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Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Lent
Jesus met him in the Temple and said, “Now you are well again, do not sin any more.” John 5:14
Prayer heals. Not just the answer to prayer. When we give up our competition with God and offer God every part of our heart, holding back nothing at all, we come to know God’s love for us and discover how safe we are in his embrace. Once we know again that God has not rejected us, but keeps us close to his heart, we can find again the joy of living, even though God might guide our life in a different direction from our desires.
I hardly remember what it was, but a small critical remark and a few irritations during my work in the bakery were enough to tumble me head-over-heels into a deep, morose mood. Many hostile feelings were triggered and in a long sequence of morbid associations, I felt worse and worse about myself, my past, my work, and all the people who came to mind. But happily I saw myself tumbling and was amazed how little was needed to lose my peace of mind and to pull my whole world out of perspective. Oh, how vulnerable I am.
The milieu of this place fully of prayerful people prevents me from acting out, from getting angry, from bursting open. I can sit down and see how quickly the little empty place of peace in my heart is filled again with rocks and garbage falling down from all sides.
It is hard to pray in such a mood. But still during Terce, the short prayer immediately after work, standing outside in our dirty work clothes, we read: “Is anyone among you in trouble? He should turn to prayer.” Indeed prayer is the only real way to clean my heart and to create new space. I am discovering how important that inner space is. When it is there it seem that I can receive many concerns of others in it without becoming depressed. When I sense that inner quiet place, I can pray for many others and feel a very intimate relationship with them. There even seems to be room for the thousands of suffering people in prisons and in the deserts of North Africa. Sometimes I feel as if my heart expands from my parents traveling in Indonesia to my friends in Los Angeles and from the Chilean prisons to the parishes in Brooklyn.
Now I know that it is not I who pray but the spirit of God who prays in me. Indeed, when God’s glory dwells in me, there is nothing too far away, nothing too painful, nothing too strange or too familiar that it cannot contain and renew by its touch. Every time I recognize the glory of God in me and give it space to manifest itself to me, all that is human can be brought there and nothing will be the same again. Once in a while I just know it: of course, God hears my prayer. He himself prays in me and touches the whole world with his love right here and now.
Our Prayer
O Lord Jesus Christ,
you who forgave the sins of the paralytic
before you let him walk again,
I pray that this Lenten period
may make me more aware
of your forgiving presence in my life
and less concerned about performing well
in the eyes of my world.
Let me recognize you
at this virginal point in the depth of my heart
where you dwell and heal me.
Let me experience you in that center of my being
from which you want to teach and guide me.
Let me know you as my loving brother
who holds nothing —
not even my worst sins —
against me,
but who wants to touch me in a gentle embrace.
Take away the many fears, suspicions, and doubts
by which I prevent you from being my Lord,
and give me the courage and freedom
to appear naked and vulnerable
in the light of your presence,
confident in your unfathomable mercy.
I know how great my resistance is,
how quickly I choose the darkness
instead of the light.
But I also know that you keep calling
me into the light,
where I can see not only my sins
but your gracious face as well.
Be with me every hour of my days.
Praise and glory to you, now and forever.
Amen.
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