The rich readings for this Sunday could take us in many directions. One of them is prayer. Prayer can have many forms and many definitions. The definition used here is “lifting the heart and mind to God.” The form of prayer could be walking and talking with God in trusting friendship (Romans 8:31b-34), worship (Psalm 116), struggle to understand (Genesis 22), or life-changing glory (Mark 9:2-10), as we see in today’s readings.
Prayer is one of those core practices of Lent (prayer, fasting, and almsgiving) the church assigns us. It is something we Catholics do. Several recent research studies show some interesting statistics: 97% of Catholics pray. 27% pray several times a day. 40% pray at least once a day. We use a variety of forms of prayer, leaning more heavily on traditional, memorized prayers than Protestants or those who identify as spiritual, but not religious, but also regularly having conversations with God. While mass attendance and acceptance of core beliefs may be down, we are praying regularly. It is a strength in us.
St. Teresa of Avila
This Lent I am reading St. Teresa of Avila’s autobiography, which is mostly the story of her life of prayer. Prayer was core for St. Teresa. She eventually was a mystic, but she spent most of her life struggling with prayer and her relationship with God like the rest of us. She writes about it with real charm and engagement.
She talks about a division in herself through most of her life that strikes a chord with me:
“When I was in the midst of worldly pleasures, I was distressed by the remembrance of what I owed to God; when I was with God, I grew restless because of worldly affections. This is so grievous a conflict that I do not know how I managed to endure it for a month, much less for so many years. Nevertheless, I can see how great was the Lord’s mercy to me, since, while I was still having intercourse with the world, He gave me courage to practice prayer. I say courage, because I know nothing in the world that needs more of this than to be dealing treacherously with the King [Jesus] and to know that He is aware of it and yet never to leave His presence. For, although we are always in the presence of God, it seems to me that those who practice prayer are specially so, because they can see all the time that He is looking at them, whereas others may be in God’s presence for several days without ever remembering that He can see them.” (from Chapter 8)
I circled that paragraph when I read it this week and wrote in the margin, “Summary of my adult life 1989-2010.” I write this today because prayer comes up in many conversations I have, and this description seems to fit a lot of us.
It is in light of this long introduction that I would like to look at today’s familiar readings.
Psalm 116 and Romans 8:31b-34
In this state of lifting heart and mind to God, even if our hearts are divided, over time we know that God is for us. We begin to believe, “if God is for us, who can be against us,” as Paul says today. With the psalmist, we bring our afflictions, including the afflictions of our divisions, to God and say again and again today’s psalm refrain, “I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.”
St. Teresa continues her pithy advice in ways that ring true about this:
‘I can say I know by experience—namely, that no one who has begun this practice [of prayer], however many sins he may commit, should ever forsake it. For it is the means by which we amend our lives again, and without it, amendment will be very much harder…if we truly repent and determine not to offend Him, He will resume his former friendship with us and grant us the favors which He granted aforetime, and sometimes many more, if our repentance merits it.”
My work with ACTS retreats, as a therapist, as a member of small faith-sharing groups, and as a writer here ALL demonstrate both the truth of this and our need to remember it. Times of passion for God wax and wane, but God remains steadfast. He is for us—even if sometimes he makes us uncomfortable in prayer, because we are divided, and lifting heart and mind to God reminds us of our internal divisions as we try to waltz with the world and still curl up at the end of the day in God’s arms. He holds us—even asks us with patient interest about our dancing. He remains for us.
Genesis 22:1-18
Ah, yes, the familiar story of Abraham (whose been walking intimately with God for 30 years or more by Genesis 22) and Isaac. We recoil at the thought of sacrificing a child to God, but it was common in Abraham’s day. [And our culture sacrifices children, unborn and born, to many lesser gods]. In this story God clearly says “No! I do not ask that of you!” and that is VERY IMPORTANT to remember. God may ask much of us in prayer, but, as St. Teresa says,
“You cannot succeed in loving Him as much as He loves you, because it is not in your nature to do so. If, then, you do not yet love Him, you will realize how much it means to you to have His friendship and how much He loves you, and you will gladly endure the troubles which arise from being so much with One Who is so different from you.” (continued from Chapter 8)
Bishop Barron in his Sunday Sermon last week talked about how with God, there is: (1) call to goodness (2) testing and THEN (3) freedom. When we are not fully good like God, it just isn’t easy to be made more fully good. There are tests. Abraham wasn’t called to sacrifice his son, but he was called to take a test of loyalty to God.
As I look back on the twenty years or so I spent divided with God, I can see tests God gave me in the troubles of my life. Sometimes I saw them as tests, sometimes not. Some I passed. Many I did not.
I spent a LOT of time waltzing with the world before I recognized that the honor and accomplishment I sought were not worth the effort. But, when I was ready, God was already there—in part, I think, because I did not abandon prayer.
Mark 9:2-10
The Transfiguration. Peter, James, and John see Jesus in his glory. Jesus has the comfort of his friends when He received the news that His hour was coming soon. The moments of glory are the Vision that puts the coming sacrifices in mountaintop perspective.
St Teresa ends Chapter 8 of the story of her life with these words, “…all our efforts are unavailing unless we completely give up having confidence in ourselves and fix it all upon God.”
There does come a time when there is a mountaintop experience, we want to stay in God’s arms, and all is well. God gives us these moments of glorious prayer when we need them. And we never forget.
Prayer
(Today the Suspice by St. Ignatius of Loyola, from the end of the Spiritual Exercises)
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.
You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.
Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.
