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Breath Prayer
Breathing in: Lord Jesus Christ
Breathing out: Come Near
Breathing in: Son of God
Breathing out: My Friend
Today's Scriptures
(1) Deuteronomy 30.15-20 (NAB)
Moses said to the people:
“Today I have set before you
life and prosperity, death and doom.
If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,
which I enjoin on you today,
loving him, and walking in his ways,
and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees,
you will live and grow numerous,
and the LORD, your God,
will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.
If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen,
but are led astray and adore and serve other gods,
I tell you now that you will certainly perish;
you will not have a long life
on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy.
I call heaven and earth today to witness against you:
I have set before you life and death,
the blessing and the curse.
Choose life, then,
that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God,
heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.
For that will mean life for you,
a long life for you to live on the land that the LORD swore
he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
(2) Luke 9.22-25 (NAB)
Jesus said to his disciples:
“The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected
by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.”
Then he said to all,
“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
What profit is there for one to gain the whole world
yet lose or forfeit himself?”
Wisdom Story
Nikos Kazantzakis (1885-1957), author of The Last Temptation of Christ, tells, in his autobiography, Report to Greco, of a young man who visits a famous ascetic ...
Working up courage, I entered the cave and proceeded toward the voice. The ascetic was curled up on the ground. He had raised his head, and I was able in the half-light to make out his face as it gleamed in the depths of unutterable beatitude....
I did not know what to say, where to begin.... Finally I gathered up courage.
"Do you still wrestle with the devil, Father Makarios?" I asked him.
"Not any longer, my child. I have grown old now, and he has grown old with me. He doesn't have the strength.... I wrestle with God."
"With God!" I exclaimed in astonishment. "And you hope to win?"
"I hope to lose, my child. My bones remain with me, and they continue to resist."
"Yours is a hard life, Father. I too want to be saved. Is there no other way?"
"More agreeable?" asked the ascetic, smiling compassionately.
"More human, Father."
"One, only one."
"What is it?"
"Ascent. To climb a series of steps. From the full stomach to hunger, from the slaked throat to thirst, from joy to suffering. God sits on the summit of hunger, thirst, and suffering; the devil sits at the summit of a comfortable life. Choose."
"I am still young. The world is nice. I have time to choose."
Reaching out with the five bones of his hand, the ascetic touched my knee and pushed me.
"Wake up, my child. Wake up before death wakes you up."
*Ronald Rolheiser. The Shattered Lantern. Rev. Ed.
Comments
One common metaphor for the spiritual path is ascent. This metaphor shows our choice of Life, wherein the separate-self consciousness dies through a gradually evolving of unitive-consciousness. This entails the integration of what we call the inner life and the outer life.
How do we wake up ~ indeed, get going up ~ before death? This is one focus of the season of Lent, which focuses partly on our mortality, as well as our hope in Eternal Life.
The Christian contemplative tradition clarifies the two general processes of the ascent, the waking up continually to the Life of Christ. First, praxis. Praxis refers to all the practices we can engage to open to the Divine Presence. Next, theoria is our receiving of the Loving Closeness.
Ronald Rolheiser sums up these two processes: "In praxis the heart correctly disposes itself, in theoria the heart receives." The first is active, the second is passive.
Our scriptures today remind us of how we relate to this ascent, our dying into Christ before we die. Both remind us that this ascent is a matter of choice. We each have to decide. And the Luke passage tells us of Jesus' example. To follow Him means a daily choice to imitate Christ and, more, to enter the mystery of His Life, Death, and Resurrection ~ which is the same as having it enter us, for the Christ-consciousness to fill us.
We live in a comfort-grabbing society. We are, in some ways, or many, a spoiled people. Possibly, as in Kazantzakis' story, how far we ascend in Christ will depend on how much we are willing to cease grabbing for constant comfort, how much we are willing to welcome discomfort to take up our cross ~ which is the very Life of Christ in the world ~ and follow Jesus.
Reflection
(1) In what ways might your desire for comfort be keeping you from growing in Christ-likeness?
(2) Remember an experience when you gave up comfort to serve Christ. What did that feel like? What does it teach you?
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