Quandary is inescapable for us simply because we are human and therefore not sufficient of ourselves. As St Paul said:
What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift? Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! 1Cor.4:7
We have no security except in God, even though we imagine that more of this or more of that will make us secure. This delusion leads ultimately to war.
But on the every day level this delusion is the opposite of poverty of spirit. What St. Paul says is a good solid way to express poverty of spirit. What have you that you have not received? All is gift, life itself and the freedom to do this or that, to choose this or that. But if we want to choose to be truly human we need to consent to live in a quandary which is to depend radically on the mystery we call God. When we say we walk by faith, we are also saying we walk in mystery. And so long as we are in mystery we remain in a quandary. What then? The faith in which we walk tells us that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. We are so loved. In this love alone do we find our security.
I guess that is why I like some of the phrases St. Therese Couderc uses to explain “surrendering to God.” To surrender oneself is to be no longer concerned with self except to keep it continually turned toward God.
If and when in our quandary we are aware of our faults and failings, we can again turn to words from St. Paul : Who will deliver us from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ Our Lord.” (Rom 7:24) Here you see Paul too turning to God.
That is certainly one great value in taking time for centering or Christian Meditation. In this prayer, we are just putting ourselves in the hands of God, entrusting ourselves to God. Not telling God what we need, that is for another time of day. Here we just remember God is present, loving us and we entrust our whole being to Him. For me, that act of faith in the reality of our here and now relationship to God is vital. I believe God is here, we are immersed in this mystery. Let us pray
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
"Be it done to me according to your word."
Since August 15 the Feast of the Assumption of Mary – which just means she is in heaven, body and soul, I have been pondering how she saw herself simply as the servant of the Lord. That is how my mother in the hiddeness of her life saw herself too. So too this is our call. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God.
“ a feather on the breath of God” ( Hildegarde of Bingen.).
The life of Mary surely looked ordinary, lowly, absolutely unremarkable from the point of view of our culture which says you must be rich and famous and own many things if expect to matter at all. You must make a name for yourself.
Not so Mary. She just went about the ordinary business of caring for Joseph and Jesus, and later Jesus and his followers. I don’t imagine she was popular either, because did she not say:
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
d lifted up the lowly;
53he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:51-53)
And we see her there at the foot of the Cross. And there with the believing community as they waited for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.(Acts 2)
So waiting was and is part of ordinary human life. In the army we used to say “hurry up and wait”. Because we would rush to be on time and then wait an hour for whatever it was we had to be on time for.
We know Mary prayed. We have one of her prayers. So too, we pray and we wait. Our Christian Meditation or Centering is a prayer in which we simply sit in the Presence of God and await His work of love in our inmost being.
We too say Look upon me Lord. I am your servant, Be it done to me according to your Word. As John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote: I do not ask the distant shore to see, one step enough for me. Lead Thou me on.
It is also a work for the world, because there is one more person letting God’s love into the world. Let us meditate often. This is a way to wait on God with open heart and open mind..
“ a feather on the breath of God” ( Hildegarde of Bingen.).
The life of Mary surely looked ordinary, lowly, absolutely unremarkable from the point of view of our culture which says you must be rich and famous and own many things if expect to matter at all. You must make a name for yourself.
Not so Mary. She just went about the ordinary business of caring for Joseph and Jesus, and later Jesus and his followers. I don’t imagine she was popular either, because did she not say:
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
d lifted up the lowly;
53he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:51-53)
And we see her there at the foot of the Cross. And there with the believing community as they waited for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.(Acts 2)
So waiting was and is part of ordinary human life. In the army we used to say “hurry up and wait”. Because we would rush to be on time and then wait an hour for whatever it was we had to be on time for.
We know Mary prayed. We have one of her prayers. So too, we pray and we wait. Our Christian Meditation or Centering is a prayer in which we simply sit in the Presence of God and await His work of love in our inmost being.
We too say Look upon me Lord. I am your servant, Be it done to me according to your Word. As John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote: I do not ask the distant shore to see, one step enough for me. Lead Thou me on.
It is also a work for the world, because there is one more person letting God’s love into the world. Let us meditate often. This is a way to wait on God with open heart and open mind..
Saturday, August 11, 2007
The Place to go is our heart.
August 8, 2007
The Place to go is our heart.
St. Paul tells us that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. (1Cor. 6:19) And Jesus also tells us to pray in secret. Of course we know that Jesus prayed also in the Temple with others, in common worship as we do at Sunday Mass. We know from the Acts of the Apostles that the followers of Jesus, after Pentecost, celebrated together what we now call Mass or Eucharist. They called this “the breaking of the bread” But we most certainly have the example of Jesus going apart to pray. His whole life was steeped in prayer.
So if the Holy Spirit dwells within us, which I do believe, help my unbelief. Then within is the place of prayer. By going into our own hearts to pray, we communicate with God. With this intimacy we are letting the Holy Spirit of God lead us from our hearts. Little by little if we are faithful to interior prayer, our community prayer becomes more real to us. We are at one with the believing community when we gather for Eucharist or any common prayer. All over the world there are believing people who together honor God in praise, thanksgiving and repentance. We are one with all these people
The place to go is the heart. That way our lives become more real and less superficial. Why? Because there is the Spirit of God loving us. We are not at all aiming at nothingness in our head! We are communing with God who is present. For me the simplest way to pray in the heart is by centering or Christian Meditation. We just turn our hearts to God in trust, let go of all our discursive thinking, or anxious thinking and just call on the name of Lord with a prayer word or phrase. As you know since I was a young sister, I did this with the psalm verse: O God come to my assistance, O Lord make haste to help me. Then I met up with Father Thomas Keating who suggested praying a single word, Then I met sister Eileen O’Hea from the the World Community for Christian Meditation who recommended Maranatha. The phrase in the New Testament is also Maranatha Jesus. So there are a variety of words to pray while we sit quietly, going into our hearts with God, though it is well to say the same word all the way through the time you have set aside. Let us pray
The Place to go is our heart.
St. Paul tells us that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. (1Cor. 6:19) And Jesus also tells us to pray in secret. Of course we know that Jesus prayed also in the Temple with others, in common worship as we do at Sunday Mass. We know from the Acts of the Apostles that the followers of Jesus, after Pentecost, celebrated together what we now call Mass or Eucharist. They called this “the breaking of the bread” But we most certainly have the example of Jesus going apart to pray. His whole life was steeped in prayer.
So if the Holy Spirit dwells within us, which I do believe, help my unbelief. Then within is the place of prayer. By going into our own hearts to pray, we communicate with God. With this intimacy we are letting the Holy Spirit of God lead us from our hearts. Little by little if we are faithful to interior prayer, our community prayer becomes more real to us. We are at one with the believing community when we gather for Eucharist or any common prayer. All over the world there are believing people who together honor God in praise, thanksgiving and repentance. We are one with all these people
The place to go is the heart. That way our lives become more real and less superficial. Why? Because there is the Spirit of God loving us. We are not at all aiming at nothingness in our head! We are communing with God who is present. For me the simplest way to pray in the heart is by centering or Christian Meditation. We just turn our hearts to God in trust, let go of all our discursive thinking, or anxious thinking and just call on the name of Lord with a prayer word or phrase. As you know since I was a young sister, I did this with the psalm verse: O God come to my assistance, O Lord make haste to help me. Then I met up with Father Thomas Keating who suggested praying a single word, Then I met sister Eileen O’Hea from the the World Community for Christian Meditation who recommended Maranatha. The phrase in the New Testament is also Maranatha Jesus. So there are a variety of words to pray while we sit quietly, going into our hearts with God, though it is well to say the same word all the way through the time you have set aside. Let us pray
"to live through love in His Presence" Ephesians 1:4
August 1, 2007
I love this passage from Ephesians Before the world began, God chose us in Christ to be holy and spotless and to live through love in His Presence.
Many times I have wondered about the word holy. And I have come to think that it means totally loving. Only love and goodness and mercy without a shadow of anything less. This is our God. We cry out Holy Holy Holy Lord God of host., Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
So how shall we become this? I believe this is the work of God in us, and that our part is to cling to God, to turn to God, to acknowledge in faith that we are immersed in God. We live in God and can have an intimate and personal relationship with God. Who teaches us.
God teaches us through the Bible, so we listen or read with open heart. God teaches us through events. St. Therese Couderc tells us "Events make know the Will of God." God teaches us in prayer. Our human life is meant to be a shred life so that we can also learn from each other.
When we practice Christian Meditation or centering Prare, we are quite simply just coming to the Lord without any agenda except to be open to His Love. We begin by remembering the reality of the Presence of our God and by acknowledging God in as personal a way as we are able. Then we repeat our prayer word gently over and over and when ever we find any thought or image coming to our head we just go back to our word because that is when we are just open to whatever way God wants to love us and heal us.
We are to let go of all our thinking in a discursive sense, but we are not to let go of that faith by which we know we are in God and God is in us.
As Jesus said: Abide in me as I abide in you
I love this passage from Ephesians Before the world began, God chose us in Christ to be holy and spotless and to live through love in His Presence.
Many times I have wondered about the word holy. And I have come to think that it means totally loving. Only love and goodness and mercy without a shadow of anything less. This is our God. We cry out Holy Holy Holy Lord God of host., Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
So how shall we become this? I believe this is the work of God in us, and that our part is to cling to God, to turn to God, to acknowledge in faith that we are immersed in God. We live in God and can have an intimate and personal relationship with God. Who teaches us.
God teaches us through the Bible, so we listen or read with open heart. God teaches us through events. St. Therese Couderc tells us "Events make know the Will of God." God teaches us in prayer. Our human life is meant to be a shred life so that we can also learn from each other.
When we practice Christian Meditation or centering Prare, we are quite simply just coming to the Lord without any agenda except to be open to His Love. We begin by remembering the reality of the Presence of our God and by acknowledging God in as personal a way as we are able. Then we repeat our prayer word gently over and over and when ever we find any thought or image coming to our head we just go back to our word because that is when we are just open to whatever way God wants to love us and heal us.
We are to let go of all our thinking in a discursive sense, but we are not to let go of that faith by which we know we are in God and God is in us.
As Jesus said: Abide in me as I abide in you
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