Writer's Wednesday -- Benedict XVI
(Writer's Wednesday has been missing in action since my study cycle has been in high gear. Hope you enjoy this! Read this one s-l-o-w-ly...)
We are at our most attentive when we are driven by inmost need to ask God for something or are prompted by a joyful heart to thank him for good things that happen to us. Most importantly though, our relationship to God should not be confined to such momentary situations, but should be present as the bedrock of our soul. In order for this to happen, this relation has to be constantly revived and the affairs of our everyday lives have to be constantly related back to it. The more the depts of our souls are directed toward God, the better we will be able to pray. The more prayer is the foundation that upholds our entire existence, the more we will become men of peace. The more we can bear pain, the more we will be able to understand others and open ourselves to them. This orientation pervasively shaping our whole consciousness, the silent presence of God at the heart of our thinking, our meditating, and our being, is what we mean by "prayer without ceasing." This is ultimately what we mean by love of God, which is at the same time the condition and driving force behind love of neighbor.
This is what prayer really is--being in silent inward communion with God. It requires nourishment, and that is why we need articulated prayer in words, images, or thoughts. The more God is present in us, the more we will really be able to be present to him when we utter the words of our prayers. But the converse is also true: Praying actualizes and deepens our communion of being with God. Our praying can and should arise above all from our heart, from our needs, our hopes, our joys, our sufferings, from our shame over sin, and from our gratitude for the good. But we also need to make use of those prayers that express in words the encounter with God experienced both by the Church as a whole and by individual members of the Church. For without these aids to prayer, our own praying and our image of God become subjective and end up reflecting ourselves more than the living God. In the formulaic prayer that arose first from the faith of Israel and then from the faith of praying members of the Church, we get to know God and ourselves as well. They are a "school of prayer" that transforms and opens up our life.
----Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth. (2007)
We are at our most attentive when we are driven by inmost need to ask God for something or are prompted by a joyful heart to thank him for good things that happen to us. Most importantly though, our relationship to God should not be confined to such momentary situations, but should be present as the bedrock of our soul. In order for this to happen, this relation has to be constantly revived and the affairs of our everyday lives have to be constantly related back to it. The more the depts of our souls are directed toward God, the better we will be able to pray. The more prayer is the foundation that upholds our entire existence, the more we will become men of peace. The more we can bear pain, the more we will be able to understand others and open ourselves to them. This orientation pervasively shaping our whole consciousness, the silent presence of God at the heart of our thinking, our meditating, and our being, is what we mean by "prayer without ceasing." This is ultimately what we mean by love of God, which is at the same time the condition and driving force behind love of neighbor.
This is what prayer really is--being in silent inward communion with God. It requires nourishment, and that is why we need articulated prayer in words, images, or thoughts. The more God is present in us, the more we will really be able to be present to him when we utter the words of our prayers. But the converse is also true: Praying actualizes and deepens our communion of being with God. Our praying can and should arise above all from our heart, from our needs, our hopes, our joys, our sufferings, from our shame over sin, and from our gratitude for the good. But we also need to make use of those prayers that express in words the encounter with God experienced both by the Church as a whole and by individual members of the Church. For without these aids to prayer, our own praying and our image of God become subjective and end up reflecting ourselves more than the living God. In the formulaic prayer that arose first from the faith of Israel and then from the faith of praying members of the Church, we get to know God and ourselves as well. They are a "school of prayer" that transforms and opens up our life.
----Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth. (2007)
posted by Pat Gohn at
8/22/2007
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