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::05 :: Teach Us to Pray : Centering
Pr 5
’You are within us, Lord.’ This thought should sanctify us and direct our relationships with other people and our efforts in relation to ourselves. If we are filled with the spirit of faith, we will have the spirit of prayer. What is centering ? To centre oneself is to journey into oneself in order to find God who dwells within us. What is prayer ? It is the raising of the heart to God, the cry of the soul to God, asking for what it needs. Even if Jesus did not dwell within us, we would still be able to pray to him. How much more so, then, since he does live in us ! What a great strength, what a great help is the prayer which he himself prays in us and with us !
When the apostles said to Our Lord, ’Teach us to pray’ (Lk 11:1), it was at the end of a night he had spent in prayer. His prayer was so simple and so marvellous that the apostles admired it and said, ’Lord, we don’t know how to pray like that. Teach us to pray.’ Our Lord prays in us. He is within us, both adorer and intercessor at once, achieving the four purposes of the sacrifice of the Mass, which are the four purposes of the Christian life. He initiates us into prayer, and it is by means of prayer that union takes place. Prayer obtains for us an exalted idea of God, a great love for him, a great desire to serve him. It teaches us to leave behind all the vanities of this present life.
Where do they all come from, these currents of self-love, inquisitiveness and impatience which agitate our hearts ? All are motivated by disdain, over-sensitivity and the pain which one feels when one disregards oneself. If we felt that in disregarding ourselves we drew closer to Our Lord and that Jesus Christ enters into dialogue with souls that are humble and simple, if we were really convinced of this we would enter into this intimate dwelling wherein he who is the joy of his chosen ones would be our happiness ! But we have to renounce self-love, fantasies, inquisitiveness, currents which disturb our souls and hold a certain sway over us, in order that we might live with Jesus Christ in this intimate part our souls wherein he dwells.
If we consider everyone to be a temple of the Holy Spirit, the dwelling place of Jesus Christ who regards anything that is done to the least of his own as done unto himself, by this we will have a habitual sense of respect for one another.
cf. Saint Marie Eugenie.
Chapter of 6 July 1885
Remonter