Our Ultimate Surrender

Jesus Prayer- Our Ultimate Surrender into Christ

"Yeshua, my Beloved,
Heart of the Living God, in Your Mercy,
We Abide"
- Jesus Prayer

"Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus!
Steal away, steal away home,
I ain’t got long to stay here."
-African American Spiritual

"On my heart and on my house, the blessing of God.
In my coming and in my going, the peace of God.
In my life and in my seeking, the love of God.
At my end and new beginning, the arms of God
to welcome me and bring me home. Amen"
-Celtic Blessing

Beholding the Face of Jesus- Beheld in the Radiance of His Love
The African American spiritual above says it all, plainly and simply. Our home is Jesus, our passage in this life is brief. Our ultimate fulfillment comes when we see Jesus face to face and find our fullest union in him.

In the final fifteen years of my father's life we had an annual retreat together and from this a deep friendship grew. On one occasion he spoke plainly of death and remarked without reservation he was looking forward to the moment when he would see the face of Jesus and be united with him. My father was a man whose soul and psyche were deeply wounded from war and the ravages of alcoholism. As he experienced recovery from addiction and the wounds of violence, he understood rightly that the ultimate healing of soul can only be completed at the moment of death when we come home to Jesus, our true Life. My father died two days after Easter, Resurrection Day, in 2004. I drove four hours to be at his bedside as he slipped into a coma from kidney failure. He died just fifteen minutes after my arrival. I have to think he was waiting for me to witness his moment of spiritual fulfillment and home-coming. I spoke to him in a quiet voice and recalled with him his wish to see the face of Jesus. And I said, "Now is the time when you can let go of this life and find your heart's desire." I prayed out loud his favorite prayer. On the third recitation he drew his last breath and I felt instantly within me the freedom and exultation of his soul. My tears were of gladness for him, and of my own human release of the father I had come to love and befriend.

My father loved the Eucharist. And since the day of his departure from this life, I have come to appreciate this joyful proclamation during the Eucharistic prayer of thanksgiving:"Dying he destroyed our death, rising he restored our life, he will come again in Glory." The day of Glory awaits each of us, when we behold the face of Yeshua, and we are beheld in the fullness of his radiant Love in eternal union with him

Christ the Pantocrator
The meaning and nature of true salvation is the re-ordering of all things to their appointed purpose, to be an expression of Divine Love. The purpose for which we were loved into being is to express and incarnate in our own lives the Love of God poured forth into existence and time. Life becomes disordered when it is separated from that purpose. So Christ is our true Savior and our Salvation in that he is the personification of the power and authority of God's love, who reorders our soul in alignment with Love's purpose. Hence he is called in the tradition of Eastern Christianity, the Pantokrator, the Ruler of the incarnate Universe. In our life-long offering of self in the Jesus Prayer we enter his stream of Mercy that encompasses the universe and therein find our true refuge and home.

Christ our True Refuge and Safety

Yeshua, In Your Mercy, We Abide

Prayer of St. Gregory of Nyssa-

Who is the One
In whom all things are called into being
And in whom all things exist?
In whom we live and move and have our being?
Who holds within himself all that is of the Father?
Do we not yet know
That the One who is God above all things as
St. Paul says- is our Lord Jesus Christ?
He holds in his hand all that belongs to the Father,
As he himself tells us;
He holds all things in the broadness of his hands
And he guides and holds all he holds.
Who then is this One who embraces all,
Holding and keeping all that is,
Who but Christ the Pantokrator, the Lord of the universe!
-(St. Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomius, p. 45)

Jesus- The Circular Stream of Mercy and Trinitarian Life
Divine Love issues forth from the Heart of God. Divine Love redeems and heals all, drawing created beings unto Itself. We know this flow of Divine Love as the Stream of Mercy in the person who is Jesus the Christ. Jesus the Christ is the self-giving Love of the Father, the Source, poured out into Creation. In himself humankind and all Creation are lifted up and offered in return to the Father in the unitive Love of the Holy Spirit. In Christ the Divine out-flowing and in-flowing is fulfilled and made one. " ..his secret purpose… that the universe, everything in heaven and on earth might be brought to unity in Christ." (Eph. 1:22)

In uniting our life with the life of Christ we are oned with his out-flowing love to the world and his inflowing love and self-offering to the Father. We are oned to Christ through our life-long Jesus prayer of mercy, joined to his life, death, and resurrection. In him we are given the gift of human life; in him we die and offer our selves to the Father, the Source; and in him we rise to share Divine Life eternally with him. This is theosis, the foundation of all Christian spiritual life.

"Yeshua, Yeshua, You in me, I in You."

Our purpose in living is be a vessel of the fire of Christ's love in our human life:
"I have come to cast fire upon the earth…." Luke 12:49
Our purpose in living is to be a lit flame of his Light in the world:
"I am the Light of the World." (Jn. 8:12)
Our purpose in living is to become the consecrated broken bread of the body of Christ:
" I am the Bread of Life." (Jn. 6:35)

Jesus the Christ-Our Beginning and End

"..through him all things were made. In Him was Life and that Life was the Light of humanity." (John 1:2-4))

"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself.” ( John 12:31)

" I am the Resurrection and the Life." (John 11:25)

The Consummation of the Cosmos
The Jesuit philosopher, theologian, and anthropologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, saw the universe infused with the spirit of Christ, the incarnate Word. Rather than random change, Teilard de Chardin taught that the universe was moving toward an evolutionary point of development, a consummation of divine purpose. He called this the Omega Point. The Omega Point marks the final unity and reconciliation of heaven and earth, the culmination of the fullness of Christ in humankind and all creation. This theological idea parallels scripture, which teaches that all things were brought into being in Christ, the Word of God, and all things find their completion in him. That is true both universally and personally for each one of us.

St. Paul in speaks of the spiritually awakened state as being one in which we understand that "God is All in All. "(1 Cor 15:28). And in Ephesians (1:9-10, 22) Paul speaks of this understanding of the universe unified in God through Christ: " .. his secret purpose.. .that the universe, everything in heaven and on earth might be brought to unity in Christ. .. the fullness of him who is filling the universe in all its parts." In his letter to the Romans Paul tells us again that Jesus the Christ is our origin and our completion. "For from him, and through him, and to him are all things." (Rm. 8:36)

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the End." (Rev. 22:13)


Christ- The Fulfillment of the Universe
"And He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities —all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together… For in him God in all his fullness chose to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things to himself.” (Colossians 1:15-19)



The Parousia of Jesus
The early Christians, including Paul, believed that the Parousia, the second coming of Jesus in history, would take place in their lifetime. The prayer of the early Christians was "Come, Lord Jesus." The Parousia, may be properly understood as both the personal and cosmic second coming. Until the end of time we humans will experience Christ's second coming in the personal sense at the end of life. We can come to our personal Omega Point in Jesus, our personal consummation in him after a life-time of ceaseless self-offering to the Mercy of Christ, leading to a final surrender and full union with Christ at the end of life. Like my father we shall behold his face and be beheld in the fullness of his loving gaze for eternity. This hymn, sung to a Celtic melody, expresses this final communion with Jesus, inspired by the book of Revelation.

"Come Lord Jesus, Come."

(Paul Neely- from Rev. 22:12-17)-

"Come, Lord Jesus, come even now
You are the beginning and the end
wash our robes and show us the new tree of Life.
open all gates with your wind
Spirit and Bride say, "Come"
And all who hear say , "Come."
Even now, First and Last are you.
Root and offspring of David's love, come
You are the bright and morning Star."

Christ the Bridegroom of the Soul- Love's Personal Consummation
Within and beyond all time and eternity Yeshua calls us into being, he calls us to share his life (Matt. 10:10) and to be united with him, our eternal companion and the Light of our soul.
"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'" (Rom. 8:38-39)

In this hymn Jesus, our Lord and Savior, invites us to the intimate consummation of our life in him unto all eternity.

Come Near-
"Cast all your cares on Me,
for I care for you,
Bring all your burdens to Me,
your soul will find rest.
There's a peace beyond understanding I give to you.
My burden is light, My yoke is easy, so come.
Come near, my love,
and go running on hills,
Leaping with great joy through the heather of heaven at last.
We'll go walking on top of the water with your hand in Mine.
We will dance with the light forever of dawn.
Come near, my love,
and we will go swimming through the stars.
Our laughter will make the heavens ring loud as a bell.
Through My Father's right hand,
all things have been made new.
Now we live within the great holy gladness of God."
(Melody- Traditional Irish Celtic Nos Song- Lyrics - Paul Neely)