He will return with his immense heart, with his heart of fire, his poor man's soul
and his smile. He will return! And the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph!

THE LIGHT IN THE NIGHT

SCHOOL OF PRAYER

There are many ways of praying, or of meeting God in prayer. Which is the best? The best for each person is the way that helps that particular person to meet God and remain in intimate contact with Him, heart to heart, thrilling with love for the Father with the heart of Jesus Christ, assuming the same longings and sentiments as Jesus Christ Himself, becoming one with Christ as He wished us to do and prayed in this sense to the Father: « I pray not only for these but also for those who through their teaching will come to believe in Me (…) just as, Father, You are in Me and I am in You, so that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe it was You who sent Me. », (Jn 17.20-21).

In this sublime prayer of Christ’s, we perceive God’s plans for us: to be one with Him by our union with Christ: « just as, Father, You are in Me and I am in You, so that they also may be in Us ». But this union with God can only be achieved through prayer; it is in prayer that we meet God, and it is in this meeting that He communicates to us His grace, His gifts, His love and His pardon.

We see that, in his prayer, Jesus Christ also asked on our behalf. « I pray not only for these but also for those who through their teaching will come to believe in Me ». And we have the happiness of being among those who, through the word of the Apostles which was transmitted to us by their successors, believe in the Lord, which is what Christ also asked the Father on our behalf. I feel so happy when I think that I was present to Him when He addressed this prayer to the Father; that He was thinking about me and presented me to the Father as the child of His love!

He thought of me, He thought of you, He thought of the countless multitude of his brothers and sisters. And in order for our own prayer to be imbued with the same yearnings and sentiments as Jesus’ own prayer, it must be united to His prayer for all those who will come to believe in Him and will be saved by His merits.

Let us go back to what I was saying about the various ways of praying. Our prayer can be predominantly « vocal », that is addressed to God in words, either those that well up spontaneously from our heart or using existing formulas such as, for example, the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Glory be to the Father, the Creed and many other such prayers that are used in the Sacred Liturgy.

This is the most common way of praying, and it is also the most accessible to the ordinary faithful. Moreover, it has been recommended to us by Jesus Christ himself. « Pray then like this. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (Mt 6.9-13). This is the most sublime form of vocal prayer, because it was taught to us by the Son of God Himself. So we must pray it with renewed devotion, confidence, humility and love.

Then there is another kind of prayer which we must offer to God together with our vocal prayer: it is the « prayer of our work », of the performance of all the duties in our state in life in a spirit of humble submission to God, because it was He who imposed on us the law of work. We must do it with love and fidelity to God and to our neighbour; in this way, our everyday occupations, however seemingly insignificant, when offered to God will be a prayer of praise, thanksgiving, repentance and petition. Like Tobit, to whom the angel said: « And so, when you and your daughter-in-law Sarah prayed, I brought a reminder of your prayer before the Holy One; and when you buried the dead, I was likewise present with you. When you did not hesitate to rise and leave your dinner in order to go and lay out the dead, your good deed was not hidden from me, but I was with you. » (Tb 12.12-13)

This passage of Sacred Scripture tells us how we are to use the time that God gives us in our lives: part of it must be devoted to prayer, another part to performing the duties of our state in life and the rest in doing good to others for the love of God. There are twenty-four hours in every day; we are doing nothing special if we set aside a few minutes of each day for our encounter with God.

In carrying out our everyday tasks, we must endeavour to be aware of God’s presence: call to mind that God and our Angel Guardian are close to us, see what we are doing, and in what frame of mind we are doing it. Hence, we must sanctify our work, our rest, our meals, our wholesome entertainments, as if they were an on-going prayer. Knowing that God is present, it is enough to call Him to mind and from time to time say a few words to Him: whether of love – I love you, Lord! 

– or of thanksgiving – Thank you, Lord for all your benefits-,

– or of petition: « Lord, help me to be faithful to You; forgive me my sins, my ingratitude, my coldness, my failure to understand, my backsliding 

– or of praise –1 bless you, Lord, for your greatness, for your goodness, for your wisdom, for your power, for your mercy, for your justice, for your love.

This intimate and familiar converse with God transforms our work and our daily occupations into a true and abiding life of prayer, making us more pleasing to God and bringing down upon us extra special graces and blessings.

And we cannot say that we have no time for this kind of prayer, because it is precisely the time that we are using in order to do our work. Like a wife working alongside her husband, chatting quietly and intimately with him, telling him how much she appreciates all he does for the family, praising his knowledge and experience, encouraging him in his work, asking him for his help and advice, telling him about her worries and desires. Or like children who show their father everything, tell their father everything, and expect everything from him. Like a mother bringing up her children, who always has something to say to them even when they, either because they are very small, or because they are not paying attention, cannot understand her. God, however, always understands what we say, always listens to us, always sees us and always pays attention to us.

Then there is mental prayer, which is popularly spoken of as « meditation ». It consists in placing ourselves in the presence of God in order to reflect on one or other of the revealed Mysteries, some episode in the life of Our Lord, some point of doctrine, the Law of God, or even about one or other of the virtues which we find in Jesus Christ, in Our Lady or in the Saints, as an example for us.

This prayer is very advantageous if we make it well. In order to do so, we have to talk to God about the subject on which we are meditating; look at ourselves in order to see what we lack in order to grow in the virtue corresponding to the subject on which we are meditating, as, for example, an increase in faith, humility, charity, or a spirit of sacrifice, in order to overcome our repugnances and difficulties, our idiosyncrasies and defects, our temptations. And all this is accomplished in an intimate conversation with the Lord: discussing everything with Him, confident that it is He who will give us the light, grace and strength that will enable us to remain faithful to the end and achieve the ideal of supernatural life that we have set before ourselves and that God wills and expects of us.

Then there is the prayer which is habitually called « contemplation ». This consists in an even closer intimacy with God; in which those practising it enter more deeply into the presence of God within them, abandoning themselves more intimately to the work of the grace, light, and love of God within them.

Wrapped in a supernatural atmosphere, the soul allows itself to be imbued, raised up, and transformed by the action of God within it, purifying and absorbing it; it finds itself purified, transformed and uplifted by a divine action which it feels, but does not know how. God can certainly grant this grace to a person without any effort on the person’s part, but ordinarily the Lord waits for the soul to reach this point by being faithful to the paths of vocal and mental prayer, because it is by this way that the soul is purified and lets go of the things of earth in order to entrust itself to God alone.

Very few indeed are the souls that reach this point because very few indeed are the ones who let go completely of the materialism of life, of the ambitions born of self-love, covetousness, pride and marks of respect. And even if these things do not reach the point of being actually sinful, they nevertheless sprinkle the soul with the dust of earth and prevent it from rising to the higher regions of the supernatural.

Hence they will never savour the intimate delights of divine love, because God can only grant these to souls when they are anxious to receive His graces, ready to listen to His voice and follow in His ways. There is nothing on earth which can be compared to the happiness experienced by a soul in this intimate union with God. Unfortunately, we are not able to appreciate these gifts or the true value of such riches, nor do we know how to live this gift. For this, too, we require a special gift from God which we do not deserve, but which He grants to us in His mercy and out of the great love He has for us.

(Calls, pp. 93-97)