The last supper account in John’s gospel contains a curious picture. The evangelist describes the beloved disciple as reclining on the breast of Jesus. What is contained in this image? A picture of how each of us should be focused as we look out at the world.
When you put your head upon the breast of another, your ear is just above that person’s heart and you are able to hear his or her heartbeat. Thus, in John’s image, we see the beloved disciple with his ear on Jesus’ heart and his eyes peering out at the world.
This is an image, a mystical one. Among other things, it is a picture of gentleness. What is shows, however, is not a saccharine piety, a sweetness hard to swallow, but a softness that comes from being at peace, from being so rooted and centred in a love that one can look out at the world without bitterness, anger, jealousy, the sense of being cheated, and the need to blame or compete with others.
Henri Nouwen once said: “By touching the center of our solitude, we sense that we have been touched by loving hands.” Deep inside each of us, like a brand, there is a place where God has touched, caressed, and kissed us. Long before memory, long before we ever remember touching or loving or kissing anyone or anything, or being touched by anything or anybody in this world, there is a different kind of memory, the memory of being gently touched by loving hands. When our ear is pressed to God’s heart – to the breast of all that is good, true, and beautiful – we hear a certain heartbeat and we remember, remember in some inchoate place, at a level beyond thought, that we have been gently kissed by God.
We have been touched by loving hands. The memory of that touch is a brand – warm, dark, gentle. To enter that memory is to lean on the breast of Christ, just as the beloved apostle did at the last supper. From that place, with our ear on Christ’s heart, we have the truest perspective on our world. [Excerpt from Ron Rolheiser’s “Listening to Christ’s Heartbeat” February 1997]
