March 22, 2004

"Why Don't We Do It Together?"

"Patterned after the early Church, together with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, we devote ourselves to prayer. . ." (Our Holy Rule, ,p. 1).  We devote ourselves to prayer.  Prayer becomes a priority for an intercessor.  We're not casual about it.  It's not something we do at the end of the day because we have a few minutes.  Prayer is a priority.  We give it the best time of the day, and the best part of ourselves.  We give the first fruits to God.  Jesus said, "Seek Me first (He has a condition here) and everything else will be granted" (see Mt 6:33).  Everything else will be given.  We are to seek Him first. 

So we devote ourselves to prayer as the Apostles did.  They had been in the Upper Room in that deep contemplative posture with our Lady for a whole novena.  They didn't know how long they'd be there.  When they came out, they were so full of the Spirit, so on fire, that we might think that their great temptation would be to do, do, do.  Once we are baptized in the Holy Spirit we want to do great things for God.  Yet the Apostles retained what they had learned from Mary in the Upper Room.  They remained devoted to prayer and they received.  We cannot give something that we don't have.  They had the proper balance as they were "devoted to prayer (not casual prayer-prayer was a priority to them) and the ministry of the word" (see Acts 6:4).  It wasn't either/or.  When I entered the cloister, the attitude was that the contemplatives, the cloistered nuns and cloistered monks, did all the praying, and the others did all the active apostolate.  But this isn't the way the Father set it up.  It's not either/or; it's and/both.  The Father wants contemplatives in action.  Why can't we do both?  Why can't our ministry spring out of our contemplation?  Why can't our ministry spring out of our relationship?  Why can't we let Jesus minister to others through us?

The ministry of the Word has many levels.  For some, it may be preaching.  Jesus is the Word.  He's the Word of God in the armor and on the white horse in power.  He's the Word of God in powerful deliverance ministry to set the captives free.  The Word made flesh, now within us, wants to set people free for the Father's greater honor and glory.

So we devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word.  The Word is Jesus, who sits at the right hand of the Father in intercession.  The first time I ever read the Scripture where St. Paul said, "Jesus is now at the right hand of the Father in a more powerful ministry" (see Heb 8:6; 7:25).  I thought, "I can't imagine a more powerful ministry than the ministry that He had on earth."  But He is in a more powerful ministry now, that of intercession.  The power is at the right hand of the Father, but He chooses to exercise that ministry in, with, and through us.  He doesn't exercise it with the Father all by Himself.  The Word continues to become enfleshed within us.  It's His ministry, but He uses our bodies to operate through.  He uses our minds, our hearts, our mouths, our hands, and our feet.  He uses us.  He chooses to use us in this beautiful way.  What tremendous humility!  We'll never understand His tremendous humility.  I used to think, "Lord, why don't You just do something?  You can see the state of the world.  Why don't You feed the poor?  Why don't You do this or do that?  And He said, "Why don't you?  Why don't we do it together?"

Excerpt from "Formation on Rule," Omaha, NE, 2003.