When my first son was born, I misplaced my breath. I checked out this beautiful, tiny particular person wanting up at me and couldn’t breathe or communicate. Time appeared to face nonetheless. There have been no phrases, none that I knew anyway, that might specific the depth of the emotions I had in that second. Gratitude and awe had been part of it, however there was extra. There was a way of being a part of a higher entire, a terrific lovingness by which all of us existed in that second.
The identical factor occurred when my second son was born.
It additionally occurs after I see clear, star-filled skies, mountain vistas, and autumn leaves. It doesn’t must be a complete expanse of bushes, although; a easy golden leaf can generally cease me in my tracks.
My coronary heart turns into so full that it feels prefer it may burst. Typically, I can’t even take all of it in and have to show away momentarily when the sweetness overwhelms me. My soul utters some silent gratitude-filled breath of exclamation that solely God can perceive. Typically, my thoughts points a silent, verbal response, “I like you. I reward you. I glorify you, oh, my God.”
The transcendent expertise is common, if we’ve eyes that see. In his ebook, Residing Philosophies, Albert Einstein wrote:
Essentially the most lovely factor we are able to expertise is the mysterious. It’s the supply of all true artwork and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can now not pause to surprise and stand rapt in awe, is pretty much as good as lifeless—his eyes are closed. This perception into the thriller of life, coupled although it’s with concern, has additionally given rise to faith. To know that what’s impenetrable to us actually exists manifesting itself as the very best knowledge and essentially the most radiant magnificence, which our boring colleges can comprehend solely of their most primitive types—this information, this sense, is on the heart of true religiousness. (6)
The pure response to those moments of transcendence, in response to St. Ignatius, is gratitude. Ignatius suggested that we savor such moments and hold a file of them. He factors to Mary for example. In Luke 2:19, we learn that Mary, after the beginning of Jesus, “treasured all these phrases and contemplated them in her coronary heart.”
Ignatius additionally believed that the extra we domesticate an consciousness of the divine motion in our lives, the extra we are going to discover that God regularly creates magnificence in our paths, magnificence that demonstrates the greatness of God’s love for us. God is all the time in search of to show our eye.
Might our eyes be opened. Might we take the time to face in awe. And will our hearts treasure and retailer up these moments, giving gratitude for them.
Are there moments in your life by which you might have skilled surprise and awe? Are there sure locations the place this typically occurs? Do you thank God for these moments?