CHAPTER THE FIFTH

 

Getting Down to Prayer

 

 

In these reflections on discernment we have discussed many details about having the proper disposition for discernment. Of all of them, trusting in God is at the heart of it. The more we trust, the more we will be able to move swiftly and securely to our call in life. Trust will give us the greatest disposition to give ourselves wholly, completely, entirely and without reservation or limitation to the God who is love. He who calls us from love, to love, out of love for us and His church.

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So, the questions remain of how do we find the right community? Where do we begin to look? How will I know it when I find it? And so on. These are all good questions, which we will answer in time. The first thing we need to do is develop a deep and sincere prayer life. Don’t take this to mean that if your prayer life is not “deep and sincere” you should wait to discern. By no means! You can do both at the same time.

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It is only in prayer, communication with God, that we are going to be able to hear and understand the voice of God. God speaks in silence, in quiet. He is a gentle God who waits for a still soul. It is in the quiet stillness of the heart that He speaks the loudest. Let us face facts, God is God! He has no need to compete with all the noise with which we fill ourselves. By what right do we ask God to compete with e-mail, Facebook, games, texting, phone calls, television, movies and even good Christian music. How do we expect to hear God’s voice if we are filling our minds and hearts with all this stuff? We keep active and busy with school, work or friends. Even in our piety we can be very busy with many devout and holy things. All of which can easily steal our silence and not allow the voice of God to be truly heard and understood.

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So, what must we do? STOP! SLOW DOWN! Make room for God! It is not true to say that we just don’t have time to really engross ourselves in prayer. It is a matter of prioritizing our life. If we have time to eat, sleep, e-mail, text, play games and all that other stuff, then we have time to pray. It’s about time we stop lying to ourselves and start prioritizing our life. Whatever is most important to us, is at the top of our “to do list”. Where is quiet contemplation on our “to do list”? Hopefully at the top.

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If we are trying to discern our vocation and we never slow down to take appropriate quiet time each day to listen to God, then we aren’t truly discerning. We may be thinking about a vocation, but we are certainly not discerning a vocation. A vocation will not be known to us by visiting many religious communities, or checking out their websites or even by reading good and holy books on discernment. These are good and necessary things, however, “the one thing necessary” is not being done. The vocation, “the call”, cannot be heard because there is no silence to allow God to “speak the call”. His voice can’t be heard over all our distractions.

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I would even dare to say that some of our distractions, at times, are intentional. Let’s be real, sometimes we don’t want to know our vocation. Many of us are so afraid of what it might be, yet we want to be good “discerners” so we say, “speak Lord, your servant is listening”. Then, we put our fingers in our ears just in case He might answer us. We should really stop and ask ourselves if we really do want to know God’s will. Am I being honest with myself and with God when I say that I’m discerning? Or am I discerning kinda, sorta, maybe? Real discernment takes real prayer.

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So, it’s time to slow down and schedule God into your day. And I really do mean schedule God into your day! Often, I have advised people to take out their agenda book or daily planner and each day find twenty minutes where you write in “Appointment with Jesus”. Whether it’s at the same time every day or it’s different each day doesn’t matter. Write it in, schedule Him in. Begin with the twenty minutes and let it grow into thirty, then forty, then fifty. Soon enough you will need a whole hour and even that won’t be enough.

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You must become a person of prayer before you enter a community. Not that you need to be a deep mystic, but you need to develop a deep love for and attraction to prayer. How can we give ourselves completely to someone whom we hardly know? To know God is to love God and to love God is to know God. However, without quiet prayer we will not grow to know or love Him as we should. It will stunt our growth.

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Now, let me be a bit clearer. It’s fine that we talk to God on our way to work. Or we say our Rosary on the subway. Or we think about God as we do our house chores or school work. This is NOT the type of prayer I’m speaking about. These things are good, but they are not truly quiet times. Driving needs attention to the road and other drivers (especially if you’re in N.Y.). Subways and streets are not quiet places and there is a lack of stillness. You may argue with this and plead, “But what other time do I have?” I don’t know, but make time. As Jesus told us, “go to your inner room, lock the door and speak to your Father in secret”.

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Your home, your office, your local parish Church or Chapel, or your bedroom. Somewhere there must be a place that you can go apart, close the door and spend that time with Jesus. Sit still, be still, still your mind and your heart and emotions. Resist the temptations to fidget or check the clock. In other words, be who you are, mentally, emotionally and physically. God deserves the whole of your being. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength”.

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The first step is really simple. It’s making a conscious effort to acknowledge that you are in the presence of the Most High Lord. Now, I do mean that you can do this in a Eucharistic Chapel or your bedroom. That while the Lord Jesus is truly, really, personally and substantially present in the Most Holy Eucharist, it is also true to say that He, as God, is present anywhere at all times. He is Omni-present. There is no place that God is not. So, whether I’m in my office or my backyard or up on the highest mountain, God is there. As the Psalmist wrote: “where can I flee from your love. If I climb the mountains you are there.” The Psalmist learned all too well that God IS!

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After acknowledging God’s presence, take a little time to praise and adore Him for who He is in Himself. Too often we rush into prayer and begin to read our “wish list”. God doesn’t mind getting our wish list. However, we must remember that we are speaking to and in conversation with a person, 3 persons that is, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God Himself. In Justice, He has a right to our worship, praise and adoration. Even beyond justice, simply because He is God we should be adoring and praising Him.

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Mostly we want to acknowledge God being three Divine Persons, equal in Majesty, Splendor and Glory. It’s helpful to call to mind the attributes of God as a means of praising and adoring Him. Some of His attributes would be His Power, His Wisdom, Justice, Kindness, Beauty, Love, Glory and most especially His Mercy. By adoring God and praising Him for His attributes it will help us to remember “WHO” it is we are talking to. It will give us a greater sense of reverence and assist us in trusting Him so that we may better open our hearts to His will.

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Now when I say “Praise, Adore and Glorify” God, I don’t mean that you must be waving your hands in the air and swaying back and forth. I’m talking about quiet gentle contemplative praise and adoration. We don’t need to shout or even budge from our seat. Remember, God is a God who loves quiet intimacy. He wants us to be still. Like a true lover, He desires that we become comfortable just being with Him. Praise Him, Glorify Him and Adore Him in stillness.

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Let the prayer of praise go on for however long it takes you personally to express that sense of “AWE”. When the Holy Spirit moves you, move on to thanking God for all that He has done. Nothing is worse than ingratitude. Ingratitude leads to self-pity, pride, envy, self-righteousness and all other sins. Why should God give us anything more if we are not sufficiently grateful for what He has already given and done for us? Well, I guess He does because He is kind and merciful. That being true, we must learn to be grateful. We can start with creation and move on to thanking Him for all that He will do at the end of time. We can thank Him for our Baptism, the Eucharist, family, friends and education. We can even thank Him for all the pain and sufferings that He so generously allowed us to endure, If we only knew what graces we have already received through sufferings, we would never cease to thank Him. To once again quote the Psalmist, “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good”.

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Having properly praised and thanked the Lord we should spend some time doing a real good examination of conscience and asking God’s forgiveness. This is necessary for any relationship. If you love someone, and you want to be close with them, you are going to be continually working on that relationship. That means saying a lot of “I’m sorry’s”. With God it’s no different. We must clear up any damage in our friendship and ask for forgiveness for anything we might have done to wound it. We may want to work on a particular sin in our lives, like lack of trust. So each day, after examining our conscience in a general way, we then get specific about that lack of trust. We think about how often, since our last prayer time, we fell to a disbelief in God’s love and didn’t trust. Then we ask for mercy and the grace not to fall again.

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Moving on from seeking mercy we then begin to express our love for Jesus. In praising Him we recognize His greatness. In thanking Him we acknowledged His goodness. In seeking forgiveness we accepted His mercy. All this moves our souls to simply love Him and to tell Him so. Here let your heart be free to express that deep-down interior need to love a hundred percent. Open the floodgates of your heart and allow your heart the freedom to love the God who has so loved you.

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Finally, we are ready to ask the Lord to reveal our vocation. Silent, still, having adored, thanked, received mercy and expressed our love, our hearts will be more open to respond with a “yes” to whatever it is that He may ask of us. And, God will be more disposed to tell us because we are more disposed to hear Him.

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However we may spend our quiet time, the important thing is to have quiet time. There is no place better to take this quiet time than before Our Lord in the Most Holy Eucharist. If you are able to get to daily adoration, do it! Where better to pray for knowledge of God’s will than before the Lord Himself?

Let me end by quoting the great words of King David, “I will give no sleep to my eyes, to my eyelids I will give no slumber until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling for the strong arm of Jacob”.

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Lectio for Chapter the Sixth

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Luke 22:39-46

And he came out, and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, “Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, “Why do you sleep? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”