The human soul is fraught with potential for the beauty of Christ.
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
– 2 Corinthians 5.14, 15
The flame of God’s love dwells in my heart
as a jewel of gold is placed in a silver dish.
– Attributed to Columba, Noli Pater, Irish, 6th century
That simile of a jewel of gold in silver dish is most suggestive. Silver has a certain inherent beauty, just as the human soul, made in the image of God, is fraught with potential to refract and radiate the beauty of Christ. Set a brilliant gold jewel in that silver dish, shining with its own inherent luster, and the beauty of the jewel reflects in the silver, heightening and transforming the already-precious dish into something more beautiful even than by its own inherent potential it could ever achieve.
Columba’s life as a scholar-evangelist – the first great Irish peregrini – reflects the truth of this meditation. He brought many natural gifts and latent spiritual potentialities to the task of founding the monastic community on Iona. But only the love of God, by which he knew forgiveness and for the sake of which he launched out on so many missions for Christ, could transform a hot-headed prince into a hot-hearted missionary.
Paul knew the same. The love of Jesus, which he had come to know so well, so filled and controlled him that he longed for others to know the Savior who had captured him, saved him, transformed him, and lit up his soul with divine vision and love.
Does this flame of God’s love burn and glow in our souls? Are we brought to tears of gratitude contemplating the extent the Father has gone to make His love known to us? And are we moved – like Columba and Paul – to share that love with those around us?
Pray for the people you will meet today, that the love of Christ will glow hot in your soul and control your every word and deed, so that others might experience the touch of God’s grace in you.
