Richard Rohr, of the Center for Action and Contemplation , writes this about the importance of seeing Christ in the other.
“So many Christian mystics talk about seeing the divine face or falling in love with the face of Jesus. I think that’s why St. Clare (1194–1253) used the word “mirroring” so often in her writings. We are mirrored not by concepts, but by faces delighting in us—giving us the face we can’t give to ourselves. It is “the face of the other” that finally creates us and, I am sorry to say, also destroys us. It is the gaze that does us in! “Now surely you see why a positive and loving God-image is absolutely necessary for creating happy and healthy people. Without it, we will continue to create lots of mean Christians who have no way out of their hall of negative mirrors.”
What does this say to you about the mirrors you look into? Who do you see when you see yourself? And what might others say about what they see when you look at you?
Rohr, Richard. The Face Of The Other. September 31, 2019 devotional.
“So many Christian mystics talk about seeing the divine face or falling in love with the face of Jesus. I think that’s why St. Clare (1194–1253) used the word “mirroring” so often in her writings. We are mirrored not by concepts, but by faces delighting in us—giving us the face we can’t give to ourselves. It is “the face of the other” that finally creates us and, I am sorry to say, also destroys us. It is the gaze that does us in! “Now surely you see why a positive and loving God-image is absolutely necessary for creating happy and healthy people. Without it, we will continue to create lots of mean Christians who have no way out of their hall of negative mirrors.”
What does this say to you about the mirrors you look into? Who do you see when you see yourself? And what might others say about what they see when you look at you?
Rohr, Richard. The Face Of The Other. September 31, 2019 devotional.
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