“Abide in me and I in you” (Interior Word).
Contemplation means to remain in the Lord in our pilgrimage through this world. The Lord invites us to this: “Abide in me, as I abide in you” (Jn 15:4). There are different ways of abiding in Him.
Our Father rests in the soul of a person who lives in a state of grace. There He has made His abode and there He remains, because it is His joy to be with us. As long as we do not close the doors of our soul, falling and remaining in grave sin, we can constantly enjoy this state, so that, when we seek Him, we can meet Him in our own soul.
This presence of God is very soft and delicate, and little by little the soul learns to perceive it. As the Book of Kings describes, the Prophet Elijah did not find God in the storm or hurricane, but in the gentle whisper of the Spirit (1 Kings 19:11-13). We experience the same thing within ourselves. Our Father draws us with His tender love and illumines us with a delicate and soft light. In this light the soul can remain.
Let us think, for example, of the interior recollection that is sometimes granted to us after we have received Holy Communion, or of the silence that we sometimes experience at the moment of consecration at Holy Mass, which is even more palpable in the traditional rite, when the priest, turned towards God, prays the Canon in silence. A holy silence then arises…
These are moments in which the soul comes into contact with eternity; moments in which it wants to remain, while God remains in it. Have we not experienced this holy silence, in which we long for nothing more than to remain in it? Indeed, where should we go? Alas, this state is often brief and distractions catch up with us again.
However, we can experience this state much more frequently if we take the time for an intimate dialogue with the Lord in silence. The Father expects us to seek Him in our own heart, so that He can cultivate the relationship of love with us. He abides in our heart and we too are called to abide in His. There the soul loses track of time and experiences a prelude to eternity, which is, for it, like a homecoming. It is there that the soul wants to arrive and remain forever.