But Try As I Might I Could Not Force My Way In

There is no purpose to the contemplative life. There is no so that in the passive contemplative encounter with God. It simply is. It is only up to God to know why some experience this and most do not. There is no sequence to the activities or reasonings that correlate with the encounter of what the intuition knows to be present and actual. Again, what happens happens. God is God's own gift. So there is no purpose. Only love.

Expecting this intimate experience of God to be some sort of reward is born of misshapen expectations. Working to that end produces the stillbirth of a misdirected religious ego. Humility. Self-forgetfulness. Renunciation. Self-sacrificing, loving service of others. These are the antidotes to the toxicity of societies and individuals who would try to make us believe that we can somehow bring this on by our own will and strength and religious practise. Active contemplative practises do nothing in the end to determine or shape an actual encounter. So sorry. Rightly accepted it has the proper effect of simply increasing the intensity and simplicity of a person's love for God and others. For some they are born with this orientation. For others it comes as a breakthrough without effort. Yet again for others it takes a priming...for some though love and for others through hardship, but for both through whatever humbles us. But admittedly for most it never happens and remains only a myth which they will never apprehend, try as they might to force their way in.

It's not about sin. It's not about what we deserve. It's not about what we have or have not proven. It's about laying all of these and the reasoning associated with them aside. Fundamental openness. What happens happens. You are reduced to a love that offers to die in another's stead. This is Christ at work inside, replacing the ego. And praise be to God.

But try as I might I could not force my way in through the doors of the church to view the sacred wood of the holy cross.

- Mary of Egypt