A necessary part of the process of transformation is falling from innocence. “Innocent” comes from the Latin “in nocere” meaning “not wounded.” We start innocent, but the killing of our holy innocence (as in Herod’s command to kill the Holy Innocents [Matthew 2:16–18]) is a model for what eventually happens to all of us.
It has to happen for us to grow. We have to lose our innocence, “to leave the garden.” This leaving and returning is the process of transformation.
Jesus used three parables about losing and finding: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son (Luke 15:4–32). In each case, we have it, we lose it, we rediscover it, and then we celebrate. The celebration only happens after the rediscovery because we do not really “have it” until we have lost it and deliberately and consciously choose it again.
Faith is trusting that a union exists between God and us. Contemplation is to experience this union. The path of fall and return is how we experience this union as pure grace and free gift.
There is a necessary movement between the two ends of divinity and humanity, between our core and the core of God. The only real sin is to doubt, deny, or fail to experience this foundational connection.
1 Peter 2:9 “For you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.”
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