Tough Love
Romano Guardini, in his book The Lord, has interesting things to say about the relationship between Jesus and Mary (here, continue here, and then here).
His commentary reminds me of what Thomas Keating in Crisis of Faith, Crisis of Love says about how God uses tough love and distancing with those he is especially close to. It's not intuitive from a human viewpoint - one expects to feel closer and closer to those we love - but it does make a kind of sense given that God is unfathomable and other. A Dominican priest once said that the Divine, being Spirit, will necessarily be encountered over time on a less and less sensual level (where I mean sensual as that which can be perceived through our senses & feelings. Alice von Hildebrand defends feelings here.)
I was driving west on I-70 yesterday and saw a church called The Church Triumphant of Columbus. Catholics see our time on earth as belonging to the Church Militant and Heaven as the Church Triumphant. We might see ourselves as recapitulating the story of Israelites, on the journey traveling through the Egyptian desert (and trying not to complain), or we can see ourselves as already in the Promised Land, by virtue of our Baptism, the Eucharist, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit -- a reason to feel triumphant. Is this a case of both/and rather than either/or?
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