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Prayer
Breathing Exercise (adapted from God of Surprises by Gerry W Hughes SJ)
This exercise involves concentrating all your attention on the physical feelings of breathing in and breathing out, without deliberately changing the rhythm of your breathing. Focus attention on feeling the cold air entering your nostrils and the warm air when you exhale. At first you may become self-conscious about your breathing and find it becomes irregular, but this does not, as a rule, continue. If it were to do so, and you find yourself becoming breathless, then this exercise is not for you at present. Most people find that on doing this exercise the pattern of their breathing changes, the breath becoming deeper and slower, and they begin to feel drowsy. In itself, it is a very good relaxation exercise, but if you care to use it for more explicit prayer, then let the inbreathing express all that you long for in life, however impossible it may seem in practice, and let the out-breath express your surrender of everything to God, all of your life with its worries, sins, guilt, and regrets.
It is important to do this without self-judgment, whether of approval or disapproval. Keep your attention fixed on your desire to hand over all these worries about self, and do not clutch at them as if they were a treasured possession.
www.sacredspace.ie, site of Irish Jesuits
Quote
Do not seek God in pure contemplation, rather, cease seeking God, there and then, as an object to be sought, that you might discover that God is already seeking you as Subject and your very seeking is treating God as an object that can be found, rather than Someone who is already intimately part of your seeking and that you might cease to seek and start to enjoy with you in Christ Jesus fully and already.
Story
A monk spoke to the abbot. “Father, even though I seek God, I do not find God. Why is that?” Replied the abbot, “For, my son, when you first began this Journey, you sought and found God; now, you are to cease seeking God that you might find God. Can what is here be sought, as though it is not here and, thus, found elsewhere than here?”
A monk asked his Spiritual Teacher, while they walked down the street, “Master, how can I find Jesus Christ?” The Teacher smiled and to a lady walking by. Spoke the Master, “To find Jesus Christ, just quit not seeing Him.” The monk was confused and thought that the Master was just joking around: but he was not.
Once a church member became angry that her pastor said, “The Holy Spirit is in everyone.” She went to approach him on the matter. He asked her, after listening to her contention that the Holy Spirit is only in Christians, “Ma’am, where is God?” “Everywhere.” Then, he asked her, “Where is God not?” Frustrated, she said with an irritated tenor, “As I said, God must be at all places, so God cannot not be somewhere!” “Then,” replied the pastor, “why are you angry that I said the Holy Spirit is in everyone. Is not the Holy Spirit God?” The woman, confounded, gave up the argument.
Comments
The early Church taught that from the innermost self, the True Self, the Center, or spirit, we can enjoy living contact with the blessed Trinity. Why is this so? The Spirit of God is in living contact with spirit, so the spirit can reciprocate in living contact with Spirit.
The heart is the center of affection and will, and the heart alone cannot retain living contact with the Spirit. Affection and will is aligned with the Holy Spirit through the living contact shared by Spirit with spirit, in loving knowledge that surpasses human knowledge: the knowledge of ineffable delight and union.
The same principle applies to the mind. Dogmatic religion relies on the mind, two steps from Spirit and spirit. Indeed, conceptual knowledge can lead to the door of the heart, but can become a block to heart and spirit. Mind itself must flow from transformation of the heart by spirit and Spirit in living contact; then, the heart leads to transformation of mind. This is why persons relying on a mental, dogmatic faith cannot be aligned with either the heart or the heart-aligned-with-Spirit and spirit. This is the major failure of all fundamentalist religion and purely academic religion: both are divorced from the contemplative depths, which is the indwelling of Spirit and spirit, together, which transforms heart and mind into the spiritual.
Only Love, as the outgoing of Spirit, not a mere affection or will of heart or thought of mind, brings us to the Trinity, and sends us ourselves back outward in Love to others. Therefore, all truly selfless Love must come from the spirit and Spirit, in loving and ineffable union.
Reflection
Define “loving and ineffable union” with God.
How does living contact with the Holy Spirit contrast with a dogma of the Holy Spirit?
Is it possible for one mentally to believe about the Trinity and not know the Trinity in heart? Explain.
How might it be possible for a person not given the language of the Christian faith to experience the truth of the Christian faith, having living contact with the Holy Spirit and based on Christ Jesus as Truth arising from and returning to Spirit, to God the Father?
Spiritual Exercise
Keep spending at least twenty to thirty minutes daily in Silence, resting in the Lord of Love.
Explore the website www.sacredspace.ie offered by the Irish Jesuits and do some of the meditation exercises offered at the site.
Consider, if you are not already, sponsoring a child through Compassion International. You can find out more about Compassion International by going to www.compassion.net to read about sponsoring, in the name of Jesus, children living in poverty. Thanks! Brian K. Wilcox
To contact Brian, write briankwilcox@comcast.net .
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