| 11-13-06 Like Him in All Things |
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November 13, 2006
The more we are in the presence of God, the more we should become like God. We begin to learn how He thinks, what He is like, how He speaks, how He acts, how He makes decisions. Have you ever noticed that people who have been married a long time start to look alike? It seems as if it is something in their spirit; they can just read each other. They know each other. This is what happens in a relationship with God. Our relationship becomes our lifestyle. Prayer was Mary's life style. It is not just something we do. We are conscious of the presence of God within. We are sure that He is there. We are sure that when we go to sleep He is there, whether awake or asleep, He is there. We cannot walk out of a Church and leave Him and say, "I'll see you later." If we are aware of the indwelling presence of God, we are never going to be apart from Him. It is union. We can never leave Him nor would we want to. We are aware of Him all day long. He is part of our life. Everything is "We." Everything becomes, "The Holy Spirit and me; everything becomes the Trinity within. We begin to consult. We begin to have the wisdom operating; we can hear things simultaneously. He is always with us. Jesus said this. "I am with you always!" In the desert we begin to realize that we do not leave our prayer chair or our prayer closet in the morning and say," I'll see you later!" No. He is with us always. Faith starts to deepen tremendously in contemplative spirituality because we begin to know that He isn't going anywhere. He truly is enfleshed within me. He truly has made His home within me now and He wants to grow within me. In Genesis 19:17, we read, "Flee into the hill country or you will die!" "Flee into My presence," He tells us, "Every day." If we do not, we can lose this beautiful grace. We must keep it alive. We have to be available to God. He does not walk away from us. "My love," He said, "will never leave you." We can leave Him, however. We can leave Him in our busyness. We know how to run. The desert is a place where we look and confront ourselves. There may be times in the desert spirituality which will be painful. We may not want to go into the silence and the solitude. Jesus invites us to come apart, literally come apart, and rest awhile and listen. He said, "I have come that you may have life and have it in abundance." We want it in such abundance that we can give it away. We want it so that it can overflow for others. God said to the woman at the well in John 4, "If you but knew," if you could but experience, "this gift of God," this gift of wisdom, this gift of life, if you could but experience it. We must experience the gift of God. We must beg for the experience and beg in our prayers that others may have this experience of God's wisdom, of God's love. We must beg that their appetites will start to be so deep, that they will become so hungry, so thirsty, that they too will be lured into the desert to be fed. Prayer is an inward journey; it is a wonderful adventure. God is the creator; He is always new. Something new always happens in prayer. Lady Wisdom is calling us deeper into this inward journey, this adventure. St Bernard tells us that we must listen to God's word. He calls this, "lexio." Like Our Lady, we must also welcome it and receive it. We must remain in the silence of the desert and allow God to do the talking. Speak to God and let Him answer. To welcome and to receive is what St. Bernard calls, "Meditaxio." It means to think about, to ponder the Word. What is God saying? Turn it over; look at it through different viewpoints and ask questions. Saint Bernard tells us that we must then the taste and see - "Oratio." We want to start to experience the Word which He speaks to us. Then, we want to respond to it. Finally we want to taste and see the goodness of the Lord. Through this process will grow the desire to become whatever that Word is saying to us, whatever that Word is showing us. That is contemplation. Listen to the Word, welcome it, ponder it and then respond to it, in other words, act on it. Jesus said, "Blessed are you (happy are you) who hear My word and live it out, and act upon it." Jesus wants us to be blessed; He wants us to be happy. Once, a team from Steubenville was trying to get a word from the Lord, to understand what He wanted them to do. But they were not hearing anything even though they were in communal prayer. They finally asked the Lord, "Why are You not speaking to us? Why are You not giving us a word?" Then, they waited; they waited in the silence. Finally, it came. "What did you do with the last word I gave you?" They realized that they could not even remember what His last word to them was! That is how casual we can get with what God is saying to us. This is why we journal. When it is written down we can go back and ask ourselves, "What am I doing with what He is showing me?" Then we can be fed more. Like my mother used to say when I was little, "If you do not eat this, you cannot have your dessert." We must eat the food that God gives us if we want more. Lady Wisdom wants our whole being to proclaim the greatness of the Lord and to mirror His image. When Peter, James and John came down from Mount Tabor, after being in the presence of the entire Trinity, scripture tells us, "They saw only Jesus." We want the Father to look upon us when we leave these Mount Tabor-like moments in prayer and see, within each of us, only Jesus, only His Word enfleshed within us, so our whole being can magnify the Lord. However, we come from broken selves, don't we? We come from unhealed selves that have been deeply influenced by our cultures, by the way we have been taught, by things we have heard. Here, in America, in our culture, it is so important to perform. Our self worth is somehow determined by what we do. This is not the Gospel at all. Mary did not say that what she does magnifies the Lord. "My being," she said, my whole personhood, "magnifies the Lord." We must get out of the lie that our self worth comes from achievement, achievement, achievement. Have you ever noticed that when you meet people, the first thing they ask you is, "What do you do?" We are raised in that culture here. This can deeply affect our relationship with the Lord. We have moved away from relationship as being number one. Yet, it is key. It took us a while to realize that this is the most important thing to God - relationship. It is not what we do that is important to Him; it is our relationship with Him that matters. He calls us to relationship.
In Matthew 6:33, Jesus tells us, "Seek Me first (seek My kingship) and everything else will be given to you." But seek Me first. Seek My way of holiness. God has priorities. He wants to be first. We go into the desert, day after day, seeking Him first. Everything else will fall into place. He will take care of our ministries. He will take care of our families. He will take care of our problems, our worries, our needs. But we need to seek Him first.
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