Praying As Jesus Did

People often wonder what Jesus was doing during the first thirty years of his life, as the scriptures include no mention of his activities after his trip to Jerusalem with his parents around age twelve until he was baptized years later by his cousin, John.

I think that what Jesus was doing during those years was learning how to pray — that is, he was developing a relationship with God and grappling with how to become the person God was calling him to be.

We are privileged to see something of how Jesus’ prayer journey progressed in the description of his baptism, when the revelation of God’s intimate love for him broke into his consciousness; during his temptation in the desert, when he struggled to throw himself in total trust on his Father’s love rather than trust in his own power; and at the wedding feast of Cana, when (although he didn’t feel ready) he was moved by God’s love to enter into the work of building God’s kingdom of justice, love, and peace.

Jon Sobrino says, “We must be part of the building of the Kingdom if we are ever to come to know the Lord.” This truth is illustrated in the post-resurrection appearances of Christ, as David Farina Turnbloom notes in the April 2023 issue of Give Us This Day: “Mary Magdalen and the other Mary first encounter Christ after leaving the tomb, while on their way to bring the good news to the disciples. ‘Go to Galilee,’ the women tell them. Later, the disciples encounter Christ after they have traveled to Galilee. Christ is not found in the empty tomb; he is encountered when his disciples accept their mission and choose to go where they have been sent.”

During the Easter season, it is tempting to remain rapt in the wonder of the empty tomb, but Christ is calling us to go forth and help fulfill in his heart’s desire — to mend what is still broken in this world in whatever way that calls to us. As with Jesus, the relationship we develop with God through prayer will show us the way.

Coming Before God in the Holy Place

When King David wrote Psalm 63 in the desert of Judah, where he fled to escape an insurrection led by his son Absalom, he recalled his encounters with God under more favorable circumstances, those times when “I came before you in the holy place, to behold your strength and your glory.”

It occurs to me that when we come forward to venerate the cross on Good Friday, we are coming before God in the holy place — the place where the depth of Christ’s strength and glory is revealed through Jesus’ willingness to surrender his life so that others might know God’s love and forgiveness.

King David later says in Psalm 63, “Your faithful love is better than life.” Jesus affirmed this conviction through his death, and God’s faithful love was revealed three days later through Jesus’ resurrection.

On Good Friday, our souls too are invited to cling fast to God in times of trial and in the face of death. Because of Jesus’ willingness to suffer for the sake of love, we join him and King David in knowing that God is our strength and that in the shadow of God’s wings we will rejoice.

 

Holy Week Call to Service

Every day at the Mount, we listen to a short reading from the Rule of St. Benedict at Morning Prayer. Today, on Monday of Holy Week, we heard a selection from Chapter 35: Kitchen Servers of the Week. I thought to myself that this week, the title could very well be “Liturgical Servers of the Week.” Holy Week especially reminds us that prayer is called the “work of God,” with extra demands on liturgists, musicians, sacristans, lectors, artisans who prepare the church environment, and those with other liturgical roles.

Every year, Holy Week is challenging for introverts, who don’t like to be front and center as readers or musicians; for persons whose health is diminishing and realize they can no longer perform liturgical roles or need help in doing so; for liturgists and sacristans, who have a myriad of details to attend to; and for all those who are called to set aside their usual schedules to attend practices, offer hospitality to guests, and participate in emotionally demanding liturgies.

At this time, it is helpful to listen to the words of St. Benedict: “The members should serve one another … for such service increases reward and fosters love. Let those who are not strong have help so they may serve without distress…. Let all the rest [who are not engaged in important business] serve one another in love.”

Holy Week offers a unique opportunity each year to meditate on the self-emptying love of Jesus. I once worked with someone who avoided Palm Sunday and Good Friday services because she couldn’t bear to focus on the details of Jesus’ brutal death. Yet we need this annual reminder that God suffered in the person of Jesus so we can know the depth of God’s love for us and realize that God understands and participates in our own suffering. We also need the reminder that, like Jesus, we will participate in Christ’s resurrection. Such mysteries call us to serve one another in love by creating Triduum liturgies that will help us empty our own hearts as Jesus did so we may know the joy of resurrected life with him.

A Gratis Lenten Practice

A useful word to meditate on during Lent is “gratis,” which has come to mean “without payment; free.” It comes from the Latin word gratia (grace, kindness).

Although the earliest documented use of the word gratis is in the year 1477, the practice of offering grace and kindness without cost has always existed, because it is part of the eternal nature of God.

In Scripture, God’s largesse is usually depicted in terms of the provision of food and water, such as during the Israelites’ 40 years in the desert and when Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes. However, God’s sustenance extends beyond our physical needs, as we are invited to share God’s very life. When the songwriter Samuel Lover wrote, “Come, live in my heart and pay no rent,” he could have taken these words directly from the mouth of God.

 

As we spend more time with God in prayer during Lent, we shouldn’t be surprised to find ourselves growing in the desire to be kind to others and give to them freely. We tend to become like those whose company we keep, so as we witness the generosity and mercy that God extends to us and to others, our own heart expands when we see the needs of others.

 

Our life comes to us gratis from our loving Creator. Although payment is not required, we can nonetheless express our gratitude by “paying it forward” through our own gratis acts of grace and kindness toward others.

The Lenten Practice of Shrinking

As Lent begins, I am contemplating the Jewish mystical concept called Tzimtzum, which means “contraction.” As Naomi Levy explains in her book Einstein and the Rabbi, “At the beginning of time the Creator filled every space. In order to bring the world into existence, the Creator had to willfully contract in order to make room for anything else. Creation was an act of love accomplished through the process of shrinking.”

Lent is a time when we, like our divine Creator, consciously choose to perform acts of love by shrinking:

• We choose to shrink the amount of time we spend working and entertaining ourselves by devoting more time to prayer. In this way, we recommit ourselves to the call to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”

• We choose to shrink our appetites that lead to overconsumption through fasting. In this way, we demonstrate love for ourselves by becoming more physically and spiritually healthy, and we expand our love for others (“you shall love your neighbor as yourself”) by freeing up resources to meet their needs.

• We choose to shrink our storehouses of time and treasure through almsgiving. In this way, we demonstrate our trust that God’s abundance will continue to sustain us when we share our wealth with others, and we signal that we value others by sharing our time with them.

Many of us tend to “shrink from” Lent because we know it will require self-sacrifice. However, shrinking during Lent is a totally different matter, as Jesus himself showed; by practicing humility in service of God and others, we end up sharing in the abundant and eternal love of our Creator.

Gratitude for a Holy Presence

Sr. Miriam Schnoebelen, whose funeral Mass we celebrated on Saturday, taught me a lot about how to live as a Benedictine woman.

Although her inclination was to lead a contemplative life, Sr. Miriam was often on the move, living in four different communities at Guthrie, Tulsa, and Piedmont, Oklahoma, and Atchison, Kansas. She lived out her vow of stability not in the sense of physical location but in her commitment to her life of prayer and service. Over almost 75 years as a Benedictine, she served in an extraordinary number of ministries as a teacher, administrator, social worker, counselor, pastoral associate, and founder of the Benedictine Peace House in Oklahoma City. She balanced these highly responsible positions with a clown ministry that allowed her to express her impish humor and delight in the people she met.

By the time I met Sr. Miriam at Mount St. Scholastica, she was in her contemplative stage of life. She was quietly gracious and supportive, offering words of encouragement at just the right time, which is such a gift in communal life. She also modeled how to carve out space for quiet reflection — every morning when I entered the dining room, I would find her sitting alone in a holy zone of semi-darkness by the patio windows, eating slowly and taking in whatever scene nature laid out before her.

Having run for many years on the path of God’s commandments, Sr. Miriam welcomed death in the manner of St. Francis of Assisi, as a direct conduit to God whom she loved and longed for.

I remember Sr. Miriam with gratitude and hope I can follow her example of serving where called, being a supportive and affirming presence to others, making time for contemplation, and accepting death as the path to deeper union with God. Her memory is a blessing.

Hers Was the Greater Love

St. Scholastica lived an obscure life in Italy in the 5th/6th century. Why, then, are so many monasteries, churches, chapels, and schools named after her?

The only source of information we have about St. Scholastica is contained in a single story in the Dialogues of St. Gregory. St. Gregory reports that St. Benedict used to visit his sister, Scholastica, one day a year and that he would return to his monastery before nightfall. On the occasion of one visit, Scholastica enjoined her brother to continue their visit through the night, but he refused. Scholastica bowed her head and entreated God that her brother might stay with her, and a mighty storm arose that prevented Benedict from departing.

St. Gregory commented, “This wish of St. Benedict [to return to his monastery] was thwarted by a miracle almighty God performed in answer to a woman’s prayer. We need not be surprised that in this instance she proved mightier than her brother…. Do we not read in St. John that God is love? Surely it is no more than right that her influence was greater than his, since hers was the greater love.”

Hence St. Gregory provides the answer as to why St. Scholastica’s name continues to be so prominent more than 1500 years after her death. The memory of those who exhibited great love will echo through creation forever.