“Awake my soul…”

In two different psalms we cry out “Awake my soul…awake O harp and lyre. I will awaken the dawn”. Ps. 57 and Ps 108

It is a matter of waking up to the reality of who we are. and what really matters. Jesus says to us as to those early followers: I no longer call you servants, I call you friends. He has taught us to call Gopd our Father, so we are also the children of God. He has told us that he loves us..Love one another as I have loved you. So each ne of us is also the Beloved of God.

So we need to wake ourselves up. I wale myself up physically with an alarm clock, the kind for the deaf that vibrates under my pillow. The way to wake up spiritually is to start right away to make a habit of greeting the Lord as you get out of bed, and in the shower, and getting dressed. Could there be anything more important? Perhaps greeting your spouse first? But nothing else.

Then after making sure you start the day with greeting the Lord, follow the practice of Thomas Merton. Here is what he says: strictly speaking, I have a very simple way of prayer. It is centered entirely on attention to the presence of God and to His will and his love. That is to say, that it is centered on faith by which alone we can know of the presence of God.”

There can be no dearer friend than Jesus. This is the feast of St. Bernard who says much about the love of Jesus. IN repsonse to stay awake to this reality, we try to thread prayer through our day by what I call the walking prayer or what Father Keating calls the breath prayer. Some short word or phrase of love or petition. St. therese: Jesus my life, Jesus my love, Jesus my all.

And John of the Cross tells us – that yes God has so loved us, and the reason he has loved us is that he can make us happy and so that we can arrive at the fullness of Love. So why not wake up ever more?