Recently in Prayers Category

I've recently taken up the practice of actually writing out what I perceive the Lord to be saying to me. It goes without saying that it's not an infallible translation from the divine language into human language. But I find that it actually helps me to listen. You have to really listen when you're transcribing what the person with whom you are talking is saying. Here's a little excerpt of what I perceived God saying to me earlier today. Perhaps readers can relate.

Just listen to me. I love you anyway. And you may say you know I do. But do you really? No I don't think you do. You think I'm here to tell you that what you did was sinful and wrong. Don't you know I know everything? Don't you know that I know that you know that your sins are sins? Do you really expect me to waste time telling you again after I've written it on your heart and you have read it and grilled it into yourself over and over again? i'm not gonna do that. Now you listen to me:

You are my child, and I love you. I am going to take care of you. I am not going to deem you unworthy of me because of mistakes that you have made while you were upset and suffering. You are fallen. That's not news to me. I am going to love you until you get back on your feet and start walking with me again. That's right. Right now, I am carrying you. Do you feel it? You may not. Most people don't realize it as it's happening. But I'm telling you right now to open your eyes, open the eyes of your heart. I'm right here...okay?

Just trust me. Give me your guilt. Give me your brokenness. Give me your losses. Every loss you have suffered is my loss too. I am your best friend. I know the emptiness that festers inside you. Let me fill it. You are an empty glass right now, Let me make you a vessel of my love. You are a blank canvas. Let me draw my face on you, so you can show it to the world. You are a vast plot of land. Let me build my City on your soil, and in your heart. You are mine. I claim you. I claim the broken, that i may heal them. I claim the average, so that I might make them extraordinary. I claim you, that I might make you who I made you to be in the first place. But right now, just rest your head, and I will heal the brokenness, fill the emptiness, and build the city of love inside you.

...Amen...

Sin is nothing more than an illegitimate response to a legitimate desire. Behind every sinful inclination is the desire for something real and good. Behind the temptation to wrath is the desire to correct an injustice. Behind the temptation to lust is the desire to be truly intimate with another person. Behind the temptation to laziness is the desire to "be still and know that He is God" (Psalm 46). Every deep-seated desire of the human person has a counterfeit, a perversion. And that perversion turns out in fact to be the antithesis of the real human desire which burns within us. For the last thing wrath achieves is justice, and the last thing lust achieves is intimacy, and the last thing laziness achieves is real stillness.

This clarity can be helpful in dealing with temptation. It means that refusing to do evil does not entail the suppression of the desire. On the contrary, it is giving in to the evil that really entails the abandonment of satisfaction and surrender to something less than true abundance. It ultimately means the loss of hope, loss of the hope of ever satisfying the real human need for justice, intimacy, and peace. It is compromise.

On the other hand, refusing to do evil is the prerequisite for real personal fulfillment. We often hear about how the commandments are too negative, "thou shalt not" this or that. But it's imminently reasonable. If any of us is going to have a shot at real fullness of life, we have to decisively refuse to do evil. And we have to decisively choose to do what is right.

Temptation then is an opportunity, for a person to find out more about himself. He can say, "Because I am tempted, I know that there is something in my life that I desire greatly. What do I desire?" And when that desire is pinpointed, it is not a matter of asking oneself, "Am I giving in to my desire?" But rather, "Am I giving my desires enough credit? Am I taking my desires seriously enough to do something that will really satisfy them? Or am I settling for something less?"

And perhaps most important of all, we may ask ourselves, when we are in that place of temptation, "What do I hope to gain from this that I was not given freely at baptism?" Justice? The price for all the evil that has been and is now being and ever will be perpetrated on this earth was eternally paid on the Cross on Good Friday. When we are baptized, we are baptized into the death of that Man who paid that price for us--and his resurrection. Wrath has no power to add to such perfection. Intimacy? We are the sons and daughters of God the Father, maker of heaven and earth. We are brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. We are temples of the Holy Spirit. This God is greater than our hearts, he reads us, he knows every intimate detail about us. Above all, he loves us, and wants us to love each other as he does. The anonymity of lust has no power to really love. Peace? The peace of Christ is a peace that breathes in the world and contemplates it, sees the fingerprints of God in it, and thanks Him for it. Sloth fears the world, shuts itself in from it. It has no power to be thankful.

The goodness of God is precisely the power that fulfills the life of a person, sets men and women in motion to truly love each other and do His will. Temptations are the crossroads at which we need only remember that what we really desire is that goodness, and absolutely nothing less.

Lord, when I am tempted,
give me the clarity to know
that only by following You
may I ever find
what it is I really seek

Anyone read about what the Holy Father said earlier today to the Pontifical Biblical Commission? I heard about it on Relevant Radio on the way home from work. (This news made me smile, which is why I don't mind talking about it.)

Here's some of what Zenit said about it:

In receiving love "that comes from God, … man's freedom finds its highest realization," the Holy Father continued. "God's law does not attenuate much less eliminate man's freedom; on the contrary, it guarantees and promotes it."

For Benedict XVI, "the moral law, established by God in creation and confirmed in the revelation of the Old Testament, finds in Christ its fulfillment and grandeur."

"Jesus Christ is the way of perfection, the living and personal synthesis of the perfect freedom in the total obedience of the will of God," he said.

Because of this, "the original function of the Ten Commandments is not abolished by the encounter with Christ, but leads it to its plentitude," the Pope added.

Obedience? God's law? The key to freedom? No way!

For my penance today the priest actually told me to pray for freedom (and peace). Kinda neat that the Holy Father comes out with these reflections on the subject today. To pray for freedom is to pray for obedience to the will of God. I actually said to Him in doing my penance, "Keep me close to you, for you are the source of freedom, and of peace."

This is the great secret that the Church has been shouting from the rooftops, that God is the sole source of all real joy and peace and freedom in the universe. To be close to him, is to be at peace, to be happy, and to be free.

Jesus, make me a man of love. Make me simple. Remove from me all interest in noteriety. Remove from me all desire for recognition. Make me a man of levity, a man who is free to love. Make me a man of serenity, a man who smiles sincerely and easily. Center my desires on the good of my fellows, my sisters and brothers in your Body. Make me a courier of your divine love. Amen.

Lord, give me just enough grace
to not mistake your stillness
for nonexistence, or dullness,
or staleness, or stagnancy,

Rather that I may rest still in you,
even when earthly comforts all have passed.
AMEN†