Faith is not merely the giving of assent to ideas and figures. Faith is an encounter with a person, an encounter in which two people open themselves up to each other. Through faith, I open myself up to the Lord and He opens himself up to me.
Take a more common example. You meet a person for the first time. Before they talk and open up to you, you don’t know much about them. But when they communicate themselves, when they reveal themselves, you learn who they are. You learn not just information, but you are attentive to the whole person; the confidence with which they talk, their gestures, their face.
Through faith, we encounter the person of Jesus Christ and enter into the mystery of the Trinity
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Of course Scripture is one of our main guides to enter into the garden. We must chew and feed daily on the Word. We have to take that word into our hearts and let our voices proclaim it daily. Once that Word becomes our word, we are united to it in a deeper more intimate way. We then learn to listen to the Word in our hearts, and this leads us into the garden.
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Scripture and vocal prayer are the walls around the garden. Once we have built the walls, we can then stroll through the garden in peace. Without the walls, the garden would be ravished by intruders. Without our leisure within the garden, the effort in building the walls would be in vain.