Written by Bishop Andrew Gentry   

Beloved Friends,

There is a wonderful quote from Charles de Foucauld that is very appropriate in our time following the excitement of Pascha or Easter if you prefer. Human beings being what we are especially ones that live in such a stimulus oriented instantaneous feel good culture like we do tend to "crash" a wee bit following celebrations and this is particularly true of "religious" ones. I therefore offer this for your inward digestion as well as for mine.

"As for Jesus' love for us, He has proved it clearly enough for us to believe in it without being able to feel it. To feel we loved Him and He loves us would be heaven. But heaven is not, except at rare moments and in rare cases, for us here below"!

Silence and aloneness can be for many of us an almost terrifying experience but it need not be,for do we not recall "the still small voice" in which God may indeed whisper to us and engage us in conversation.

Feeling can be fleeting and even deceptive unless it is in the unshakable truth of Alpha and Omega.

If you wonder whether this is true any of it just listen and look at the myriad of ways proof comes to us whether we feel it or no.

Here sometimes we are the beggar at the gate, some days our begging cup rings and other days it remains silent, but ringing or not the cup is there and it will be filled in time that is not of our making. Rejoice the Tomb remains empty and the Light shines still.

Peace
Bishop Andrew Gentry
Congregational Catholic Church
Asheville N C