Looking into His Loving Gaze: On the Beauty of Prayer

There is nothing more intimate than the breathtaking union that blossoms between the human heart and God…this beautiful exchange of loving looks that allows hearts themselves to communicate and to be woven together in a single life of love. This is God's ultimate and all-encompassing desire: to enfold each one of his precious children within the tenderness of his cradling embrace, and, within this embrace, to make all of us one with each other in the single Mystery of his all-encompassing Love. Whenever I encounter such an amazing, awe-inspiring Love, I am profoundly healed in the innermost recesses of my being, and my life itself is bathed in a radiant and beautiful light. Yes, I find the true and deepest meaning of my life in being God's beloved, in letting my existence unfold in childlike playfulness and joy, as I welcome each moment as a gift of his Love and entrust myself totally to him in return. Indeed, all created things begin to reveal the radiant light of the Beloved's countenance, shining through the veil that has been stretched thin by God's own prodigal generosity. In response to this awesome gift—and cradled always in this Love from which, as Jesus said, nothing can snatch me away (cf. Jn 10:28-29)—my heart dilates and expands to love in return. I have spoken much about "heart-healing" throughout these meditations, about the healing that occurs when my searching gaze encounters the loving and cherishing gaze of God, when my thirst encounters God's even more ardent thirst for me. But I have also spoke about the fragrant flower and succulent fruit of adoration, in which my heart, amazed at the Beauty of the One who looks upon me in such a way, who touches me so tenderly and lovingly, cries out in gratitude and jubilation. I have spoken about the spontaneous desire to pour oneself out as a perfume of love upon the sacred Body of Jesus, simply in order to praise him who is worthy of all praise, to love him who is infinitely lovable. This is simply to be caught up into the very throbbing of the divine Heartbeat, the movement of Love that is eternally passing between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is to allow this surging movement, pouring forth into me through God's loving gaze, through his arms that embrace me, to surge back to him anew in the complete childlike abandonment of myself to him.