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I cannot pretend to understand God, but this is what I see: People who have moved from seeming success to seeming success seldom understand success at all, except a very limited version of their own. People who fail to do it right, by even their own definition of right, are those who often break through to enlightenment and compassion.
We have been graced for a truly sweet surrender, if we can radically accept being radically accepted—for nothing! “Or grace would not be grace at all”! (Romans 11:6). As my father, St. Francis, put it, when the heart is pure, “Love responds to Love alone” and has little to do with duty, obligation, requirement, or heroic anything. It is easy to surrender when you know that nothing but Love and Mercy is on the other side.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
—John 1:14
Go and tell my servant David…“Are you the one to build me a house to live in?”… I took you from the pasture,…I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name,… I will appoint a place for my people Israel,… the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house…. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me; your throne shall be established for ever.
—2 Samuel 7:5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 16
For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap;…he will purify the descendants of Levi…. Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents….
—Malachi 3:2–4; 4:5–6
…[God] has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
—Luke 1:51-53
And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.
—Luke 1:45
