Hajja Salesjana - Oct-Dec 2021

23 H AJJA S ALESJANA ‘Trysting Times’ How, then, do we prevent the pursuit of holiness from becoming a clever shield that keeps us from Christ? Ultimately, we are in desperate need of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us in order to daily draw us to Christ (John 16:14). Yet consider one modest proposal for welcoming his ongoing ministry to that end: when you sit down to read, pray, or hear God’s word, do not settle for anything less than communion with the living Christ. Robert Murray McCheyne may help us here. Rather than call these activities spiritual disciplines or means of grace (which are both helpful in their own way), he liked to call them trysting times. A tryst, of course, is a meeting between lovers. So, McCheyne writes: In the daily reading of the Word, Christ pays daily visits to the soul. In daily prayer, Christ reveals himself to his own in that other way than he does to the world. In the house of God, Christ comes to his own, and says: “Peace be unto you!” And in the sacrament he makes himself known in the breaking of the bread, and they cry out: “It is the Lord!” These are all trysting times, when the Savior comes to visit his own. (A Communion of Love) Photo by Joshua Earle - www.unsplash.com