INTIMACY AND SEXUAL WHOLENESS
INTIMACY AND SEXUAL WHOLENESS
Divine Intimacy
Wednesday, June 12, 2024
Richard Rohr reflects on our need for human and divine intimacy:
"The big secret is this: an infinite God actually seeks and desires intimacy with the human soul. Once we experience such intimacy, or desire for such union, only the intimate language of lovers describes what is going on: mystery, tenderness, singularity, specialness, nakedness, risk, ecstasy, incessant longing, and, of course, suffering. This is the vocabulary of the saints. Our biggest secrets and desires are only revealed to others, and even discovered by ourselves, in the presence of sorrow, failure, need, when we are very vulnerable, and when we feel entirely safe in the arms of love. When that happens, there is always a broadening of being on both sides. We are larger people afterwards. Those who never go there remain small.
It’s only when we are in such a tender place that God can safely reveal the “innards” of God to us. Those who are self-sufficient remain outsiders to the mystery of divine love because they will always misuse it. Only the need of a beloved knows how to receive the need and gift of the lover, and only the need of a lover knows how to receive the need and gift of the beloved.
How does this secret of intimacy become unhidden? Only when we stop hiding—from God, from ourselves, and from at least one other person. Such risky self-disclosure is what I mean by intimacy and it is the way that love is transmitted. Intimacy happens when we expose our insides—and this is always scary. We must be prepared to be rejected and the pain of rejection after self-disclosure is so great that it can sometimes take years for us to risk again."
Divine Intimacy
Wednesday, June 12, 2024
Richard Rohr reflects on our need for human and divine intimacy:
"The big secret is this: an infinite God actually seeks and desires intimacy with the human soul. Once we experience such intimacy, or desire for such union, only the intimate language of lovers describes what is going on: mystery, tenderness, singularity, specialness, nakedness, risk, ecstasy, incessant longing, and, of course, suffering. This is the vocabulary of the saints. Our biggest secrets and desires are only revealed to others, and even discovered by ourselves, in the presence of sorrow, failure, need, when we are very vulnerable, and when we feel entirely safe in the arms of love. When that happens, there is always a broadening of being on both sides. We are larger people afterwards. Those who never go there remain small.
It’s only when we are in such a tender place that God can safely reveal the “innards” of God to us. Those who are self-sufficient remain outsiders to the mystery of divine love because they will always misuse it. Only the need of a beloved knows how to receive the need and gift of the lover, and only the need of a lover knows how to receive the need and gift of the beloved.
How does this secret of intimacy become unhidden? Only when we stop hiding—from God, from ourselves, and from at least one other person. Such risky self-disclosure is what I mean by intimacy and it is the way that love is transmitted. Intimacy happens when we expose our insides—and this is always scary. We must be prepared to be rejected and the pain of rejection after self-disclosure is so great that it can sometimes take years for us to risk again."
