Contact with the Divine Beloved is never complete until some other human being feels more loved and cherished as a result of its contact. Further, as all who have ever communed with the Beloved have discovered, the more deeply you encounter the Divine Lover, the more sensitively you feel the agony of the world; the more you are called to care more, feel more and think more deeply about decay in the social and moral order. You live in a state of radical empathy with all those in need. You are transparent to the agony of the world. Together with the Beloved, you must reach out to allay this suffering, or to do what you can in the light of the perspective of grace and the energy of spiritual partnership.
The following excerpt is from the deeply moving story of Oliver written by his brother, Christopher de Vinck, who discovered through Oliver's life THE POWER OF POWERLESSNESS:
For thirty-three years Oliver lived in an upstairs bedroom, a child of light, a true innocent who never caused any trouble, never broke a commandment, never wronged another human being. Mother was confined to the house, alone and without the support of relatives or friends ... "This enforced seclusion was difficult for me; I had a restless, seeking spirit. Through a solitude where I could 'prepare the way of the Lord.' Sorrow opened my heart, and I 'died.' I underwent this 'death' unaware that it was a trial by fire from which I would rise renewed -- more powerfully, more consciously alive ... If there is a silence that is opaque and a solitude that is a prison, there is also a silence that is luminous and a solitude that is blessed terrain where the seeds of prayer can grow."