"But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you." (Matthew 6:6)
This is, therefore, the real meaning of every real penitential commitment: to withdraw from the current of exterior things, to silence the advancing hubbub of so many human voices, in order to return into oneself, into one’s deepest inner life; because it is in the silence of conscience that God waits for us.
When, in fact, Jesus says: Go into your room and shut the door, he does not call to an isolation that is an end in itself. That shutting the door corresponds to the one decisive opening of the human heart: the opening to God.
[Pope John Paul II: Excerpted from a talk in Rome to students and their teachers, February 28, 1979, as reprinted in the Madonna House Newsletter of February 2008.]
(With thanks to Gabrielle)
This is what Lent seems to be all about for me this year. That heart-opening, that surrender to God's love, without guarantees, without saying, "Yes, but what will you do for me?" is fundamental. All the removal of pretences, the understanding of what God is calling me into, depends upon this.
Lord, don't let this Lent be, for me, just a stretch of time. Please, let it be a base camp, a place to set out from, and a place of shelter.
7 comments:
Hi, Mike! I'm happy that this quote spoke to you. If this is what Lent is all about for you this year, then I think you are blessed indeed. I doubt it will be just a stretch of time; but then again, maybe a stretch of time in some ways is like a stretch of desert...seemingly dry but with the hope of an oasis...
What you're writing is also what I'm trying to recognize and live out in my prayer life. It's God's prayer, not mine. Hope I'll someday KNOW this!
Gabrielle, thank you! I need some of that kind of encouragement...
Jan, that's amazing. I'd just been reading your post about Ruth Burrows' Essence of Prayer, where she speaks of prayer as what God does; and our own Vicar, Rhona, is using that same book in her Lent sermons on the Lord's Prayer... I can see that between the two of you, I'm going to have to order this book!
As is so often the case, just what I need to hear/see/read/experience pops up... If I am paying attention.
This post is that for me today and I thank you.
We all must encourage each other in this journey. And there is the rub- pray in private and practice our faith in community.
I am grateful to have found this community of bloggers. Please note that when I comment here, I always do it as St. Edwards and not as FranIam.
Peace to you my brother,
Fran
Dear sister Fran, thank you! This community of bloggers is a strange and precious thing, isn't it? I'm so glad my post arrived at the right time - that is so true, what you say about solitude and community. It is that balance that makes any of this crazy life in Christ on earth possible at all!
Peace and grace to you, too
Mike
I have not read Ruth Burrows myself, but I remember Fr. Thomas Keating saying that her book about "lights on/lights off" mysticism really reinforced some of his own ideas that he hadn't really begun to verbalize yet, and he was very grateful that he had read it.
this post made this climber smile and go all teary, because it is my prayer too - let this Lent go on and on in my life. As Fran said, too, it's curious how what I am experiencing pops up elsewhere. it shows me that there is a plan in all this and that we are all having our own versions of the same experience. Thank you, Mike.
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