"Prayer is, as it were, being alone with
God. A soul prays only when it is turned toward God, and for so long as it
remains so. As soon as it turns away, it stops praying. The preparation for
prayer is thus the movement of turning to God and away from all that is not
God. That is why we are so right when we define prayer as this movement. Prayer
is essentially a 'raising up', an elevation. We begin to pray when we detach
ourselves from created objects and raise ourselves up to the Creator."
— Dom Augustin Guillerand, The Prayer of the Presence
of God, p. 91
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Friday, January 27, 2017
God's "how much more"
A simple
statement of Jesus is always a puzzle to us if we are not simple. How are we
going to be simple with the simplicity of Jesus? By receiving His Spirit,
recognizing and relying on Him, obeying Him as He brings the word of God, and
life will become amazingly simple. “Consider,” says Jesus, “how much more your
Father Who clothes the grass of the field will clothe you, if you keep your
relationship right with Him.” Every time we have gone back in spiritual
communion it has been because we have impertinently known better than Jesus
Christ. We have allowed the cares of the world to come in, and have forgotten
the “much more”of our Heavenly Father.
“Behold
the fowls of the air” — their main aim is to obey the principle of life that is
in them and God looks after them. Jesus says that if you are rightly related to
Him and obey His Spirit that is in you, God will look after your “feathers.”
“Consider
the lilies of the field” — they grow where they are put. Many of us refuse to
grow where we are put, consequently we take root nowhere. Jesus says that if we
obey the life God has given us,
He will look after all the other things. Has
Jesus Christ told us a lie? If we are not experiencing the “much more,” it is
because we are not obeying the life God has given us, we are taken up with
confusing considerations. How much time have we taken up worrying God with
questions when we should have been absolutely free to concentrate on His work?
Consecration means the continual separating of myself to one particular thing.
We cannot consecrate once and for all. Am I continually separating myself to
consider God every day of my life? - Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, 1/26
Thursday, January 26, 2017
How do you love God?
Since all our love for God is
ultimately a response to His love for us, we can never love Him in the same way
He loves us, namely, gratuitously. Since we are fundamentally dependent on God
and in His debt for our creation and redemption, our love is always owed to
Him, a duty, a response to His love. But we can love our neighbor in the same
way that He loves us, gratuitously—not because of anything the neighbor has
done for us or because of anything that we owe him, but simply because love has
been freely given to us. We thereby greatly please the Father. God the Father
tells Catherine [of Siena]: This is why I have put
you among your neighbors: so that you can do for them what you cannot do for
me—that is, love them without any concern for thanks and without looking for
any profit for yourself. And whatever you do for them I will consider done for
me."
– Ralph Martin, Fulfillment of Desire, p. 261
– Ralph Martin, Fulfillment of Desire, p. 261
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