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18

  The discouragement which many people experience when trying to evaluate their progress and growth in the spiritual life comes from the persistent evidence of our failure and human weakness, our broken resolutions, the tenacity of old faults and even the revelation of new, unsuspected evil. We said that we must see our spiritual life as a faith experience not subject to the same rules of analysis and evaluation which apply when assessing progress in other pursuits. We also said it is misleading to objectify the spiritual life. We are not pursuing an ideal called the spiritual life. We cannot be in love with the spiritual life. In a sense there is no such reality. There is Jesus Christ, true God and true man, offering me his love and inviting my love in response. Here we enter a land of wonder and mystery.

  The mentality of our modern consumer society is alien to the sense of mystery. I believe the consumer mentality affects us more than we realise by leading us subconsciously to see our spiritual life as some kind of religious commodity. Our society offers many different commodities for our pleasure, our convenience and our fulfilment. Manufacturers and advertisers make claims for their products and guarantee they will satisfy, or else we can have our money back. We are invited to evaluate these goods, objects and commodities by a measurable criterion of satisfaction. Do they deliver what they promise? Without noticing it we can objectify religious practices such as prayer, the Mass, devotions and sacraments, and try to evaluate them by the same criteria we apply to the goods offered by the supermarkets. We can find ourselves saying, ‘Mass does little for me,’ or ‘I try to give time to prayer but it is so dry and fruitless.’ The conclusion in such instances may be, ‘Let me try something else’, which may deliver the spiritual goods!

  In our faith world we must stress wonder and mystery. We deal with the infinite, transcendent God seeking us in love. We must be prepared to allow ourselves to be possessed by this mystery rather than trying to be in control, aiming at achieving certain specific results. St. Paul says we are the temple of God. Maybe we are overly concerned with the building, with the externals, the scaffolding, as it were, our religious duties and practices. All of these are important and helpful but maybe we should move inside the building, to the holy place, to the sanctuary where God dwells in our innermost being.

  I may ask, if I see my spiritual life as building a personal relationship with God revealed in Jesus my friend, rather than a striving to achieve a spiritual idea, will the same sense of discouragement not assail me? Thus, instead of measuring up to an ideal I let down my friend. I suggest not. When I see my spiritual life as a relationship with a loving friend there are some new, important differences. It is true that now, when I fail, I feel I have disappointed a friend, but who is this friend? He is so special. He is known to me as totally understanding, compassionate, steadfast. There is nothing petty or mean about him. He knows my human heart from the inside, but he is also greater than my heart and is infinitely patient. He accepts me as I am and gradually his constant love will heal my weakness and lead me into love.

  Another big difference is that in friendship two people are involved. You cannot fall in love with an ideology or an ideal. Deep down I feel the call of Jesus, my friend, and try to respond, despite repeated failure. But he is very much involved and wants the friendship to succeed. While I, in my limited way, am seeking him, he is also seeking me. God wants not only to reveal himself to me, but to give himself to me. Inspired scripture is the guarantee of this. It tells the story of God seeking us, seeking me. The message spoken for centuries through the prophets and spoken now in our day through the Son is so simple and yet such a mystery. The message is, ‘I love you.’ In the prophet Isaiah we are called ‘the sought-after’ (Isaiah 62:11). Here is the source of our confidence as we enter into that journey which takes the whole of our lifetime, the journey into God. Our confidence is not based on our determination or will-power, but on the mystery that God wants this friendship more than we do. St. Augustine realised this when he prayed, ‘You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you.’ And a modern writer on prayer Carlo Carretto, writes, ‘My seeking him would have been in vain if, before all time, he had not sought me.’

  Here is a blessing prayer taken from the Old Testament:

'May Yahweh bless you and keep you.
May Yahweh let his face shine on you and be
gracious to you.
May Yahweh uncover his face to you and bring
you peace.'
Numbers 6:24-26

  Now let us notice the verses that introduce this blessing prayer, ‘Yahweh spoke to Moses and said, "Say this to Aaron and his sons: This is how you are to bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them: May Yahweh etc…."’ (Numbers 6 22-23). So here we have a blessing prayer composed not by Moses or Aaron, but by God himself. He says to us, ‘When you bless each other, say these words.’ This means these are the very blessings God wants us to have. God lets us see inside his own heart and tells us in this way that he wants to uncover his face to us. Jesus continues this blessing work of his Father. At the Last Supper he speaks to this same God and says, ‘Father, I have made your name known to them and will continue to make it known’ (John 17:26). And, for the Jew, the name was not just a label but stood for the inner being of the person. Here again is the kingdom, God amongst us wanting to share his inner being with us.

  One gateway into this kingdom, one place where we meet this God and share his life, is prayer. I was going to entitle this chapter ‘Prayer’ but decided against it In fact what we have been talking about all the time is prayer. This friendship with the Lord is prayer. Some of our difficulties in prayer arise out of a wrong approach or misleading attitudes to prayer. Often, when we speak of prayer, we think of it as a Christian duty, one among many, which we must perform if we are to grow in the Christian life. There is a suggestion that it is something we must do to please God, the omission of which would displease. There is a further hint that God will love me more if I pray. Such attitudes give a very false idea of the reality of prayer and can rob me of the rich nourishment, the life that awaits me, if I take prayer seriously.

  Why should I pray? Not in order to make God love me, but because I am sure he loves me. What is more natural than to want to be with the one who loves me, to speak to a loved one, to listen or just to be with a lover? We pray not to make something happen, but because something incredible is happening all the time. God is seeking me to share his caring love and power. I need time to stop, become aware and savour this mystery. We pray not that we may attract God’s attention but because we are certain that we are the centre of his attention for each moment of each day. God is the singer, I am his song. We need prayer to become aware of this and to say ‘Amen’ to his constant recreating activity in our lives.

  Prayer is not a duty. Prayer is life itself. Prayer is being with this God who nourishes us with his love. Prayer is being the branch drawing life and nourishment from the vine. Prayer is being with my lover. Let us ask a silly question. It can help us. The question is: ‘Who invented prayer? Was it the Church or some saint or guru?’ Do you see what the question is silly? It is like asking who intended holding hands and embracing! These are things you do when you are in love. Prayer is what you do when you are in love. Prayer is not an escape from reality in search of consolation to make life bearable. Prayer is the exploration of that deepest reality in which we live and move and have our being. This reality is the source of all joy and consolation and power, namely that we are unconditionally loved each moment by our God who rejoices in us and wants to renew us by his love.

'Yahweh your God is in your midst,
a victorious warrior.
He will exult with joy over you,
He will renew you by his love;
he will dance with shouts of joy for you
as on a day of festival.'
Zephaniah 3:17

 

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