Saying Yes
In a reflection on the feast of St Scholastica, Mother Christiana Reemts cited a book by Hans Urs von Balthasar: ‘Love is limitless agreement with God’s will and providence, whether this will has already been expressed or not; love is a resolute Yes in advance to everything, whatever it may be, even the cross, even immersion into absolute abandonment or forgottenness or futility or insignificance. The Son’s Yes to the Father; the Mother’s Yes to the angel, carrier of God’s will; the Yes of the Church in all her members to her sovereignly provident Lord.’ The abbess went on to observe: ‘There are statements that, when I read them, leave me with the certainty: Yes, this is exactly how it is, even though I fail again and again to live up to what they ask. Even when I rebel, justifying rebellion by appeals to ‘what is just human’ or to the example of Job, the longing to utter an unqualified Yes remains. For only that will make me truly happy.’ Cf. Notebook 6 May 2022.
