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PART THREE
Prayer and Life Along with Life and Prayer
Life Is Where God Is
Much of our spirituality is rooted in a distorted view that God is more here and less there and not at all in another place. The fact is that the foundation of any faithful and integrated incarnational spirituality must see that God is the ground of our being. All creatures exist because of this presence. The distortion is when we separate God from his creatures in our divided and isolated spirituality.
God is no less present with the family at the kitchen table on Sunday afternoon than at the Mass on Sunday morning. God is just as present to the garbage collector serving the community or to the struggling drug addict or to the nun in her contemplative convent. For each of these individuals, and for us, the primary issue is our awareness of God’s presence. This is Teresa’s message about the utter importance of prayer. We need deep personal prayer to expand our awareness of the loving and saving presence of God in all of life. We use the sacred moments of prayer, retreats, sacraments, and just openness to life, to grow in that awareness.
Teresa speaks loud and clear about the absolute importance of prayer. Without prayer, there is no progress in seeking God. The most common distortion of her teachings over the centuries has been to isolate this emphasis on prayer away from life. Life is where God is. This is why we can say that life is the greatest grace. The special moments of prayer and sacred space, the times set aside for the sacraments, retreat, and reflection are truly important. They bring us to an awareness of what already is. Most often, however, in the ordinary flow of things, we fail to realize we are in the presence of God.
Prayer flows from the deepest human reality, God within us. In this hidden ground of love, God is always taking the initiative. God never stops beckoning us to the true life. Here is a critical point. Prayer is a secondary response to this invitation of God. Life is the first response. Our experience is only possible because of God’s loving presence. Life is the greatest grace because of this divine bonding. Prayer opens us up to what already is: our relationship to God calling us home. Prayer is the guiding light to God at our center. In this context, prayer helps us understand and respond to our initial experience of God in our lived reality. In the framework of The Interior Castle, prayer draws us into the purifying and transforming action of God in life.
While God is everywhere, we have only one option to experience that presence. It is in our life. Our task is to seek the faithfulness, integrity, and honesty to live with a growing awareness and commitment to God’s presence. This is always a call to deeper life in the mystery of love. This God-encounter will always lead us to the purification and transformation that we so need to achieve our final destiny.
The encounter with God takes place within us. Then we move outward to our brothers and sisters. We slowly learn that all is grace. We are drawn away from separateness and division to the inclusiveness of Christ’s message. Among the many stories of inclusiveness in the Gospels, three marvelous examples are the Good Samaritan, the woman at the well, and the healing of the lepers. They all celebrate the outcasts being invited into the community. Eventually, we open up to our responsibility to transform this world in accord with God’s plan for the kingdom of justice and peace, where we build bridges not walls.
All Life Flows from God
We often hear that only God matters. This comes off as unreal and life-denying. It is not. We need to realize that all that is good, beautiful and life-giving in our relationships and in our responsibilities has a special source. These persons reveal the deepest love in our heart. This connection to our loved ones is powerful and meaningful because it originates from God. We cherish their goodness and beauty ultimately because it is a reflection of God’s presence. Watching children grow up or the peaceful death of a long-suffering parent or grandparent simply exposes the reality of God’s presence in life. It is a little more remote with the celebration of the success of a child in school or a teen’s first date. The fact is the total spectrum of our experiences emerges from the sacred presence of a loving and merciful God.All experience of love in our life originates from God. This is where it gets its power to be real for us. Love remains the deepest of all human mysteries because it flows from the mystery of God. However, because we are sinful, most human encounters with love are limited and deficient. The gospel journey with Jesus is our invitation to the purifying and transforming process to make this love continually more selfless. Deep personal prayer helps us more than anything else in this journey with Jesus.
Each Morning’s Message
As a true disciple of Teresa, I have created this little example to display the need to integrate prayer and life. It also highlights another important element of her message: the centrality of seeking God’s will.Picture this scene: when you wake up in the morning there is this very special table next to your bed. Only you can see it. Each morning God has a message for you. He lists your relationships and responsibilities. He lays out a “to do” list that will enable you to bring a little more love to all included in your relationships and responsibilities. Likewise, God will continue to nudge you to stay open to new horizons and possibilities in today’s experience. However, in all of this wonderful transaction, you will be able to read the content only with the help of deep personal prayer in your life. Through this prayer leading to love in life, God’s purifying and transforming grace will be making you a new person
