Blessed Madeleine Delbrel

WHEREVER LOVE IS PRESENT
From the writing of Blessed Madeleine Delbrêl 2
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Anywhere we are, God is there, too. The space where we join him is the
place of our love, a love that does not want to be separated from God, that wants
to encounter God. Whoever has not tried to know who Jesus is – truly, fully,
presently – will not desire him. He will desire him less than a child desires an
orange from the grocery store.

But those who have struggled to climb toward the mystery of God, who
thought him possible, who believed him possible, who, in the end, believed him
to be true, who found the joy of joys in this truth; those who had to make room
in themselves for still more joy in knowing that this mystery was made
perceptible to the eyes of men in a man who was both man and God; those who
know that this man will remain with them until the end of time, with his body,
with his blood, with his glory, those who believed and who still believe in all
this, we who believe it – will we lack the desire to find him wherever he says he
can be found? To knock down or pierce through all the obstacles that would
keep us from being with him forever, ever more deeply? It is this desire that
makes prayer and that makes it anywhere. Wherever love is present, it carries
within itself this desire. To love God enough to want to be with him, to carry
within ourselves the desire of this love, gives us strength enough to cut through
even the hardest, most hectic of lives, so that in prayer we can reach the One we
love.

A few minutes of such prayer will give us to God and give us God more
than hours of powerful meditation if they are not preceded by a free and living
desire. The retreat to the desert can be…at the end of the day, after we have
spent all day “digging” a well toward these few brief moments; in contrast, this
same desert could be without retreat if we put off our desire to meet the Lord.
Our comings and goings – and not only the big ones, but also those we make
from one room to the next – the moments when we are required to wait…are
moments of prayer prepared for us, as long as we are prepared for them. To
waste them through lack of preparation can rightly be called a small fault. But
if one day we find that, with the Lord, it is not a question of sin but one of love,
perhaps we will realize that we have been strange lovers.

2 Delbrêl, Madeleine. The Dazzling Light of God. Trans. Mary Dudro Gordon. San Francisco: Ignatius Press,
2023. 119-120.