Agape is the love that consumes ... in one form: enthusiasm. For the ancients, enthusiasm meant trance, or ecstasy -- a connection with God. Enthusiasm is agape directed at a particular idea or a specific thing. We have all experienced it. When we love and believe from the bottom of our heart, we feel ourselves to be stronger than anyone in the world, and we feel a serenity that is based on certainty that nothing can shake our faith. This unusual strength allows us always to make the right decision at the right time, and when we achieve our goal, we are amazed at our own capabilities... We blame the world for our boredom and for our losses, and we forget that it was we ourselves who allowed this enchanting power to diminish -- the manifestation of agape in the form of enthusiasm.
A note from Jerusalem Community in Paris:
Recently, Sr. Francesca-Marie wrote that a foundation of their community seems to be in gestation for the United States. She and several others spent time this summer gathering information and meeting with friends in the states for prayer and discernment. She asks us to pray in the Silence that the Lord of the harvest will send forth enough living American stones to build a solid foundation.
"Water from the moon" -- a Javanese proverb for what one cannot have. Why are we so full of these strange movements for what is not here? Longings get touched, yet have no place to expand into fullness. And what is longing anyway? Water. From the moon. I am not at home -- never have been. Not that I don't know at some levels my way around. I do. But in the end, I am alone. Still waiting. Still riding the swing of my childhood years with my feet stretching up to the clouds ... The person of a thousand dreams rarely realizes one. And worse, never gets broken by one -- and humanized ... So, what claims me? Perhaps only that I set my face toward the stars -- less compellingly than I could hope ... and yet, more tenaciously that I would wish. I face. Perhaps that is enough.