Fractured Souls Made Whole
We were made for union.
Before any word was spoken,
God breathed,
And in that breath
Lay our whole vocation:
To become by grace what He is by nature.
Yet we have scattered ourselves.
The fall is not only a fault
But a fracture.
Mind torn from heart,
Body from spirit,
Each of us from the other.
Deification is God
Gathering our broken pieces
Back into one.
This healing does not come
Through one practice alone.
It rises from the hidden cell,
Where prayer descends
From the mind into the heart and
The Spirit speaks in uncreated silence.
It is fed at the altar, where bread and wine become
The Body and Blood of Christ and
We become what we receive.
It is completed at the bedside of the sick,
At the door of the stranger,
In patiently bearing another’s burden.
Prayer, sacrament, love:
These are not three roads but one.
The ascetic who will not love
Has not yet prayed;
The one who loves without prayer
Soon runs dry.
Be still.
Receive.
Go out and serve.
In the silence that holds all three,
The fractured soul is made whole again, and
The human being becomes a living icon of God.
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