Does personal prayer sometimes seem dull, dry. Prayer can make us sleepy, or alive! It can feel nourishing, or
awesome. Prayer, the lifting of the
mind to God, can be any of these. Each one has its time and occasion. Other
times it seems God just wants to let us
rest and enjoy that all embracing love. Sometimes, God quiets us down, lets us
discover that consoling, comforting, embracing
Presence. These
are all precious moments when we discover and experience God’s faithfulness.
However, sometimes, that feeling
of distance, of longing finds us pleading for God to come closer. We know in
Faith that God is close, but we feel dry
and distanced.
That is a great time to attempt
an exercise I learned many years ago from a Spanish theologian. His name was Rev.Guillermo Mújica. I was
living in a small community. We asked him to help us evaluate our community
life.
As this priest guided us through
the evaluation, he questioned us about prayer, in common and personally.
He asked very casually, that we
speak of how and where we had encountered Christ that day?
We stuttered
some answers -- “in the Eucharist, in prayer,” et cetera, but
he probed. What about his prophetic
presence, the presence where we see Jesus present and fulfilling His Mission?
WHERE had we encountered Him? And how did we respond?
Little by little, he insisted we
examine, how we had seen Christ in the people we met, in each other, in the
events of the day. He encouraged us to practice this form of prayer. Over the
years I have discovered that it is truly “alive” prayer.
Mújica challenged
us to examine our common beliefs. We tell people we meet, and we teach the children
that Christ is present. So, how, where,
when is God present?
About the same time as our
evaluation, the Latin American Bishops held a continent wide meeting in Puebla,
Mexico. In their documents, I discovered that they were urging us, “to see the
Face of Christ in the poor.” Mujica was teaching
us how to do that.
It is a wonderful help in getting
to know Jesus present in our daily lives! I began to practice looking at people
and events and marveling at God’s Action. Over the years, some of those moments
of prayer became engraved in my heart, to remind me again and again that Jesus
lives! They enable me to see the Gospel words come alive.
A few years after the evaluation,
on the other side of the world, I was serving in a homeless shelter, in Hawaii.
I was on duty on Good Friday Morning. My task was to sit at the desk and answer
requests and keep an eye on the room where needy people rested on mattresses,
sat chatting, or alone musing on their plight or plans for the day.
This prayer
method took me right into Jesus’ Passion and what that awful morning after the scourging
and the Crown of Thorns must have been like. I saw so much I had never seen so
well before.
As I looked for His presence in
that room, I saw an elderly homeless woman, lying sick and soiled on a mat on
the floor. A young man, a recovering drug addict, some confused men and women,
mentally ill, alcoholic, or simply jobless. Some looked better today after a
shower and clean clothes, a haircut and/ or a shave. Others looked like they
had been beaten and abused.
I spent a while just watching the
young man. He looked at the elderly woman. He brought soap water, a
facecloth and a towel. He knelt down
beside her and cleansed her face and
hands. I saw the face of Christ
suffering in the woman. I saw Him suffering
that Good Friday morning in the woman, and I saw Him healing the elderly sick
woman, comforting the wounded!
comforting the wounded..
Jesus,
present in the young man, was healing the sick right there in front of me. The
“Face of Christ,” there it was, Jesus suffering in the woman, Jesus healing
through the young man. We can see God”s Action
in our world, if we only look.
But we don’t have to be in a
Homeless Shelter. The other day, my grand niece put a photo of her baby on
Facebook. That baby looking so happy, her eyes so bright with joy, smiling at
me. God is with us! Jesus lives in us. He is present, if we will only recognize
Him.
And when we see evil, violence,
cruelty, hatred? We must recognize that we are in that same world Jesus faced
and where the Risen Christ is Present!
That is our world, the same one God does not give up on! Because God sent His Son, Jesus, who has
risen and is TRULY here! HAPPY EASTER!