory the road of glory with an abundance of trust hope and love as jesus did
we're always running away and thousand times a day
and this is our only vocation
i paid our hope our love must keep on going keep on growing as were challenged each day and at each stage of our life to embrace the road to glory which is the road of floor
we have to be bound for glory realizing we are born in glory as i said yesterday along the road to glory which is the road of glory which is climbing the mountain of the transfiguration which is climbing mount calvary
as i conclude want to read a poem of thomas merton that captures some of what i'm trying to say in this mysterious connection between the road to glory being the road avoid between price and glory
it's entitled all the way down and he base it on reflection of the story of jonah the book of jonah chapter two although he's calling him the old style jonas he says i went down into the cavern
all the way down to the bottom of the sea
i went down lower than jonas and the whale no one ever got so far down as me
i went down lower than any diamond mine deeper than the lowest old and kimberly all the way down i thought i was the devil he was no deeper down the me
and when they thought that i was gone forever
that i was all the way in hell i got right back into my body i came back out and rang my bell
no matter how they tried to harm me now no matter where they made lamy in the grave no matter what injustices they do i've seen the root of all that the mean i've seen the room where life and death are made
the sacred forge of war i even saw the womb that all things come from for i got down so far
but when they thought that i was gone for ever
that i was all the way in hell
i got right back into my body and came back out and rang my bell
let us sit in silence