Friendship + God's grace
Friendships have been a source of tremendous consolation in my life and have also been channels for God's grace. It never ceases to amaze me how just when you need it most a friend can be there for you with a kindly gesture, word, message... I try to offer that same presence to those same friends and make sure I am with them in their time of need.
Ultimately, such relationships are what life is about.
And since Christmas, a particular friend has been a true channel of grace, acting in such a way towards me that I have felt God's love most deeply through that person: as if they were my guardian angel sent by God to look after me.
I pray that all of you who might read this might have hearts open to receive (and/or continue receiving) the gift of such a person into your lives, and that you may allow yourselves to be "sent" by God to those friends of yours who, in turn, are in need of a guardian angel right now.
Comments
What you say about vulnerability/invulnerability is very true. What you say about St. Ignatius actually makes me think of Jesus in the desert prior to the start of his ministry and how, in putting himself in a situation where he could be tempted and tested, he allowed himself to become vulnerable, a sign of his being fully human. Subsequent actions and events bear this out: crying at the death of Lazarus, the Garden of Gethsemane, "Eloi, eloi..."
And therefore God the Father, through creating us and ultimately through the Incarnation, becomes, in a sense, vulnerable to rejection by us, his creation.
If God truly is love, then God must be vulnerable... an interesting topic to explore!
God bless.
Joking aside, Bro James, your reasoning reminds me of truths that I tend to forget at times, especially the nature and action of the Trinity. The Father and the Spirit were always one with the Son and so, through the Incarnation, the Father did indeed become vulnerable and laid Godself open to both the wonders and the failings of us as His creation.
At times of vulnerability, I always recall Jesus' experiences of vulnerability during his ministry but your reflections remind me too of the 'risk' involved for the Godhead in the Incarnation and hence of the magnitude of the gift of the Incarnation.