Leading a quiet day at Dayspring today, I held this scripture* from John 10 in my heart, for the retreatants and myself. The setting is an annual Festival of Dedication in Jerusalem with Jesus present. I immediately thought, what is retreat but a Festival of Dedication? Each person coming together with hopes of celebrating and renewing commitment, uniting in prayer and hope. In the silence, I reread the passage and felt myself dancing in a fountain of grace, saturated by joy.
Jesus described himself as a shepherd and the sheep as those who hear his voice, is known by him and follow him. My sheep, he says. No one, he claims further, will snatch them out of his hand. Ever. For the beloved sheep are also promised eternal life and will never perish. The fountain of grace is eternal blessing, flowing from a forever love. This dedication of tender intimacy, belonging and strong assurance of eternal commitment is what Thomas Merton calls “mercy within mercy within mercy.”
Praying with another group of twelve on retreat, the blessing of eternal divine commitment came home to me as a gift to community. It registered deeply that Jesus spoke of the plural: them, they, my sheep. Even Jesus wasn’t really a singular because all this came from God. We are one, Jesus said, and Abba is the source of everything. No one, he emphasized, can snatch this gift out of Abba’s hand, the Giver of ever-flowing resources.
Repeatedly, I re-learn the centrality of community in God’s heart. Repeatedly, I need reminding that the biblical story, and our ongoing story, is of preparing and equipping a people, not a person. God sees differently, all-in-all. “When Israel was a child, I loved him,” God said to his prophet Hosea. Perhaps I will never fully recover from the plague of individualism yet I long to see differently, too.
Can every gathering of the community of faith be a Festival of Dedication? Every retreat, every worship service, every meeting? Can we remember and remind one another that it is our communal listening and mutual belonging that will fortify our commitment to faith, hope and love? And, more, that God’s commitment never wavers.
Perhaps this is the heart of what theologians write about as deep incarnation. The radical embodiment of oneness, along with the reality of ongoing mutual interpenetration, is the key to joining and extending the divine healing energies of love in the whole community of life. Indeed that would be an overflowing fountain of grace and joy.
—Ann Dean, Dayspring Retreat Mission Group
Reflection Questions
- What community supports your knowing the safety of belonging to the Merciful One?
- When have you experienced a retreat or worship gathering as a Festival of Dedication?
- What practice reinforces the assurance that you will never be snatched out of God’s hand?
