Necessary tension in contemplation

During the season of Advent, the Roman Catholic Lectionary features Scripture which prepares us for the Incarnation. The tradition of the Church contains over 2000 years of special ways to bring this spiritual relationship to our understanding. Two concepts from the Tradition and from the concept of the need for “spiritual tensions” are presented today. Luke’s gospel presents the ‘yes’ of Mary which generates the paradox and tension of Virgin and Mother in the same person. The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, celebrated today, creates the tension of one of the children of God with a place, because of Divine grace, of sinless relationship to the Divine in a reality where “all have sinned and have fallen short”. The Mystery is the tension between these concepts which like our own personal spiritual mystery need to be held in our being as we find the “third eye” of contemplation and spiritual growth that Rohr exhorts as the essential journey to know ourselves in the Divine.