“Above all, continuity and constancy are important. Jesus is exemplary. Experience itself, shows that his prayer, enlivened by the fatherhood of God, and by communion with the Spirit, was deepened and prolonged in faithful practice, up to the Garden of Olives, and to the Cross. Today Christians are called to be witnesses of prayer precisely, because our world is often closed to the divine horizon, and to the hope that brings the encounter with God. In deep friendship with Jesus and living in him and with him the filial relationship with the Father, to our constant and faithful prayer we can open windows on God’s Heaven.” (P. 121 “A School of Prayer” by Pope Benedict XVI)
Falling in love can be the thing of an instant flash, the first sight of love, or it can be a long and enduring conversation of friendship slowly moving towards a deeper and complete relationship of giving and sharing in love. Pope Benedict in the quote above is speaking of these moments of grace and love encountered in the prayerful moments of conversation and conversion with Jesus Christ as beloved children of God. The prayer, the moment of insight and understanding the overwhelming love poured into our hearts, can be a thing of an instant flash overwhelming our soul…or it can be the long and enduring conversation slowly wearing through the guards and brokenness of the heart finding healing and joining together in the acts of love and grace.
Like the love for another, Pope Benedict reminds us of how prayer can open the greater horizons where the limitations we and the world can place on our life become chains that are dropped never needed to be picked up again. How prayer, like the gift of love to the other, unites us in a deeply personal and life changing moment of joy and hope in lifting our hearts to gaze upon the horizon of something more; the something of the creative participation in a movement that can never be done alone but must be done in unity and unison with another in mutual and transforming self-sacrifice and self-giving. It is the striving for spousal love of man and woman, it is the familial love fruitful and blessed.
The transforming of prayer from a singular act towards another that moves to a unitive conversation of love gives courage to the heart to reach out and to be formed into something not new but the heart and soul transformed and lit with a spark of bright and gracious peace. It allows the heart to rest becoming part of something greater and more fulfilling where the unitive heals and looks with wonder into the eyes of the other. It is looking and being absorbed into another…gazing into the eyes of a lover, the eyes of Jesus on the Cross.
Pope Francis describes it like the gift of family, “The experience of loving families is a perennial source of strength for the life of the Church. “The unitive end of marriage is a constant summons to make this love grow and deepen. Through their union in love, the couple experiences the beauty of fatherhood and motherhood, and shares plans, trials, expectations, and concerns; they learn to care for one another and mutual forgiveness. In this love, they celebrate their happy moments and support each other in the difficult passages of their life together… The beauty of this mutual, gratuitous gift, the joy which comes from a life that is born and the love and care of all family members—from toddlers to seniors—are just a few of the ways which may make the response to the vocation of the family, unique and irreplaceable,” (Relatio Finalis, #52) both for the Church and for society as a whole.” (Amoris Laetitia #88)
Whether it is an instant spark and bang of first sight, or it is the long wearing and smoothing of the broken into the renewed, prayer draws us into love and love into a relationship with the other and with this into the greater Trinitarian and familial grace and blessing the comes with the cost of a life. It is the invitation to love. “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (Jn 14:6) It is the way of love.
God Bless
Fr. Mark