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Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Jesus was transparent


A crystal reflects the light. Peter van Breemen. S.J. says in The God Who Won't Let Go that "Whoever accepts a mission needs to be transparent. The master should shine through him. This requires a great clarity so that the master is seen through the emissary." The author says that the older he gets the more important transparency has become for him. "Transparency is unambiguous. The light shines through."
He also says that Jesus was a "completely transparent person. "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father."(Jn 14:9)
Do I allow Jesus to shine through me?

I am thinking much about transparency because I had a dream on December 20 (I seldom remember a dream and when I do it is significant and usually a real grace for me). This dream had me in a place (schoolroom?) with many children around me; there was a little old nun in full habit and piercing black eyes who told me that I needed to be transparent; I think I was trying to prepare for spiritual direction. I did not write down immediately what I could remember, but I did keep coming back to the word transparent and did record something in my journal. Later, as I kept reflecting on it, I wrote a poem and will try to be open enough to share it with all of you tomorrow, on New Year's Eve, as I suspect it will be a year of transparency for me or maybe I should say that I want to have the humility to be transparent!!
I really think it was St. Madeleine Sophie who came to me in the dream. She appeared to me in a dream shortly after I had been sent to Chile in 1960 and I shall never forget the great peace and joy she left me; I felt that I had no concerns (this was when I was struggling because I did not know the language and was trying to manage a huge study hall of 157 Middle School children!). Now she has returned and I think her gift is also peace and joy but there is definitely a call to be humbly transparent.

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