PRAYING THE GOSPELS

PRAYING THE GOSPELS

Our best source of prayer will always be the New Testament. The Gospels in particular are best prayed contemplatively. Here are some suggestions.

1) Pick a short passage from one of the Gospels (e.g. Lk 7:36-50, Jesus with the woman who wept at His feet), and read it once.

2) Settle into a comfortable posture, conducive to peacefully listening to God.

3) Take a few minutes to relax and quiet yourself down. Relax your limbs and face muscles. Give all your cares and concerns to the Lord and let Him hold them for you, while you spend this time in prayer with Him.

4) Be aware that God fills and soaks you with His presence; that He unconditionally loves you, is always conscious of you, always with you.

5) Slowly read the Gospel passage. Believe that the words are God's own words and meant for you -- here and now.

6) Find one or more resting places in the passage. Linger on them. Savor them. Repeat them. Reflect on them in silence. Stay with the same passage during the whole prayer period and repeat it as often as you like.


These five keys summarize the whole contemplative experience with Jesus in the Gospels:

BE THERE WITH HIM.

Be there with Him and for Him. Yes, be there. Have you ever talked with someone who was with you bodily, but not present to you with attention and heart?

WANT HIM.

Hunger for Him. Prepare for His coming and His word, as you would want and eagerly prepare for a visit with the dearest person in your life. Invite Him to reveal and communicate Himself to you, to speak to you and teach you how to listen deeply to Him.

LISTEN TO HIM.

Listen with faith deeply and reverently; listen with trust; listen with hunger to be fed by His word; listen with gratitude and peace, without searching for hidden meanings. Forget about implications, applications, conclusions, resolutions, etc. Be simple, like a child nestled in its father's lap, peacefully listening to his story.

LET HIM.

Let Him what? Just let Him be with you. Let Him be for you what He wants to be. Let Him love you. Let Him speak to you. Let Him hold you and console you and forgive you and strengthen you. Let Him take you through dryness and darkness, if He prefers -- but let Him. What Jesus wants, Jesus deserves. Trust yourself to Him.

RESPOND TO HIM.

Respond to Him in any way you want to or feel moved to respond. Be genuinely yourself and respond honestly, freely, spontaneously, reverently. Speak what is in your heart; say what you feel, even when you feel like complaining. Remember that when you don't know what to say, the Holy Spirit prays in you and for you. Just speaking or whispering the name of Jesus rhythmically with your breathing, or repeating words of praise and thanks, are profoundly prayerful responses.


Contemplative prayer is more feeling, listening to and being aware of God our Father and of Jesus and their Spirit, rather than saying or doing anything. It is more something that God does for us than anything we do for Him. It is consciously being with Him and letting Him be for us the loving God that He is, letting Him fill us with His spirit and letting Jesus become more and more alive and real in us.

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Found another index card

Jerry tucked index cards with quotations in various books. This morning I found one that said,

"God's dice are always loaded.

Emerson"

The Five Ps

THE FIVE Ps

Passage from Scripture.
Pick one and have it marked and ready.

Place.
Where you are alone and uninhibited in your response to God's presence.

Posture.
Relaxed and peaceful. A harmony of body with spirit.

Presence of God.
Be aware of it and acknowledge and respond to it. When ready turn to the

Passage from Scripture.
Read it very slowly aloud and listen carefully and peacefully to it.

PAUSE
Read aloud or whisper in a rhythm with your breathing -- a phrase at a time --with pauses and repetitions when and where you feel like it.

Don't be anxious, don't try to look for implications or lessons or profound thoughts or conclusions or resolutions, etc. Be content to be like a child who climbs into its father's lap and listens to his words and his story.

Carry on a conversation (Colloquy) with the Lord concerning what you hear.

After the period of prayer is over it may be helpful to reflect back over the experience of prayer. This review will help you notice what the Lord is doing in your experience.
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PRAYING WITH SCRIPTURE

GOD SPEAKS TO US

This fundamental truth makes it possible for us to pray to God. He has been concerned for each of us long before we became concerned for ourselves. He desires communication with us. He speaks:

1) through Jesus Christ, His Word;

2) through the Church, the extension of Christ in the world (because we are joined together in Christ, God speaks to us through other people);

3) through visible creation around us, which forms the physical context of our lives. (Creation took place in His Son, and it is another form of God’s self-revelation.);

4) through events and experiences of our lives;

5) through Holy Scripture, a real form of His presence. This is the mode of communication we are most concerned with in prayer.

HE INVITES US TO LISTEN

Our response to God's initial move is to listen to what he is saying. This is the basic attitude of prayer.

HOW TO GO ABOUT LISTENING

What you do immediately before prayer is very important. Normally, it is something you do not rush right into. Spend a few moments quieting yourself and relaxing, settling yourself into a prayerful and comfortable condition.

In listening to anyone, you try to tune out everything except what the person is saying to you. In prayer this can be done best in silence and solitude. Select a short passage from Holy scripture. Read it through a few times to familiarize yourself with it. Put a marker in the page. try to find a quiet place where you can be alone and uninhibited in your response to God's presence. Try to quiet yourself interiorly. Jesus would often go up to a mountain by Himself to prayer with His Father.

In an age of noise, activity, and tensions like our own, it is not always easy or necessary to forget our cares and commitments, the noise and excitement or our environment. Never feel constrained to blot out all distractions. Anxiety in this regard could get between ourselves and God.

Rather, realize that the Word did become flesh -- that He speaks to us in the noise and confusion or our day. Sometimes in preparing for prayer, relax and listen to the sounds around you. God's presence is as real as they are.

Be conscious of your sensations and living experiences of feeling, thinking, hoping, loving, of wondering, desiring, etc. Then, conscious or God's unselfish, loving presence in you, address Him simply and admit: "Yes, you do love life and feeling into me. You do love a share of your personal life into me. You are present to me. You live in me. Yes, You do."

God is present as a person, in you His spirit who speaks to you now in Scripture, and who prays in you and for you. Ask God the grace to listen to what He says. Begin reading Scripture slowly and attentively. Do not hurry to cover much material.

If it recounts an event of Christ's life, be there in the mystery of it. Share with the persons involved, e.g. a blind man being cured. Share their attitude. Respond to what Jesus is saying. Some words or phrases carry special meaning for you. Savor those words, turning them over in your heart. When something strikes you, e.g., you feel a new way or being with Christ. He becomes for you in a new way (e.g., you sense what it means to be healed by Christ.)

1) you experience God's love,

2) you experience new meaning,

3) you are moved to do something good,

4) you are peaceful,

5) you are happy and content just to be in God's presence,

6) you are struggling with or disturbed by what the words are saying.

This is the time to ……pause. This is God speaking directly to you in the words of Scripture. Do not hurry to move on. Wait until you are no longer moved to the experience.

Don't get discouraged if nothing seems to be happening. Sometimes God lets us feel dry and empty in order to let us realize it is not in our own power to communicate with Him or to experience consolation. God is sometimes very close to us in His seeming absence (Ps. 139:7-8.):

Where can I hide from your spirit?
From your presence, where can I flee?
If I ascend to the heavens, you are there;
If I lie down in Sheol, you are there too.

He is for us entirely in a selfless way. He accepts us as we are, with all our limitations -- even with our seeming inability to pray. A humble attitude of listening is a sign of love for Him, and a real prayer from the heart.

At these times remember the words of Paul in Roman 8:26-27: In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because it intercedes for the holy ones according to God's will.

Relax in prayer. Remember, God will speak to you in His own way (Isaiah 55:10¬11): For just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down and do not return there till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, giving it seed to him who sows and bread to him who eats, so shall my word be that goes forth ,from my mouth; it shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.

Spend time in your prayer just being conscious of God's presence in and around you. If you want to, speak with Him about the things your are interested in or wish to thank Him for, your joys, sorrows, aspirations, etc.

Introduction

Fr. Jerry Roux was a member of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. When I knew him, Fr Jerry was assigned to the Oblate Retreat House in Hudson, NH. I was privileged to have Jerry as a spiritual director -- well, most days it felt like a privilege.

Jerry asked me to help him get his writings into a format that could be widely shared. My hope is that this blog will serve that purpose.