Q: "What should be the experience of praying for you?" Cardinal Bergoglio: "To my mind, it has to be, in a certain way, an experience of capitulation, of surrender, where all our being enters into God's presence. It is there where dialogue, listening, transformation will be produced, looking at God, but above all feeling looked upon by Him. At times religious experience in prayer is produced, in my case, when I pray vocally the Rosary or the psalms. Or when I celebrate the Eucharist with much joy. But I live the religious experience more when I place myself, for an indefinite time, before the Tabernacle. Sometimes, I fall asleep, letting Him look at me. I feel as if I were in the hands of another, as if God were taking me by the hand. I believe that one has to arrive at the transcendent other-ness of the Lord, who is the Lord of all, but who always respects our freedom." --Rubin-Ambrogetti, El jesuita, p. 51
Child, let Me explain it to you
Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things which you have not known.
你呼喚我，我必答覆你，把偉大和你不知道的奧秘事情告訴你。
--Jeremiah 33:3
THE HEART -- THE ROOM WHERE ONE PRAYS
The apostle teaches us to pray anywhere, while the Saviour says "Go into your room" – but you must understand that this “room” is not the room with four walls that confines your body when you are in it, but the secret space within you in which your thoughts are enclosed and where your sensations arrive. That is your prayer-room, always with you wherever you are, always secret wherever you are, with your only witness being God.
--St Ambrose (On Cain and Abel)
SWEET HOUR OF PRAYER
Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
That calls me from a world of care,
And bids me at my Father’s throne
Make all my wants and wishes known.
In seasons of distress and grief,
My soul has often found relief,
And oft escaped the tempter’s snare,
By thy return, sweet hour of prayer!
Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
The joys I feel, the bliss I share,
Of those whose anxious spirits burn
With strong desires for thy return!
With such I hasten to the place
Where God my Savior shows His face,
And gladly take my station there,
And wait for thee, sweet hour of prayer!
Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
Thy wings shall my petition bear
To Him whose truth and faithfulness
Engage the waiting soul to bless.
And since He bids me seek His face,
Believe His Word and trust His grace,
I’ll cast on Him my every care,
And wait for thee, sweet hour of prayer!
Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
May I thy consolation share,
Till, from Mount Pisgah’s lofty height,
I view my home and take my flight.
This robe of flesh I’ll drop, and rise
To seize the everlasting prize,
And shout, while passing through the air,
“Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer!”
--William W Walford
(Set to music by William B Bradbury)
BEING WITH THE LORD ALWAYS
Anyone who wishes to become a priest must be first and foremost a "man of God", to use the expression of Saint Paul (1 Tim 6:11). For us God is not some abstract hypothesis; he is not some stranger who left the scene after the "big bang". God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. In the face of Jesus Christ we see the face of God. In his words we hear God himself speaking to us. It follows that the most important thing in our path towards priesthood and during the whole of our priestly lives is our personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ. The priest is not the leader of a sort of association whose membership he tries to maintain and expand. He is God’s messenger to his people. He wants to lead them to God and in this way to foster authentic communion between all men and women. That is why it is so important, dear friends, that you learn to live in constant intimacy with God. When the Lord tells us to "pray constantly", he is obviously not asking us to recite endless prayers, but urging us never to lose our inner closeness to God. Praying means growing in this intimacy. So it is important that our day should begin and end with prayer; that we listen to God as the Scriptures are read; that we share with him our desires and our hopes, our joys and our troubles, our failures and our thanks for all his blessings, and thus keep him ever before us as the point of reference for our lives. In this way we grow aware of our failings and learn to improve, but we also come to appreciate all the beauty and goodness which we daily take for granted and so we grow in gratitude. With gratitude comes joy for the fact that God is close to us and that we can serve him.
--Benedict XVI, Letter to Seminarians, 1, 18 October 2010
Prayer, liturgy, charity, vocations
Dear friends, the example of the saints invites us, then, to consider four essential aspects of the treasure of our faith: personal prayer and silence, liturgical prayer, charity in action, and vocations.
What matters most is that you develop your personal relationship with God. That relationship is expressed in prayer. God by his very nature speaks, hears, and replies. Indeed, Saint Paul reminds us: we can and should “pray constantly” (1 Thess 5:17). Far from turning in on ourselves or withdrawing from the ups and downs of life, by praying we turn towards God and through him to each other, including the marginalized and those following ways other than God’s path (cf. Spe Salvi, 33). As the saints teach us so vividly, prayer becomes hope in action. Christ was their constant companion, with whom they conversed at every step of their journey for others.
There is another aspect of prayer which we need to remember: silent contemplation. Saint John, for example, tells us that to embrace God’s revelation we must first listen, then respond by proclaiming what we have heard and seen (cf. 1 Jn 1:2-3; Dei Verbum, 1). Have we perhaps lost something of the art of listening? Do you leave space to hear God’s whisper, calling you forth into goodness? Friends, do not be afraid of silence or stillness, listen to God, adore him in the Eucharist. Let his word shape your journey as an unfolding of holiness.
In the liturgy we find the whole Church at prayer. The word liturgy means the participation of God’s people in “the work of Christ the Priest and of His Body which is the Church” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 7). What is that work? First of all it refers to Christ’s Passion, his Death and Resurrection, and his Ascension – what we call the Paschal Mystery. It also refers to the celebration of the liturgy itself. The two meanings are in fact inseparably linked because this “work of Jesus” is the real content of the liturgy. Through the liturgy, the “work of Jesus” is continually brought into contact with history; with our lives in order to shape them. Here we catch another glimpse of the grandeur of our Christian faith. Whenever you gather for Mass, when you go to Confession, whenever you celebrate any of the sacraments, Jesus is at work. Through the Holy Spirit, he draws you to himself, into his sacrificial love of the Father which becomes love for all. We see then that the Church’s liturgy is a ministry of hope for humanity. Your faithful participation, is an active hope which helps to keep the world – saints and sinners alike – open to God; this is the truly human hope we offer everyone (cf. Spe Salvi, 34).
Your personal prayer, your times of silent contemplation, and your participation in the Church’s liturgy, bring you closer to God and also prepare you to serve others. The saints accompanying us this evening show us that the life of faith and hope is also a life of charity. Contemplating Jesus on the Cross we see love in its most radical form. We can begin to imagine the path of love along which we must move (cf. Deus Caritas Est, 12). The opportunities to make this journey are abundant. Look about you with Christ’s eyes, listen with his ears, feel and think with his heart and mind. Are you ready to give all as he did for truth and justice? Many of the examples of the suffering which our saints responded to with compassion are still found here in this city and beyond. And new injustices have arisen: some are complex and stem from the exploitation of the heart and manipulation of the mind; even our common habitat, the earth itself, groans under the weight of consumerist greed and irresponsible exploitation. We must listen deeply. We must respond with a renewed social action that stems from the universal love that knows no bounds. In this way, we ensure that our works of mercy and justice become hope in action for others.
Dear young people, finally I wish to share a word about vocations. First of all my thoughts go to your parents, grandparents and godparents. They have been your primary educators in the faith. By presenting you for baptism, they made it possible for you to receive the greatest gift of your life. On that day you entered into the holiness of God himself. You became adoptive sons and daughters of the Father. You were incorporated into Christ. You were made a dwelling place of his Spirit. Let us pray for mothers and fathers throughout the world, particularly those who may be struggling in any way – socially, materially, spiritually. Let us honor the vocation of matrimony and the dignity of family life. Let us always appreciate that it is in families that vocations are given life.
(Benedict XVI, Meeting with Young People and Seminarians, Saint Joseph Seminary, Yonkers, New York, 19 April 2008)
Our praying can and should rise above all from our heart, from our needs, our hopes, our joys, our sufferings, from our shame over sin, and from our gratitude for the good. It can and should be a wholly personal prayer.
But we also constantly need to make use of those prayers that express in words the encounter with God experienced both by the Church as a whole and by individual members of the Church. For without these aids to prayer, our own praying and our image of God become subjective and end up reflecting ourselves more than the living God. In the formulaic prayers that arose first from the faith of Israel and then from the faith of praying members of the Church, we get to know God and ourselves as well. They are a 'school of prayer' that transforms and opens up our life.
(Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, p 130)
By placing your hope in Me you will achieve higher sanctity. When you trust in your small possibilities, you live in your usual miseries. Your trust will be a homage to God and a proof of humility. ... Speak to Me of your soul with simplicity, sure to be heard, attended and loved.
(Locution to Gabriela Bossis, God's Spiritual Direction (Messages from Heaven). Transl. Fr Adolf Faroni, SDB. Manila: Don Bosco Press, 2000, pp 84-85)
The thought of my unworthiness for all His gifts to me and to my children gets deeper and clearer. In my meditations and prayers, which are so full of distractions nowadays--there stands one thing very clear--my weakness and His Greatness. I fear all things from my weakness--but I trust blindly His Greatness.
(Blessed Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light, p 139)
The ancient principle, Contemplata aliis trádere (hand on to others the fruits of prayer) ... concerns in the first place the one who 'hands on', the preacher or servant of the Word: he is entitled to communicate--uniquely and exclusively--only contemplata, thoughts passed through prayer.
(John Paul II, Be not afraid, p 34)
To spend much time in prayer is to knock with a persistent and holy fervour at the door of the one whom we beseech. This task is generally accomplished more through sighs than words, more through weeping than speech. He places our tears in his sight, and our sighs are not hidden from him, for he has established all things through his Word and does not seek human words.
(St Augustine, A letter to Proba)
Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift...One can become a source from which rivers of living water flow. Yet to become such a source, one must constantly drink anew from the original source, which is Jesus Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God.
(Benedict XVI, Deus caritas est)
Fundamentally, prayer is to place oneself in God's presence and to allow him to love us.
(Jacques Philippe, Time for God)
[I]n prayer, the true protagonist is God. Man achieves the fullness of prayer not when he expresses himself, but when he lets God be most fully present in prayer [because] we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings (cf. Rom 8:26).
(John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope)
What matters in prayer is not what we do but what God does in us during those moments. The essential act in prayer is, at bottom, to place one's self in God's presence and to remain there...This presence, which is that of the living God, is active, vivifying. It heals and sanctifies us. We cannot sit before a fire without getting warm.
(Jacques Philippe, Time for God)