Practicing Presence in Prayer

The impulse to be human doings instead of human beings extends to the realm of prayer. We can become overly concerned about achieving benchmarks in prayer (e.g., praying the rosary each day or making sure we get to Bible Study each week). All too easily, we fall into the trap of believing that our worthiness in God’s eyes is tied to the productivity of our prayer life.

 

Image by Lorenzo Quinn

To be sure, prayer practices are essential because of their role in helping us build a relationship with God. Through prayer, we can remember that God is the source of our life; voice our desires and discern what God desires for us; recognize that God is God and we are not; intercede for others, expanding our understanding of what it means to be part of the body of Christ; develop gratitude for the gifts of life; and, ultimately, grow into a bond of love and trust with the One who has loved us into being.

When we love someone, what makes us most happy is simply being with them. The same holds true of God. Eventually, more and more of our prayer entails just sitting in God’s presence. It doesn’t feel like we’re doing anything, and that can be uncomfortable, until we relax into this practice of being. As Richard Rohr, OFM, says, “So much of life is just a matter of listening and waiting and enjoying the expansiveness that comes from such willingness to hold” [this tension].

 

I continue to be touched by a story that was relayed by a sister who was sitting with Sr. Maria Van Hee when she was close to death. Sr. Maria started giggling, and her companion asked, “What are you laughing at?” Sr. Maria replied, “God just told me a joke!” May we all enjoy such intimacy and expansiveness when we open our being to God, whose love and joy is eternal.

 

Summoned to Prayer

The song The Summons by John Bell includes a curious line, in which Christ says to us, “Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?”

What does it mean to let Christ answer prayer in us? We wouldn’t be praying if we didn’t want an answer, right? Actually, we sometimes face numerous impediments in allowing Christ to answer prayer in us:

• We might be so impatient for an answer that we cease listening if we don’t get an immediate response. We typically want an answer on our timeline, not on God’s timeline.

• We may feel so unworthy of God’s attention that we can’t even bring ourselves to pray.

• Our lack of hope and trust may prevent us from believing that God will respond to our prayer.

• We might not be open to hearing any answer to our prayer except the one we want to hear.

Bell’s song also asks us to consider whether we are willing to answer Christ’s prayer. Prayer was integral to Jesus’ life, so it stands to reason that he continues to pray in his resurrected form. If Christ prays for us — that we can overcome our addictions, that we can stop worrying, that we can forgive those who hurt us — will we answer that prayer through openness to Christ’s transforming love? If Christ prays for the suffering people of the world, will we answer that prayer by reaching out to those who need our help?

Prayer isn’t a form of magical wish fulfillment; rather, it is the communication that flows from being in a relationship with God. As in any relationship, keeping the channels of communication open requires a commitment of time, trust, honesty, and patience. Christ asks each of us with true vulnerability, “Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?” Our response will shape how the remainder of our life unfolds.

Imagine That

The song “Pure Imagination” from the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory includes lyrics that might well have been spoken by God:

There is no life I know
To compare with pure imagination
Living there, you'll be free
If you truly wish to be

We tend to view dreamers as being impractical and unrealistic and dismiss their dreams as being illogical, unattainable, and laughable. Even God, the Supreme Dreamer, has encountered these reactions. Sarah laughed in disbelief when an angel foretold that she would bear a son at an advanced age. Moses doubted that God could produce water from a rock in the desert. The religious leaders in Jesus’ time scoffed at the notion that God would raise Jesus from the dead. They all clearly underestimated the power of the dreams of the One for whom nothing is impossible.

What about us? The prophet Isaiah tells us that God envisions us living in a land of peace, healing, and abundance, where people set down their weapons, the deaf hear, the blind see, prisoners are freed, and strangers are welcomed. Do we believe that this dream of God is possible? Do we truly wish to be free, or have we decided that it’s not worth the sacrifices required to cooperate with God’s plans and help make them a reality?

It's the beginning of a new year — a prime time for dreaming. All around us, scientists are working on medical breakthroughs, communities are welcoming refugees, children are being taught conflict resolution skills, and inventors are finding ways to grow drought-resistant crops and clean up our oceans. What do you dare envision with your pure, God-given imagination? Can you free yourself from doubt and cynicism and set about making your dream a part of the blessing that God envisions for all of us?

Jesus Is Coming

Once I got a Christmas card from a friend with a decorative stamp on the back of the envelope that said, “Jesus is coming. Look busy!”

Being busy as we anticipate our celebration of the birth of Jesus isn’t a problem for most of us, as the days before Christmas are filled with cooking and baking, house cleaning, decorating, buying and wrapping gifts, organizing or attending holiday get-togethers and events, and practices for the choir or other liturgical ministries. There’s no need to look busy, because we are busy!

I have yet to see a stamp that says, “Jesus is coming. Be still!” It’s not that Christ doesn’t appear to busy people — it’s just that people who are still are more likely to notice Christ’s presence. In stillness, we observe the random acts of kindness that occur around us every day. In stillness, we see Christ’s manifestation in the sunset or in an evergreen tree. In stillness, we hear God say, “Do not be afraid; I am with you.”

Jesus himself was often busy during his years of public ministry with the demands of healing and preaching. Serving others necessarily entails a certain amount of busyness. However, the gospels tell us that Jesus also frequently withdrew to a quiet place to be still and totally present to the Father, who guided and sustained him.

Jesus is coming. Let us celebrate, both in the bustle of our communal life with others and in the stillness of our heart where we hear God whisper our name — “Beloved.” 

Heartening Acts of Kindness

The woman who cuts my hair doesn’t talk much while she works, so my attention tends to drift to the conversations going on between other stylists and their customers. Yesterday, across the room, a fashionable stylist with a mass of red ringlets cascading down her back was chatting with the elderly woman whose hair she was cutting when the woman’s husband arrived to pick her up. He was a bit stooped, had a lined face, and was dressed in well-worn jeans — perhaps a retired farmer or mechanic, I speculated.

Interestingly, the stylist called him over and gave him instructions about how to curl his wife’s hair; he obediently picked up the curling iron and followed her directions to curl over or under in the front and on the sides. The woman joked with her husband, “I would have had her cut the sides shorter, but you say I have big ears!” When it came time to leave and the woman struggled to transfer from the hairdresser’s chair to a wheelchair, I realized she was nearly blind. “I’d rather lose my hearing than my sight,” the stylist commented. “I would too,” the woman replied, “but you learn to live with the hand you’re dealt.”

It was heartening to see the kindness of the stylist, who took extra time to give the woman’s husband a lesson in curling hair, along with his willingness to take on a task that was outside his skill set for the sake of his wife and the blind woman’s acceptance of her limitation. Although the news is mostly filled with stories of rancor, we are surrounded every day by examples of thoughtfulness, devotion, and acceptance. When we follow the Advent admonition to open our eyes to see and our ears to hear, it becomes clear that the kingdom of God is indeed growing into fullness in our very midst. Behold!

The Challenge and Peace of Commitment

The Annunciation by Henry Tanner

In his homily today on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, Fr. Meinrad Miller pointed out that perhaps the most important line in the story about the Angel Gabriel’s appearance to Mary is the last one: “Then the angel departed from her.”

Often it is easy to say “yes” to a life-changing request when an angel is standing before you, or your beloved proposes marriage, or you receive a job offer, or you think you’ve found the perfect monastic community. Mary’s joy overflowed when she visited her cousin Elizabeth, and she praised God with a full heart. However, after the joyful “yes” came a life of hardship — judgment by neighbors, fear of being rejected by the man to whom she was betrothed, living for a time as a refugee, having her adolescent son go missing, worrying about his safety during his years of ministry, and suffering at the foot of his cross. Saying “yes” to a commitment, admirable as it is, does not guarantee that the road ahead will be smooth.

And yet. There is a peace that comes with identifying and living out our calling, our vocation, despite the hardships that inevitably accompany it. We all know people who never seem to find their calling (or resist it). Although their freedom from the demands of commitment may seem enviable at times, their restlessness is not something we would ever wish for.

Just as God prepared the way for Mary to be the mother of his Son, God prepares the way for us to recognize and respond to our call to serve others through our own unique aptitude and capabilities. When we listen, the spirit of discernment will be with us, and we will find the companionship we need to help us live out our commitments. May God’s grace be with us all!

The Charity God Pours Into Our Heart

Jesus appeared to have been very observant; his eyes were open to what other people failed to notice or appreciate. An example is when he called attention to a widow who contributed two small copper coins to the temple treasury. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything —all she had to live on” (Mk 12: 43-44).

The widow’s action tells us several things about her. First, it was important to her to offer what she had to God, even though it was not valuable in the world’s eyes. Second, in giving all she had to live on, she was expressing confidence in God’s care and abundance.

Most of us do not experience financial poverty, but we all have an inner poverty of some kind. Perhaps we lack self-confidence, attentiveness, trust, resiliency, or patience. Can we muster what little self-confidence we have to be of service to God or use the last drop of our patience to help someone who asks a favor of us? Can we trust that, as St. John of the Cross says, “Where there is no love, put love, and you will find love”?

In his book Letters from the Desert, Carlo Carretto said, “ I, a little creature … have been called to be transformed into God by sharing [God’s] life. And what transforms me is the charity which [God] pours into my heart. Love transforms me slowly into God.”

Our inner poverty teaches us that we cannot always be self-reliant. However, like the poor widow, we can always draw on the strength, compassion, and charity that Christ pours into our hearts, and then we ourselves will experience God’s abundant love and care.