“What Makes Us Catholic?”
Week 6 - 10/20/07
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“Sacred Scripture”
I. Opening Prayer
a. St. Thomas Prayer for Students
b. Litany of St. Joseph (Latin Chant)
II. Review of Week 5
III. Study of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC)
IV. “Sacred Scripture” - CCC # 101-141
V. Spiritual Reading: Time For God: A Guide to Prayer By Jacques Philippe, pp. 58-63
VI. Closing Prayer
a. Angelus
b. Intercessions
Time For God: A Guide to Prayer By Jacques Philippe, pp. 58-63
God may freely act in us. It is this, as so well illustrated by St. John of the Cross, which explains times of aridity, certain moments when the intelligence or the imagination do not function during prayer, and when we experience the impossibility of meditating or feeling anything at all. God allows this aridity, this "dark night," so that he alone may work on us in a profound way, just as a doctor anesthetizes a patient so that he may do his job tranquilly!
We will return to this theme, but let us keep in mind that if, despite our good will, we are unable to pray well and remain unmoved and incapable of beautiful thoughts, we should not become sad. Rather, let us offer up our poverty to God's action and our prayer will be more valuable than if we satisfied ourselves! St. Francis de Sales says, "Lord, I am no more than a dry log; set me afire!"
THE PRIMACY OF LOVE
The second fundamental principle is the primacy of love above everything else. St. Teresa of Avila says that in prayer what matters is not to think much but to love much. This is also a liberating consideration. If we cannot think, meditate, or feel anything, we can always love. If we are at the point of exhaustion, oppressed by distractions, and unable to pray, we can offer this to the Lord with serene confidence. In this way, we love and offer a magnificent prayer. Love is king, regardless of the circumstances, and everything always flows from it. Quoting St. John of the Cross, St. Therese of Lisieux would say, "Love profits from everything, from good as well as bad." Love profits from feelings as well as dryness, from inspirations as well as aridity, from virtue as well as sin.
This principle is united with the primacy of God's action over ours. In prayer, our principal task is to love, but in relation to God to love is, in the first place, allowing ourselves to be loved. This is not as easy as it seems! We must believe in love even when we have the tendency to doubt it. We must also accept our misery.
It is often easier to love than to allow ourselves to be loved. It is gratifying to reach out to others, to give, and to believe ourselves useful! Instead, allowing ourselves to be loved presupposes that we accept to do nothing, to be nothing. This is the first task of prayer: not to think, offer, or do anything for God, but to allow God to love us as little children, to give God the joy of loving us. This is hard because it supposes that we have unshakable faith in God's love for us. It also implies that we accept our poverty. This is a fundamental point: there is no authentic love for God that is not based on the recognition of the absolute priority of his love for us, and the understanding that before doing anything, we should learn to receive. In his first letter, St. John writes: "In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us" (1 Jn 4:10).
As regards God, the first act of love, the foundation of any act of love, is this: to believe that we are loved, to allow ourselves to be loved in our poverty, just as we are, regardless of our merits and virtues. If this is the foundation of our relationship with God, then we are on the right path. We will always fall into a kind of hypocrisy if we, and not God, occupy the first place, the center of our lives, our actions, and even of our virtues.
This point of view is very demanding. It requires decentralization, a great self-forgetfulness that is at the same time liberating. God does not await certain works, acts, or achievements from us. We are, after all, useless servants. "God does not need our works, but he thirsts for our love," says St. Therese of Lisieux. First, God asks us to allow ourselves to be loved, to believe in his love, and this is always possible. Prayer is fundamentally this: to place ourselves in God's presence and to allow him to love us. Love's response comes during or outside of prayer. If we allow ourselves to be loved, then God will personally work the good in us and give us the grace to carry out good works: "For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life" (Eph 2:10).
It follows that all we have to do in prayer is to seek love and to strengthen it. This is the only criterion for judging whether we are doing badly or well in prayer. Everything that inspires us to love is good. Of course, true love is not superficial or sentimental, even though ardent feelings have their value when God grants them to us.
Everything that nourishes our love for God is beneficial for our prayer. Whatever makes us grow in gratitude and confidence in God awakens or stimulates the desire for self-giving, of belonging to him, and of serving him faithfully, which should become a habitual part of our prayer.
Seek to be simple
In prayer, we must not ramble on or multiply thoughts and considerations that end up taking us away from true conversion of heart. What use are elevated and varied thoughts about the mysteries of the faith? What benefit is drawn from constantly changing the subject of meditation, or exploring the theological truths and Scripture passages if they do not lead to the firm resolution to give oneself to God and to renounce oneself for love of him? St. Therese of Lisieux says that to love is to give everything and to give one's self. If our daily prayers steadily revolve around and return to one idea: stirring our hearts into giving ourselves totally to the Lord, to be persistent in serving him, then such prayer would seem poorer and yet be better!
As regards the primacy of love, we have this example from St. Therese of Lisieux. Before she died, her sister, Sister Agnes, asked Therese, "What are you thinking about?" She answered, "I am not thinking about anything. I cannot think, I am suffering too much, and so I am praying." "And what do you tell Jesus?" "I don't tell him anything. I love him!"
This is the poorest yet the most profound of prayers: a simple act of love beyond words or ideas. We must seek to be simple. Ultimately, our prayers need not be more than this: no words, no ideas, not a succession of particular unique acts, but a single, simple act of love! We need time and the profound work of grace to acquire such simplicity, because sin has made us so complicated and fragmented. We should at least remember that the value of prayer is not measured by the abundance and variety of actions, but by making a simple act of love. The further we advance in the interior life, the simpler our prayer becomes.
Be warned of a temptation that may arise during prayer. Beautiful and profound thoughts and insights can occur to us while praying. They can come as illuminations regarding God's mystery or heartening insights about our life. These thoughts or inspirations, which may seem ingenious, can be a trap that we must guard against. Of course, God does grant us lights and inspirations during prayer, but we should realize that such thoughts can take us away from God's true presence. We can be carried away or exult in these inspirations, and we end up cultivating them to the point that we focus on them more than on God. Then, when our prayer ends, we realize that these were nothing great and rather futile.
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