Monday reflection: Go to the limits of your longing

A meditation Inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem, Go to the limits of your longing

By Martha Robbins, Associate

During this time of “sheltering in place,” we are invited to turn frequently to the inner sanctuary of our hearts where the Spirit of the Risen Christ dwells. While we may experience therein our own and the world’s anxiety, grief, fear, as well as peace, joy, and trust, we can be sure that whatever rises up will be welcomed, honored, and embraced by the One whose Sacred Love stirs up and meets us in our deepest longings.  

In the sanctuary of our hearts, we are invited to go to the limits of our longing just as Mary Magdalene did in the Garden near the tomb where Jesus was laid. Her intense longing brought her to the tomb where she had hoped to give expression to her love by anointing his body. Not finding what she had so anticipated, she wept in grief. And her longing intensified, creating in her a willingness to go anywhere to find and anoint his body.

During this time of major disruptions in our world bringing much loss and grief, for what, for whom do you most yearn? Can you enter your inner sanctuary and allow your longing to grow so strong that it stretches you?

Such stretching creates a spaciousness that makes room for what Love desires to form in you and through you. Perhaps when you arrive at the furthest reaches of your longing, you may hear your Risen Lord call you by name, that special name that He alone whispers as he forms you anew, “then walks with us silently out of the night,” saying, “You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me.” (Go to the limits of your longing)

May we indeed embody Christ’s Love as we both remain in and emerge from our shelter/sanctuary into a broken, grieving, and different but much-loved world.

Artwork by Martha Robbins, Associate