We talked about discernment a little while back. Yesterday, we talked about busy-busy-busy. And yesterday afternoon I went to spend an hour with Jesus in the Holy Hour.
The book I picked up off the shelves was all about discernment; one section dealt with the idea of being busy-busy-busy and at face value it looks good. A person going about doing all kinds of good things for people, sacrificing time, talent and treasure to live out her faith. But the book pointed out that even in this seemingly good work, an individual can get so busy doing the work that they neglect the other part of their life -- their prayer life.
For Mother Teresa to go out into the streets of Calcutta and find the dying, she needed to have physical strength and food. She also needed to allow God's strength to flow through her veins by means of her prayer life. The book talked about how we can get busy-busy-busy to the extent that we think we are running on our own. We can forget about God's input and God's many gifts to us through reflection, quiet, and prayer.
That's where discernment comes in. God can send us email-like messages into our heads, if we only listen. And he will let us know that we are running on our own steam, that we aren't fueling ourselves with prayer, that we are falling into the danger of great temptation by neglecting our relationship with Him which is primary.
Jesus himself gives us the model for the balance between a busy life and our prayer lives when he entered into the garden at Gethsemane. He knew what was coming and He needed to prepare himself for it with a time of prayer. His disciples couldn't go the distance; their busy pace caught up with them and they all fell asleep. Jesus was obviously very distressed by this! So we can see that Jesus puts a high value on prayer and on praying together.
We've talked about this before -- that prayer doesn't have to be a formal set of memorized prayers. Prayer can be going on nearly all day. Prayer can be about praise and thanksgiving -- for example, finding your way to a place you've never been before. Prayer can be about thanking God for helping a child avoid a near-accident. Prayer can be about a conversation with God; first you talk, then get quiet and let God talk.
It's the quiet part I'm not too good at. I'm good at the talking, so I'm working on the other. Hence, the Holy Hour. There are two places where I seem to fall asleep very quickly. One is on our comfortable couch in the living room. The other is at Holy Hour! Yikes, I'm doing the same thing as the disciples did!
So I'm working on it, learning to pray for alertness, changing positions from kneeling to sitting, getting up to get a book, etc. Not only is sitting quietly a signal to my brain to fall asleep; the time of my Holy Hour (2:00 p.m.) is when my blood sugar seems to hit a low. Bringing a snack to Holy Hour just doesn't sound appropriate to me!
So, my friends, I hope you have a wonderful Saturday and weekend. I'll be back on Tuesday and let's find something interesting to talk about.
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