The Kiln of Holy Presence

A potter does not rush the firing. She places the vessel into the kiln and seals the door, knowing that what emerges will be transformed not by her hands but by sustained, penetrating heat. The clay cannot hurry the process. It can only remain.

This is the contemplative path to holiness. When Peter writes, "Be holy, because I am holy," he is not issuing a command to try harder. He is issuing an invitation to remain — to stay in the kiln of God's presence until the divine fire does its slow, thorough work. Teresa of Avila understood this. She described the Interior Castle not as rooms we storm through by effort but as dwelling places we are drawn deeper into by love. Holiness, she insisted, is not moral athleticism. It is intimacy.

In centering prayer, we practice this remaining. We release our thoughts, our agendas, even our desire to feel holy, and we consent to God's transforming presence. The ego resists. It wants to perform holiness, to measure and display it. But the contemplative tradition teaches that true holiness happens in the hidden place — in the kiln with the door sealed shut, where no one watches and nothing is produced except the slow conforming of our nature to His.

The Holy One does not ask you to manufacture holiness. He asks you to stay. To remain in the fire of His love. The transformation belongs to Him.