DAILY MEDITATION (WEDNESDAY, JULY 29)
MEDITATION OF THE DAY
The One Thing Necessary
Since union with Christ involves living membership of a highly organized body, each one will have his own special function therein—his own personal vocation. In fulfilling this vocation, no matter how ordinary, how obscure, or how laborious it may be, each one can find full union with Christ, who is filled with the riches of the Godhead, so that nothing is wanting to any of his members. He is our sufficiency.
If we remember how he insisted upon the need for this union, we shall realize that union with him is more important than the actual work to which we are called. His words are full of significance: Abide in me…. He that abides in me and I in him, the same bears much fruit. And although one might think that we should abide in him in order that our actions should be fruitful, it would seem more correct to say that the chief fruit and purpose of our actions ought to be that we may abide in him. He is the one thing necessary. He is our God, he is our all.
This union ought indeed be the primary purpose of all our actions, rather than any apostolic fruit they might produce. For love demands union, and ultimately it is love alone that counts. Without this love, or charity, as Saint Paul calls it, not only do our works profit us nothing, but we are nothing. And this love in us that demands union is itself the fruit of union, for it is poured forth in our hearts by the Spirit of God, who is the living flame of the divine love of God.
Dom M. Eugene Boylan, o.c.r.
Dom Boylan († 1964) was a monk of the Cistercian Abbey of Mount Saint Joseph, Roscrea, Ireland. [From The Mystical Body: The Foundation of the Spiritual Life. © 1948, The Newman Bookshop, Westminster, MD.]
