152º Meditation
“Abide in me, as I abide in you” (Jn 15:4).
In contemplation we meet our Father in the depths of our soul and remain in Him. This is how the mystics express it. Meditation on the Word of God has a somewhat different character.
The desert fathers speak of the need to “ruminate” on the Word of God. Through its constant repetition, its meaning is revealed to us more deeply and begins to settle in our soul.
The Gospel says of the Virgin Mary: “She treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Lk 2:19).
When the Word of God permeates our way of thinking, when it instructs us and penetrates deeply into our heart, it remains in us and we in it. It thus becomes the criterion for all our actions and communicates God’s guidance to us.
If we assimilate the Word of God through meditation, it takes us deeper and moves our will to act according to the Word. We know that it is the Word of the Lord; that is, that our Father Himself is present in it. In the Prologue of St. John it is written: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14).
If we remain in the Word of the Lord, living and nourishing ourselves with it, the Lord Himself remains in us and there is a constant dialogue between us and our Father. His Word is always present and nothing happens without it guiding us and determining the course of our life.
While abiding in the Lord on the contemplative level we can experience it more as a constant embrace of His love. In abiding on the meditative level, the Lord stimulates our understanding and moves powerfully in our soul, so that we put into practice the works to which the light of the Word impels us.
Both aspects of abiding in the Lord and of His abiding in us will make our “new self” grow and mature, the self that “is not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh” (Jn 1:13), but of “water and the Spirit” (Jn 3:5)