In today’s Gospel…
Jesus said to his disciples: “In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
Well, that is pretty clear, isn’t it? Sometimes I begin to pray and do I ever ramble.
Just like me in real life.
Me, my list, my prayers, my solutions.
God knows our every need, yet we often feel compelled, at least I do, to give God not only a detailed list of my problems, but an even more detailed list of solutions. I know that I have a tendency to be bossy, but I have to remind myself, that God is in charge.
Today’s Gospel goes on to remind us that Jesus said, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Thy will be done.
How is it that after all these years, I pray the Lord’s Prayer, saying these words, thy will be done, but then I spend the rest of the day attempting to negotiate this with God.
Will I ever learn?
How do we learn to live as people of faith in a time of instant gratification and a world that tells us that we can and should have whatever we want? I have no clue. What do you think?
When you find out how to do that, please let me know. I know what Richard Rohr says, but that scars me.
Deacon Frank
Experience Needs Discernment of That Experience
Meditation 52 of 57
St. Catherine of Siena in her Dialogues pictures the spiritual life as a large tree:
The trunk of the tree is love.
The core of the tree, that middle part that must be alive for the rest of the tree to be alive, is patience.
The roots of the tree are self-knowledge.
The many branches, reaching out into the air, are discernment.
In other words, says Catherine, love does not happen without patience, self-knowledge, and discernment.
Today we have little encouragement toward honest self-knowledge or training in spiritual discernment from our churches. We prefer the seeming clarity of black-and-white laws. By nature, most of us are not very patient. All of which means love is not going to be very common. We need St. Catherine’s tree again.