Today’s guest post is from spiritual director Sam Rahberg: 

After I finish a good read and before I tuck it away on the shelf, I like to spend some time summarizing what was most important to me. I use the author’s own words, varied only slightly, and follow the themes that speak most strongly to me at this time. The example below remains a summary and serves only as my own interpretation, so I take responsibility for any deviation from the author’s original intent. Even so, may it be a helpful reflection for others and an encouragement to read a fine book in its entirety.

Abba’s Child:
The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging 

(a book by Brennan Manning, an interpretive synopsis by Sam Rahberg)

Jesus’ relentless tenderness
invades the citadel
of your self.
Pause to reclaim your core
identity as Abba’s child.
Inner Imposter must be called
out of hiding, accepted, embraced.
God’s choice of you
constitutes your worth.
Dignity as Abba’s child—
your most coherent sense of self.
The denial, displacement, and
repression of feelings
thwarts self-intimacy.
Daily we are being
reshaped into the image of Christ.
Recovery of passion—
recovery of your true
self as beloved.
Become inner-directed
rather than outer-determined.
Let the Great Rabbi hold you
silently against his heart.

Manning, Brennan. Abba’s Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002.

Sam Rahberg is the Director of the Benedictine Center and a spiritual director. Sam has experience in parish education and administration and holds a master’s degree in theology from Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota. 

Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on Easter Prays / Easter Praise! blog and is reprinted here with the author’s permission.