{"id":18000,"date":"2019-05-02T09:19:37","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T13:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18000"},"modified":"2019-05-02T09:19:37","modified_gmt":"2019-05-02T13:19:37","slug":"the-gate-of-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18000","title":{"rendered":"The Gate of Heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Heaven Now<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cac.org\/the-gate-of-heaven-2019-05-02\/\"><strong>The Gate of Heaven<\/strong><\/a><br>\n<strong>Thursday, May 2, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KwcrBEwc-Gw\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>James Finley, one of the Center for Action and Contemplation\u2019s core faculty members, was a spiritual directee of Thomas Merton (1915<\/em>\u2013<em>1968) at the Abbey of Gethsemani. Drawing from this experience and his own insights as a student of the mystics and a clinical psychologist, Finley helps us get a glimpse of heaven.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Merton told me that \u201cone thing for sure about heaven is that there is not going to be much of <em>you<\/em> there,\u201d he was, I think, referring to the mystery that even now we are in God\u2019s kingdom. And that even now we can begin to realize it if we but die to egocentric self-seeking and seek God\u2019s will with a pure heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because God is everywhere God is likewise no-where, meaning there is no \u201cwhere\u201d in which we can see God \u201cout there.\u201d Closer to us than we are to ourselves, God is too close to see. God is the heart of our heart, the hope of our hopes, the love of our love, the ground of our being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where must we go to see God? Nowhere! What can we do to have God? Nothing! All we can do, at least for a moment (an eternal moment) is to abandon all doing and be who we are in God and open ourselves to God\u2019s life within us. It is then that we will at once see God and ourselves in a unity of divine love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fidelity to silent prayer there is unveiled the possibility of infinite growth in union with God. We can be so transformed through this unveiling that we existentially realize within us that \u201cfor me to live is Christ\u201d [Philippians 1:21]. We realize obscurely in our <em>being<\/em>, that our simple, concrete acts are open to a transformation through which they are \u201cnot only Godlike, but they become <em>God\u2019s own acts.\u201d<\/em> [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is nowhere to go. There is nothing to do. God is upon and within us. In the midst of our humble duties, our poor, weak selves, our simple <em>being<\/em> who we are, we can say with Jacob with overwhelming gratitude: \u201cTruly this is the house of God and the gate of heaven and I knew it not\u201d [see Genesis 28:16-17]. [2]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Heaven Now The Gate of Heaven Thursday, May 2, 2019 James Finley, one of the Center for Action and Contemplation\u2019s core faculty members, was a spiritual directee of Thomas Merton (1915\u20131968) at the Abbey of Gethsemani. Drawing from this experience and his own insights as a student of the mystics and a clinical psychologist, Finley [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18000"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18001,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18000\/revisions\/18001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}