A Cosmic Spiral Toward Love

A Cosmic Spiral Toward Love

by Mary Elizabeth Clark, SSJ

In his book The Global Believer, Sjef Donders states clearly how one must be faithful to self by the "inward journey" of contemplation, solitude and prayer like Jesus not just for self- fulfillment, but for others. He speaks of how this happens in Chapter 8 "Love Ever Expanding." This love which overcomes one who is grasped by the Beloved entices her out of the self toward others especially those who are marginalized. The ultimate union, ot the moving toward the center he calls the pulsing heart of love, God's. I resonated with the articulation of love, ecstacy and union in this book and was curious about the mention of Simone Weil's experiences in Chapter 2 where it states, "Christ has united himself with me, in love."

What I had not articulated about my own experiences I found expressed in this book and in some of the descriptions of Simone Weil. There are two experiences I can use as examples. One experience I can recall as an ecstacy of divine love happened to mewhile I was on my thirty day retreat. Before making the retreat, I had deep fears about it. I thought it would be a panful time. On the first day, I spoke with the director about the fears. He suggested that I rest and relx for the next day. The third day I woke to a rainbow shortly after sunrise. That morning, immediately after I had settled to pray, I was completely overcome by a bright light and warm feeling and had to lie down on the floor. I felt the presence of Christ as never before. It was in direct response to my prayer to feel the love of God anew. I knew Christ as my Beloved in a special way. I felt an assurance of that love. Clearly, That moment became for me the ground of my being. I felt drawn in love toward those marginalized persons I saw the next day on the front page of the newspaper.

Later, in an experience of ministry with persons with HIV/AIDS, I found myself at the bedside of Henry who was dying of AIDS. I had a second experience of ecstacy. AS Henry lay dying, his body wasted from the disease, his whole being in pain, he spoke to me of the union he had with his Beloved Jesus. At that moment, I saw the Body of Christ. I knew union with Christ and with all of suffering humanity. It was a moment of grace. I was filled with an expanding kind of love which I found articulated in the description of Simone Weil as mystic in Marie Lagdaleine Davy's book The Mysticism of Simone Weil.

In Davy's description she speaks of the ecstacy of Simone Weil when she states, " When a soul reached the state when its love fills all the world, then love becomes the chick with the golden wings which pierces the eggshell of the world." This book has given me a taste of mysticism of Simone Weil about which I want to read. I created an image in watercolor of the heart of one who has been captured by the Divine. The love spirals out into the universe toward that union of all creation mentioned by both Donders and Weil in their expressions of faithful love.