Silence, Receptivity, and the Divine Encounter: Finding Ultimate Meaning

The Path to Receptivity: Silence, Encounter, and the Self

Every encounter of love begins with personal silence, which creates capacity and opens gates for true meeting (*encuentro*). We can imagine the heart as a huge reservoir filled with water—the usual concerns, joys, and anxieties—everything personal. If the surrounding gates are opened, all that flows out, and the person becomes receptive. In the relationship with God, silence is needed to create a place where the God of love can be received.

Welcoming Freedom Without Prejudice

Welcome without prejudice is necessary to truly embrace freedom, ruling out the limitations that prejudices carry. God, through the Word, addresses us in the nature of pain or happiness. The Bible gives us two images that clearly convey this reality:

1. The gentle rain that falls on the earth: If the soil is prepared, it soaks in. The person can be like plowed and fluffy soil, always open, ready to be soaked and impregnated by the rain.
2. The image of the sword: It can only penetrate into the depths when the surface is free of shells and defenses.

When the soaking rain and the sword can penetrate the inner being, there is a double awakening: God is awakening the person and simultaneously building them up, and the knowledge of God is also awakened.

Prayer: The Encounter with God

The meeting with God through prayer is an invitation, a dinner that recreates and loves, allowing us to truly embrace and listen to God, distinguishing His voice among many others. Thus, the person can respond to God from who she is and from what God is, without pretense.

The Human Person: Mystery, Community, and Imagination

The person is a mystery. There is an inner enclosure in their personal being, a hidden dimension of privacy belonging to the most intimate self. The person is unique and irrepeatable, aware of their radical heterogeneity.

Openness to Others and Community

The person is a community that is continually being developed toward full personal realization. This community is realized in relation to their neighbors (*semejantes*). The person is considered a free being within the limits of their vulnerability. The human being is endowed with imagination, which enriches their ability to think and even create. Imagination is the flash of genius that exists in humans.

Openness to Mystery and Ultimate Meaning

The first movement that reveals a human being in its infancy is a movement toward the other person. The person is a being open to the mystery and becomes transcendent. This opening is manifested through metaphysics. The human concern is radically oriented. This question places the individual in front of the huge question of ultimate meaning and before God.