“How can I be more holy?” We don’t have to make ourselves holy. We already are, and we just don’t know it yet. In Christian terminology this inherent holiness is called the Divine Indwelling or the gift of the Holy Spirit. The awakening of the True Self in God is the essential, foundational, and primary task of all religion. Thus authentic religion is more about subtraction than addition, more letting go of the false self than any attempt at engineering our own True Self. You can’t create what you already have.
We become the One we gaze upon. We are, eventually, just like the God we worship. This reciprocal gaze is the True Self, perfectly given to us, and always waiting to be perfectly received. It is so dear and so precious that it needs no external payoffs whatsoever. The True Self is abundantly content as it is.
Adapted from Contemplation in Action, pp. 84-85
The Daily Meditations for 2013 are now available
in Fr. Richard’s new book Yes, And . . . .
Persona 