Prayer Lessons Learned on a Bike Path

There's a sort of strange phenomenon that happens sometimes when one is riding a bike. If one is riding on a bike path, for instance, and comes to the place where the path crosses a road there will be posts which signal to the biker that they need to be wary. In the paths around my hermitage anyway, it takes real skill and more importantly, a particular perspective, to ride a bike through these posts without crashing into them! (They seem more narrowly spaced than in the above picture.)

You see, the interesting phenomenon is that if one focuses one's attention on the posts themselves and tries to avoid them in this way, if, that is, one looks from right to left and back again and again while thinking something like, "I must steer away from that post, and I must do the same here on the right," one merely ensures one will crash into them! But if the biker keeps focused on the place where the wheel meets the path and just keeps peddling, s/he will move forward smoothly and sail right through the posts. We heard the Biblical version of this dynamic last Wednesday when the Gospel from Luke had Jesus admonishing folks that, "One who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is unfit for the Kingdom." Jesus' point was also about perspective. To plow a straight furrow, to make a field fit for a huge harvest, one has to keep one's eyes on a distant point; otherwise the furrows one plows will veer off and leave the field unready, unplantable, and fallow. So much of the spiritual life is about maintaining a truly human (and divine!) perspective!

In today's Mass readings ** this whole problem shows itself again. In Paul's letter to the Galatians the Apostle is telling the story of  the making of Israel into a People of faith and a blessing to the nations. Abraham is the Father of faith and for him and for the rest of the OT and the NT as well we come to understand that real faith is about allowing God to be God and keeping a longer perspective; in that way of seeing things we trust that if we keep our focus on God while we remain open to his living presence within us God will then draw us beyond any obstacles and make of us a People who are a blessing (that is, who mediate God's presence and power) to all of the world! A piece of Paul's story is about keeping our eyes (and our hearts) focused on or centered in God. This is a lesson we ought to hear very clearly, especially if we seek to be people of prayer! For in the main, prayer is not something we do; it is something God does in us and something he MAKES of us! Often our only job in prayer is to sit down, shut up, fold our hands quietly (some of us fold them into our cowls to make the point more acute!), and allow God the time and space to do whatever it is God desires to do with and in us.

This attitude of prayer is really the heart of the Covenant. Remember its term and essential dynamic: "You shall be my people and I shall be your God!" This does not refer merely or perhaps even primarily to an external contract between God and Israel (though this, of course, is involved) but rather to the God-Events they will become if they allow God to really BE GOD within them.  In other words, let me be the fire that moves and empowers you, let me be the love that makes you whole and impassions your love for others, let me make you missionaries of MY presence and we will transform the world with my touch! The symbol of this covenant is the Law and it truly does indicate what such human beings look like: they love God above all else, they are other-centered and do not covet or steal or commit adultery or bear false witness or do murder, and so forth. In a sense the tablets of the Law are a bit like the posts on the bike path. They signal caution and mark when we have gone off course, but they are not supposed to draw our entire attention or become the focus of our spiritual perspective and efforts, much less are they meant to become obstacles causing us to stop all forward movement out of fear. That way lies disaster, just as it does on the bike path --- or in the field we are trying to plow!

And this is what Paul is describing in today's reading from Galatians. The Jewish leadership and through them much of the People of Israel have lost their perspective. They are not focused on simply allowing God to work in them or trusting that he will make of them a blessing to the nations. Their gaze has been drawn from God's presence to the Law he gave as a gift and like the biker who becomes focused on AVOIDING the posts and so inevitably crashes into them, they do the same with the Law. They are so focused on avoiding sin that they are drawn straight into it because they cease to trust sufficiently in the power of God and the perspective this faith gives them to move forward in their journey. In fact, so blinded have they become in all of this, so narrow and constricted their perspective, so concerned with the strictures of the law and the achievement and protection of an isolating personal holiness rather than the vision of life the Law celebrates, that when the very fulfillment of the Law, the living Covenant-with-God comes up to them from their midst, they condemn him for blasphemy and murder him in the name of the Law!

It is this same blindness, whether willful or not, which Luke also describes in today's Gospel. The Jews do exorcisms. Jesus does exorcisms. When Israel does them they consider this to be the power of God at work through them, but when Jesus exorcises demons, Israel considers that he does so by the power of evil! They see him clearly through the lens of the law, but it is this lens which prevents them seeing he is the fulfillment of the law; he is the human being who reveals covenant with God to be the essence of our humanity and covenant with us to be the fulfillment of God's will and Kingdom as well. Like bikers who get anxious about and focused on the posts in the bike path rather than the path, the distant goal, or the One who draws them inexorably to that goal, Israel's relation to the law ensures they crash big time! Christians. however, hold the cross and God's victory over sin and death before themselves at all times; we trust that precisely in Jesus' abject helplessness and openness to his Father's powerful presence, God has raised him from the dead, and therefore will continue to overcome every obstacle, every instance of sin and death. The cross is quite simply how Christians maintain a long view which allows them to move forward in justified confidence and the powerful love of God.

In our spiritual lives, especially, we really must keep focused on God, and not as a reality merely or even mainly external to ourselves. Like Abraham we must be people of faith, people who trust God to act within us and who allow God to do so in a way which will draw us past any obstacles that stand along our path. "Prayer" that is more focused on self than on God is not prayer; "prayer" that is full of effort and the need to achieve or control is not prayer. Prayer that is anxious and concerned with or focused on our own sin rather than simply mindfully bringing all that to the touch of God's powerful and transformative mercy, is not the prayer God calls us to! As Proverbs also reminds us: [[ 25 Keep your eyes straight ahead; ignore all (sideshow) distractions. 26 Watch your step, and the road will stretch out smooth before you. 27 Look neither right nor left; leave evil in the dust.]] If we do this the fire of God's life will be allowed to heal, empower, and inflame us so that we may transform the world with our presence! In short, we shall become the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham, a People saved by grace received in faith, a People as innumerable as the stars who are a genuine blessing to the entire creation!

** Galatians 3:7-14, Luke 11:15-26

Why isn't your Vocation Selfishness Personified?

[[Dear Sr Laurel, I have long thought the hermit vocation is a selfish one. I have read blogs by so-called hermits and they seem to be completely self-centered --- I am not speaking of yours here, but if you google "hermit blogs" or "Catholic hermit" blogs you will find blogs by "hermits" whose entire focus is on how much they suffer and their own growth in holiness. It's all "me, me, me." You claim that the vocation is essentially one of love, but how do hermits really love others if they are living in solitude? You also claim that your vocation is a gift of the Holy Spirit, but isn't this just a way of excusing selfishness? Anyone can say they are doing something because of "love" but the proof of that is in the pudding, as the saying goes. How does the church figure out whether someone is saying they are called to this as a way of loving others instead of just being selfish? It seems like a really easy lie to tell yourself and your diocese.]] (Redacted to shorten email)

You know, these are terrific questions. They are really excellent because they go to the heart of the matter of discerning, choosing, and living this life well; they also reprise a position that even a few great Church Fathers have held. Sometimes it is monastics more generally that are accused of selfishness. It is all that "fuga mundi" (flee the world) stuff (which is entirely valid and laudable when understood properly) coupled with a theology of consecrated life that strongly disparaged lay and secular vocations. We, as the People of God, are still outgrowing a lot of that but have begun making serious inroads thanks to Vatican II's emphasis on the universal call to holiness. Progress here is also due to the fact that we are becoming more sensitized to the place of active ministry in our world as well as to the importance of secularity and mission. Even so, we also are coming to a greater awareness that being has priority over doing, that mission depends upon the impulse and assistance of the missionary God empowering us, and that loving others is not possible unless we have been loved ourselves. This means there will always be a place for contemplative and even eremitical vocations which witness to this foundational relationship and need.

I have seen at least some of the blogs you seem to be speaking of and there is no doubt that if one is looking for self-centeredness one can find it by googling the terms you have cited. I have written about such supposedly "eremitical" lives in the past along with posts on hermit stereotypes and misunderstandings, inadequate reasons for seeking to live an eremitical life, the counter cultural nature of the vocation --- especially in a world which is strongly individualistic and even narcissistic, as well as on the charism of the vocation which presents genuine solitude as a form of communion which represents the redemption of individualism, isolation, and alienation. Recently I read an article called " The Urban Hermit Abnormal Personality" which takes some of what you have noted and a lot of what I have written against and identified it with the "urban hermit personality" in today's society. (To be honest, it is not clear the author is actually referring to urban diocesan hermits at all in this piece. While he might well think of these as selfishness personified AND institutionalized, he may merely have been giving a colorful name to misanthropes, and walking wounded who choose to live as isolated loners.)

The problem is that some "hermits" provide grist for this author's mill and, because they are truly seeking to validate as well as excuse their own self-centeredness, they do the vocation no favors when they write about being or becoming a hermit. (N.B., validation goes beyond excusing self-centeredness and is therefore more problematical.) So how is my vocation (both my own vocation and the vocation more generally) one which is founded on love then? How can a vocation which is more about being than doing really be loving in the way we usually associate with the lives of Religious? These are the ways I would restate your question, "How do hermits really love others?" and the approaches I would like to use to begin to respond to it.

Rooted in a Necessary Selfishness:

First of all, my vocation is grounded in the love of God. God has called me to it, that call has been validated and in fact mediated to me by the Church and I trust it. This means that I trust it is not merely selfishness masquerading as something worthy, much less something Divine or sacred. For me this is a piece of things I had not really appreciated sufficiently until after perpetual eremitical profession when several concerns and sources of anxiety dropped away. It is part of the freedom I experienced and have spoken about when I described not having to worry any longer about whether I was really called to something else, or whether I should be conforming my life to the expectations and norms of the world around me --- including the world of apostolic or ministerial Religious and the church more generally. Further, God continues to call me in this way on a daily basis and my own engagement with God in prayer and everyday living attests to growth in this love.

It is this growth which points to a necessary and entirely graced "selfishness" in answering any call. I have responded to God and done so out of love for God and his People but there is no doubt that I have also found this the means to personal healing and growth in human wholeness and holiness. I continue responding to God day by day. You see, my own life was once dominated by chronic illness. I have done a lot in spite of it (education, work, ministry) but even so most of the time achievements were hard-won things and often the illness itself "won out." As a result I was once simply unable to serve in the way I felt called to serve, whether that was directly because of the illness or because of the human brokenness, limitations, and incapacity which accompanied it. More fundamentally, my illness prevented me from being the human being I felt called to be, from relating to others or loving in the ways I thought (knew) I should love; it was a dominating, sometimes all-consuming reality and it crippled me on every level. Not least it prevented me from truly loving myself, and therefore, from effectively loving anyone else in the radical way Christ calls us each to do. It is at this point that eremitical life enters the picture and becomes important.

The first time I read canon 603 I realized that if this really pointed to a vital form of Christian life it could well provide the context for a life in which illness was deprived of its power to disrupt, dominate, and even define me. In other words it could provide a context in which every aspect of my life could make sense and thus become fruitful in some yet-to-be-defined sense. There is a selfishness involved here, a fundamental concern with the sense of one's own life, yes; it is a necessary form of selfishness which requires we love ourselves (and I mean truly love ourselves!!) in order that we may love our neighbors AS ourselves. In other words, I had to find a way to live a responsive and covenantal life with God in which God's grace could actually triumph over powers of darkness and death as they manifested themselves in my own life and heart. I had to find a way to deprive illness of its power to dominate and define, its ability to foster self-hatred in me. Solitary eremitical life provides the God-given context and means for that for me. In answering any divine call this particular form of "selfishness" will be present, and I would argue it must if we are to love others as we are truly called to do. This "truly loving oneself" is the necessary and graced form of selfishness on which the Great Commandment is based.

The Primacy of Being over Doing:

I think this points to a certain primacy of being over doing. We really must be persons who love ourselves in the power of God's love if we are to love others as God calls us to do. Of course we cannot omit the whole "going out and doing" dimension, but what I have found is that if  we touch others FROM a place of essential solitude (which means from a place of  personal communion with God) our very lives will be ministerial --- whether or not we are otherwise engaged in apostolic or ministerial activity. In other words what we do must and can only truly be a reflection of who we are; activity must and can only flow from contemplation; being must have priority so that it may define and guide whatever it is we do. More, it must be our primary ministry. This may sound counter cultural or contrary to the emphasis of so much  which is prevalent in our church and world today --- and it is! But it is also valid and an important lesson or witness our world and our Church needs.

Both our Church and our world often seem to preference doing over being, so much so that folks are out doing (teaching, ministering, etc) in all kinds of ways long before they have achieved the degree of human wholeness and wisdom necessary for that. (The stereotype of the psychologically wounded or crippled psychiatrist is a good symbol of this. So, unfortunately, is the image of the predatory priest turned loose to minister again because of a dearth of priests. So, for instance, is the glut of self-help books on the market offering instant wisdom and expertise for the price of a paperback, the "advanced degrees" which can be purchased for a couple of hundred dollars, or the prevalence of cheating and plagiarism in today's world!) While to some extent we all learn by doing, and while we all need to be interns and novices at various stages in our lives, my point is we tend to preference doing over being in ways which can be destructive.

But if the priority of being over doing is a profound truth which is in danger of being lost sight of today it is the very thing hermits and other contemplatives remind our church and world of --- and doing so is a profound act of love which, potentially at least, may leave no one untouched. For solitary hermits in particular, I think we witness to the profound sense life makes in communion with God, even when that life cannot issue in active ministry to others. For this reason I have written a lot in this blog about the witness we give to the chronically ill, the isolated elderly, the bereaved, and even to prisoners. I have spoken of it as the unique charism or gift quality of the hermit's life. As I have also noted here, all of these persons are marginalized, not least by the fact that they cannot measure the value and fruitfulness of their lives in the terms so prevalent today. They cannot compete in terms of productivity or various kinds of achievement (academic, political, etc). They cannot be terrific consumers or measure their lives in economic terms; often they require the assistance of others and government subsidies and aid even to live. But the hermit, and indeed all contemplatives say that such lives are infinitely valuable nonetheless.

And yet it is the Gospel message that we are justified (made right and truly human as part of a covenant relationship with God) through the gratuitous grace of God, not through any works of our own. By extension that message is also the message that our lives are of infinite worth simply because we are who we are, not because of what we do. Hermits proclaim that message with their lives in a unity of being and doing. I don't mean to suggest that others do not  act out of such a unity; I know they do. However, for hermits, our only role in the church is to be ourselves in God alone --- no one else. (It is this reason failing as a hermit is so easy, and trying to live as one is so risky. It is this reason mediocrity is so easy. Hermits do not tend to have active ministries they can use to distract from who they are first of all. They cannot use the roles they fill to soften the fact that they are not really WHO God has called them to be.) Who they ARE in God IS their ministry, and the fact that this happens by the grace of God in the silence of solitude IS their message. They can fall back on nothing else. (This too is one reason hermits are not called to active ministry and must be careful in even the limited amount in which they might engage. Their vocation really is to BE themselves in God alone. Their primary (or only) ministry really is in being and in calling folks to the primacy of being, not in doing.)

How does the Church Discern authentic vocations?

There is one main way the Church discerns the difference between inauthentic and authentic vocations. She demands that authentic vocations are vocations of love which contribute to the salvation of the world and praise and glorify God (make God manifest). One way of doing this is to look at the place of God in the hermit's life and discourse. While some self-proclaimed hermits do write about "Me, me, me" so that even their writing about spirituality becomes only secondarily about God, the genuine article makes it clear that they are who they are and do what they do only because of God.

So, for instance, if chronic illness is a piece of the hermit's life it is no longer the dominant or overarching theme; instead, what God has done (or does day by day!) in their lives both in spite of and with the illness will be the dominant theme. As a person matures even the illness may be seen as a genuine grace --- not articulated in some pious pretense of medieval mystical misery, but in the sense that this has brought the person to God and allowed God both a unique entry into her life and the achievement of a unique voice which will be mediated to others through both strength and weakness. That life then becomes "a silent preaching of the Lord" --- just as the CCC refers to in par 921. In other words, what God's grace makes possible in terms of human wholeness and holiness is their main focus and the key in which all else is set. The person becomes something very much greater and more articulate than a cry of anguish; she becomes instead an expression of the Gospel and an embodied reflection of God's own Logos. None of this means that the person cannot occasionally talk about themselves or their illness, sinfulness, brokennesses, etc, but it does mean that doing so occurs mainly in order to illustrate the grace of God's love and in contrast to the wholeness that grace has achieved in the person's life.

Thus, I would suggest that it is really not all that easy to lie about this matter. It is true that one can cover misery and brokenness with all kinds of pious platitudes, but the real person always shines through. More, the real God shines through in a compelling way when the hermit is authentic. The blogs you refer to affirm this in a kind of via negativa. Even for hermits in the early stages of grappling with this vocation and their own growth in it what comes through is their hope, their hunger to respond generously and wholeheartedly, their desire to give God free reign to work in their lives as God will. There will be some sense that this is primarily and sincerely done for God and those precious to God. Dioceses that take time to really listen to the candidate and get to know them will see clearly who has priority in their lives, even when the healing is partial or the grip of illness is still quite strong. On the other hand, I would agree with you that it is much easier to lie to oneself and I would note that this is one (but only one) of the reasons dioceses turn away FAR more applicants than they accept or eventually admit to temporary much less perpetual profession.

In my own experience dioceses usually look carefully at who the person is in light of their life of the silence of solitude. If they see increased growth in human maturity, wholeness, and holiness, if they see a greater capacity to love themselves and others, then they have reason to believe that the person is truly called by God to this. If they do not see this, or if the person seems to become more miserable or eccentric while living in this way, more isolated and alienated, or if they become more and more strident and bitter about not being admitted to vows, more critical of the vocation itself, etc, then the diocese is probably justified in their decision not to profess or even to admit them to serious discernment --- at least for the time being.

The Bottom Line in Discerning Eremitical Vocations:

At bottom there will always be questions of love: Is the person motivated by love? Does she love God and seek to respond wholeheartedly to God's love? Does she show signs of truly loving herself because of what she has experienced of God's love (especially) in solitude? Does she understand that simply living her life alone with God with the graced (in-Spired) integrity she is called to is an act of profound love the world desperately needs? And, finally, does she undertake (or desire to undertake) and embrace the WHOLE of this life, its discipline, monotony or tedium, sacrifices and rewards, occasional desolations and enormous consolations,  because she recognizes the gift (charism) it is not only to herself, but to the church, and to the world? Does she do so, in other words, on their behalf as well as on her own, and maybe better said, does she do so for them because that truly fulfills her as well? Again then, contrary to your own opinion I would argue that it is pretty difficult to fake convincing answers to these questions, especially as a vocation matures. A diocese whose vocational personnel are careful and discerning will recognize a life in which God (love-in-act) is glorified (made manifest), just as they will recognize its opposite.

By the way, this is a piece of why such vocations must be mutually discerned and why the Church reserves the term Catholic hermit for someone living the life in her name.  Hermits and other contemplatives tend to speak of themselves as living at the heart of the Church. This saying has a number of levels or dimensions but above all it means that the hermit represents a vocation to love which both precedes and grounds all apostolic activity. The journeying in the wilderness and the battling with demons a hermit does is mainly the sojourn she undertakes deep into her own heart and the heart of God so that love may truly predominate in all things. When I speak of taking on the rights and obligations of the eremitical life as a diocesan hermit I am speaking in large part of assuming the burdens and joy of these "bottom line" questions and this pilgrim role in a conscious and public way in the name of the Church and her Gospel.

The Lord's Prayer: Concerning ourselves With God's Life and Plans (Reprised)

Today's Gospel includes Matthew's version of the Lord's Prayer. As we continue to focus on the basic themes of Lent it is only appropriate that the Church looks at what prayer is and reminds us of Jesus' own instruction in it --- what was primary and what followed naturally. In Lent one of the things we attempt to do is die to self in ways which make us more open to God's presence, God's Word, God's own hallowing of his name within us and in our world. We fast in ways which help us set aside our more superficial needs; we open ourselves to the love of God which we allow ourselves to savor so that we might be profoundly nourished and God's own will be done, God's own life be fulfilled in and with us. Our Lenten journey reminds us that genuine spirituality is forgetful of self, that it "gets out of the way" and lays aside self-consciousness. In today's gospel, Jesus (via Matt) provides a model of prayer which assists in this. It is a model of prayer in which we concern ourselves first and last with God's own needs, and with being there FOR HIM! We know it as the Lord's Prayer

In the first three petitions (and the invocation too, though that is a topic for another time!) we concern ourselves with God's very self (holiness and name refer to God's own self, not to mere characteristics or tags); we ask that he might be powerfully present in our world (because both name and the hallowing he is refer to a powerful presence which creates and recreates whatever it is allowed to touch and make holy). With the second petition especially, we open ourselves to his sovereignty, that is, to his very selfhood and life as it is shared with his creation. God assumes a position of sovereignty over that creation when his life is truly shared and that creation achieves genuine freedom in the process, but the reign or kingdom of God refers to God's own life once again --- this time as a covenantal or mutual reality. And, with the third petition in particular, we open ourselves to the will of God --- to the future and shape of a reality which is ordered by his sovereignty and fulfilled by his presence.

Now, it is true that God possesses what is called aseity. That is, he is completely self-sufficient and in need of nothing and no one. But that is only one part of the paradox that stands at the heart of our faith. The other side of the paradox is that our God is One who has determined to need us; from the beginning, indeed, from all eternity, God has chosen not to remain alone. He creates all that is outside himself and he summons it (continuing the process of creation) to greater and greater levels of complexity until from within this creation comes One who will be his true counterpart and partner in creation. At bottom this is a call to share in God's very life. In fact, it is the ground of an existence which can only be fulfilled when it shares in the Divine life and God himself becomes all in all!

All of Scripture attests to this basic dynamic, whether cast in terms of creation or covenant. All of Scripture is about God's determination to share his very life with us, and his creation's capacity in the Spirit to issue forth in, or become his own unique counterpart in the fulfillment of this plan. When God's plan is fulfilled, when his very life is shared to the extent he wills, everything he creates reaches fulfillment as well, but it is the human vocation in particular to allow this to become real in space and time. And afterall, isn't this what prayer is truly all about: allowing God's plans to be realized in his creation; cooperating with his Spirit in ways which let his own life be made PERSONALLY real here and now so that EVERYTHING acquires fullness or completion (perfection) of life in God?

Unfortunately, one of the most pernicious problems I run into, whether in myself or in my work as a spiritual director is the occasional inability to "get out of the way" of the Spirit or to "forget self" in prayer. Prayer seems always to be about us, our problems, our sinfulness, our needs and concerns in ways which sometimes contribute to our own self-centeredness. While I am NOT suggesting we neglect this side of things in our prayer, I am suggesting that there are ways to pray these concerns which are NOT self-centered. (Note, the key here is in praying these concerns rather than merely praying about these concerns. Sometimes we have to silence conversation about concerns and simply live them in our prayer as we give our whole selves to God for his own sake.) I think this is part of what Jesus is getting at in today's gospel when he reminds us that God knows what we need before we ask him! It is certainly mirrored in the form of the Lord's prayer and the priority of the invocation and petitions. If we open ourselves humbly to God in prayer, the sinfulness, needs, concerns, etc will be part of that but the focus will not be on these.

Because of this, one of the most significant questions we can ask ourselves in checking in on our prayer occasionally is, "what kind of experience was this for God?" Ordinarily this puts a full stop to the sometimes problematical self-centered focus and chatter about ME in prayer which can occur, and puts the focus back where Jesus clearly lived it himself --- on God and the way in which God wills to be present to and for us. What today's Gospel gives us in this model of prayer is a sense that contrary to much popular thought and practice otherwise, prayer is really the way we give or set aside our lives for another, namely, for God and his own Selfhood and destiny. And while it is absolutely true that in the process of giving ourselves over to God's own purposes our own hearts will rightly be opened up, poured out, and our own needs met (as Isaiah reminds us in the first reading, God's Word will not return to him void!), prayer is first of all something we are empowered to do for God's own sake!

Self-centered vs God-centered Prayer and Spirituality: Some Questions

Not surprisingly, my posts over the last few days have raised several questions. The first ones are requests for where I got the information I used for the reflection on Matthew's text in "To turn the other cheek."

For those interested, I always use commentaries when preparing for lectio and doing reflections and there are three which I use regularly and like very much. The first is the Sacra Pagina series for the NT (Berit Olam for books of the OT). While this is a standard commentary series it is less technical than some and is readable even for those who have no Greek. The second series is the Interpretation Series which is meant for preachers and general teachers of Scripture (not exegetes or Scripture scholars per se). Finally, I ordinarily look at Tom Wright's,[Matthew](or whomever) for Everyone. Now, I have talked about this text in Matthew before so I am not sure which of the three has the most information right off the top of my head, but Wright's work is excellent for capturing the realities of the world Jesus lived in (not least Jesus' Jewishness and relation to Judaism and Rome) and the Interpretation series is good too. For those interested, I would start with Wright's books (they are more readable, cheaper, and can be used for lectio as well), move to Interpretation (a bit higher priced, available in hardcover --- the softcovers by the same name are a DIFFERENT SERIES), and finally, to Sacra Pagina (which is especially helpful if you are asked to do reflections for your community or are a preacher/homilist). SP is more expensive (though available in paper now, and used (but usually available in "as new" condition!) on Amazon); it is the more comprehensive commentary series of the three.

The next questions I received were not at all surprising and had to do with the post on the Lord's Prayer: [[ Aren't we supposed to bring our sins, concerns, etc to God in prayer? How can this be called problematical and self-centered? What do you mean when you say there are ways to pour out our hearts to God without being self-centered? Also, in spiritual direction, how can we talk about our prayer without being self-centered?]]

Let me try to explain some about this because I knew my comments would raise these kinds of questions. The only one I anticipated that was not included was, What can we say about, "What kind of experience" our prayer was for God?? We can't read God's mind!! First, as I noted, we will and SHOULD pour out our hearts to God. We should certainly bring our sinfulness, brokenness, weaknesses, foibles and failings before him. However, sometimes we are so focused on these things we forget WHY we are doing this, why we are opening our hearts to God -- not to mention WHO is empowering us to do so if we are at all successful (and even when we are NOT)! We are looking for forgiveness and healing, for comfort and strength, for nourishment and challenge as well, but WHY are we doing these things? Quite often we stop at the answer that "WE need these things" if WE are to become holy, or make it to heaven, or however we understand or state the matter. Sometimes we are so focused on "becoming detached" or "losing self" or "becoming humble" that we think that that is the whole purpose of our spirituality. When we fail, a session of spiritual direction can become a recital of our own projects, our own goals, our own purposes, inadequacies, and the like, and when the director asks about our prayer, this is all she will hear --- a litany of complaints which is a paean to self.

Now, it is important, of course, to be in touch with these things and be able to recount them to one's director; the director needs to hear them, but it makes all the difference in the world if we are considering them because of the way they affected God's plans for us, God's purposes in our world, God's needs for himself and his determination to love us with an everlasting love, or simply because we have in view OUR OWN goals, plans, aspirations, failures, incapacities, and the like. That is why I will sometimes ask a directee who seems to have lost sight of God in her prayer, "What kind of experience was this for God?" She will NOT usually be able to tell me what God felt (that kind of awareness, though possible to some limited extent, is a gift and occurs rarely).

Instead she will tell me again about her own lack of openness, her own resistances, her own fears, anxiety, boredom, exhaustion, or whatever, but this time she will do so because she is concerned about God and his purposes and love first of all --- or at the very least because she is now considering these first!! Instead of an egocentric soliloquy about self, her account will cover all the necessary matter for direction, but from a much more other-centered perspective! Further, when she returns to prayer once again, she is more apt to be able to get out of her own way so that the Spirit can really work in and on her! She will pour out her heart, but she will do so in order that God might enter it more completely and transform the world with his love. She will do it because God wills to dwell there exhaustively and the completion of Christ's mission with regard to creation requires it. She will do it because God himself URGES and empowers her to do so, and because she cares and is attentive enough to respond to HIS needs and desires.

It is the difference between recounting one's own failings (and, sometimes, successes) in listening to a friend because one is primarily aware of the friend's desires and needs and the way they were met or disappointed , and recounting those same failings and successes because one is simply aware of and concerned with oneself and one's own performance. It is the difference between seeing with our hearts and navel gazing. Sometimes in our spirituality we become so focused on an abstract goal (becoming humble, losing self, becoming detached, becoming holy, being healed or reconciled, etc) that we really don't consider God in the picture except to the extent that he is the one we must turn to who is supposed to "make us" these things. Unfortunately, from this perspective it is all-too easy to treat prayer as our own accomplishment, God as OUR SERVANT and our project as HIS OWN WILL, rather than understanding we are to be HIS SERVANTS and our goals are meant to allow HIS PURPOSES to be realized in our world. Of course humility, selflessness, detachment, reconciliation, and healing are important goals but WHY is it we are intent on their achievement????

There is a vast difference between seeking these things because we are self-centered, and seeking them because God wills them if he is to accomplish his own purposes in our world. (And of course, a self-centered way of seeking them will actually lead to our greater entrenchment in their opposite and thus be self-defeating in the profoundest and truest sense!) Matthew's Gospel touched on this question of motives this week as well in the Gospel lection prior to the Lord's prayer, (Matt 6:1-5f). It is not surprising he follows up his discourse on hypocrisy and distorted or inadequate motives with the Lord's Prayer.

Unfortunately, it is all-too easy to kid ourselves in this matter: for instance, we read a book on spirituality and it tells us we should be humble so we begin a self-improvement regimen to become humble. We read a Saint's life that recounts this Saint as a paradigm of detachment, or holiness, or whatever, and we institute a self-improvement regimen designed to make us these things thinking they will please God and get us to heaven (or whatever!). But really, WHERE IS GOD IN ALL THIS? When we meet with our director we recount how miserably we failed in all our goals, how we failed at prayer, how we were bored, how we failed to be anything but self-centered, etc, but again, WHERE IS GOD IN ALL THIS? And when the director tells us, "It is NOT all about you" we acknowledge this and proceed once again to speak about our SELVES and how miserable, sinful, and inadequate we are! And again, WHERE IS GOD IN ALL THIS? Has he really been absent this whole time? Has he really made no overtures, done nothing for which we should be grateful, called us in no significant ways we can note with awe and appreciation? Are his own plans, purposes, and self really unaffected by our failures, and can we legitimately remain unaware of this?

Thus, I suggest there are ways to pour out our hearts to God which are self-centered in an especially problematical way (this qualification is important!!!), and those which are not. Yes, we should pray for humility or selflessness, but not PRIMARILY as a project of self-improvement. Instead it should be a piece of our enthusiastic engagement on behalf of God and his reign. Again, it makes a huge difference if I point to my own lack of humility and my goal to be more humble because my failure has served to hurt God and his plans for the world, or another person --- or instead, because I am on a private and self-centered quest for personal "holiness". While the shift required is a small one in some ways (humility, etc, remains the goal), it is also as vast as eternity since the way to achieving the goal and the reason for adopting it are vastly different, as is the overall focus of our attention and concerns.

Talking about these things in direction without being self-centered depends upon how aware of and concerned with God one really is. One can focus on self without being self-centered in a problematical way. Actually, to make progress spiritually one MUST focus on self without being self-centered, but rather because one is truly God-centered. One's director should be able to help one find their way in this. My question about God's experience in our prayer is not meant to have directees reading the mind of God, but instead to stop them with the realization that God was THERE in their prayer but that they only had eyes and ears for themselves. Further, it is meant to indicate that in telling me about their prayer they have completely missed talking about God's presence, purposes, will, gifts, comfort, etc, etc. It is a rhetorical question in some senses meant to shock and wake a directee (or myself) up.

I hope this answers your questions to some extent and clarifies what I meant in the earlier post! Thanks for emailing.