Weekly Meditations

I want to test the sincerity of your love.
2Cor. 8:8

In his book, Drinking From A Dry Well, Thomas Green SJ suggests that there are three stages to a growing life of prayer that can be defined according to what we most seek in our relationship with God.  These three stages can also be understood in terms of the natural evolution of love—from a desire for knowledge, to one for experience, and then to a growing acceptance of the need for transformation.

In the courtship stage we mostly seek knowledge of God.  As Green states, “We cannot love what we do not know.  Thus the first stage in any love relationship is getting to know the person we are drawn to.”  But facts about a person do not, in themselves,  constitute a relationship.  Even our feelings about God can, at this stage, be misleading.  As Green says,

There may well be infatuation at the beginning of a relationship.  But infatuation is not love, precisely because we do not really know the object of our infatuation.  We are in love with our own romantic notions of the person rather than with the reality of the person before us.

As love progresses beyond the “getting-to-know” stage, we find in ourselves a growing desire for intimacy with the object of our love.  Green calls this the “honeymoon” phase.  He writes,

The courtship eventually leads to the honeymoon.  In terms of what we now seek in our relationship with God, we note a transition from knowledge to experience.  The relationship moves from the head (knowing) to the heart (experiencing, loving).  We no longer seek insight about God as much as the joy of being with the One we love.

As our desire for intimacy with God grows we might also find that we are not as inclined to reflect or meditate on the Scriptures as we did before.  Instead, we are more drawn to the presence of God, to simply sit before Him and bask in His love.  As pleasant as this stage is though, it too must evolve to a maturity beyond itself.  As Green says,

This whole purpose of the “getting to know” stage of meditative prayer is to lay a solid foundation for love.  At the “honeymoon” stage, it will be good to remember that this too will eventually come to an end, because what looks like true love on the honeymoon still contains a great deal of self-love.  I love you, yes; but to a large extent this is because you fulfill me and all my desires.

Unfulfilled needs are, of course, a valid reason for the early stages of relationship.  As Green would say, “There is real growth in discovering that I cannot fulfill myself, that I need to go out of myself in order to find my own happiness.”  But this stage is still not true love since my “love” is focused primarily on my own needs, my own fulfillment.  A mature relationship will wean us from love that begins and ends with me, to one that has its source and goal in the other person.  And this weaning will often feel like a loss compared to the subjective delights we once knew.  Green puts it this way,

When the honeymoon ends, we have to come to terms with the ordinary days that do not always make us feel good and fulfilled.  We then begin to realize the true meaning of the “better or worse” clause of the marriage vows.  In the “better” we learn the joy of loving; in the “worse” we learn how to love unselfishly, not because I feel good about it, but because the other’s happiness and well-being are important to me.

So, if in the first stages of love we seek a growing knowledge of God’s love.  And in the second stage we long to rest in the experience of that love.   In this third stage we find ourselves joyfully submitting to the transformation that love invites us to.  No longer satisfied with only insight or experience, we now give ourselves more fully to the transforming work of Christ’s love in us.  It is a love that is now rooted in the Other.  And it is at this stage that we finally discover what love’s objective has been all along—to fashion us to Itself, in order that we might then become Its instrument in the lives of others.

The beauty of submitting to the Potter’s molding is that the transformation God works in me also benefits others.  If I allow the Lord to transform me I can be a more effective instrument of his love—what Ignatius calls “an instrument shaped to the contours of the hand of God.”

–Thomas Green, Drinking from a Dry Well

You show that you are a letter from Christ,…written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 2Cor. 3:3

In the first week of the Ignatian Exercises we are invited to reflect on the story of our lives, asking God to help us recognize signs of His presence with us through times of consolation as well as those of desolation. This exercise is sometimes called a “graced history.” It is, in a sense, an expanded version of the Awareness Examen applied not only to our day, but to our whole life.

A graced history is an opportunity to examine our lives more objectively, as narratives in which God’s grace is the principle actor. It is not so much our own story that we consider, but the story of God’s initiatives in our life. As such it provides a unique opportunity to appreciate the many ways that God has encouraged our seeking Him over the course of our lives. Listening to someone else’s “graced history” can also be a helpful exercise and I could encourage facilitators of Imago Dei groups to explore this as another resource for your time together.

Fr. John English S.J., who helped develop the idea of a graced history as part of the Spiritual Exercises offered at Loyola House asks, “if the Exercises are mainly an invitation to see ourselves as “the Beloved of God” where do we go to find evidence of that truth?” For most of us, it is through our own life story that we come to discover the experience of being loved by God. Fr. John reflects on the experience of his own graced history saying, “My life story is a unique story. And, in my unique life there is a unique expression of God’s love that I must come to more fully appreciate.”

Just as the Hebrew people were often reminded of their history in terms of the Exodus, so we come to know our own history in terms of God’s grace. John English comments,

When I interpret the events of my life from the viewpoint of God’s love I see that my life is an experience of the grace of being loved. And this applies even to the shadow side of my life. It’s not just in moments of crisis that God loves me, but God is always there, loving me with benevolence, compassion and mercy. My whole life is a graced experience in the sense that God is present with me in all of the events of my life.

We sometimes trace our life story according to our work history, our health history, our relationship history, or our geographic history. So can we also consider the history of different aspects of our relationship with God. Fr. John expands on this saying,

I can, for instance, go through my life considering all the moments of consolation in which I have recognized God’s grace. I can do the same thing with respect to my times of desolation. I can also recall the times when I have not responded to the love of God, as well as those hope-filled moments in my life when I remember how light came out of darkness.

The story of God’s ways with us can also be traced through our sin history, through the history of opportunities we’ve been given, of ways that God has protected us, or used the relationships of our lives to lead us.

Consider exploring such a prayer on your own, or have someone share the observations of their graced history with your group. For those who might benefit from a more guided prayer format, Fr. Savio Rodrigues SJ offers these instructions for considering the various aspects of our graced history.

A Meditation on Your Graced History

• I seek the grace to be present to my life story as it is lovingly revealed to me by God, and I pray that I may respond generously to God’s love.
• I consider my life story in terms of grace-filled moments, looking perhaps at: relatives, friends, incidents of childhood, school, church, health, positions I have held, helps given or received.
• I look for times when I have specifically experienced the presence of God.
• I contemplate these times, re-living the event by seeing the persons, hearing the words, observing the actions and remembering my responses.
• I regard the events of my history as I would sacred Scripture, as a Word spoken by God into my life. How has God blessed me through this Word? How has God humbled me? How has God encouraged me?
• I discuss these events with God and seek a deeper appreciation of their meaning.
• Using any of these moments from my history, I take time in prayer to deeply abide with them, knowing that God has used such moments to form part of the foundation of my being, and of my growing relationship to Him.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, began to sink. Mat. 14:29-30

Peter was given only one chance to walk on water. He did well at first but then was broadsided by a desolating thought and immediately felt himself sinking. The familiar story ends with Jesus unceremoniously leading Peter back to his boat. Nothing more was ever mentioned about his aborted attempt to walk on water.

But what if Peter had been given another chance? What if the Lord had brought him back to the same spot the next day? Would Peter have done better on his second, or third attempt? What if, with the help of the Holy Spirit, he got to practice this, over and over again, until he finally got it right? Would he eventually learn how to avoid the type of thinking that keeps scuttling him? Would he come to recognize the temptation of fear that always causes him to sink? Would he finally learn how to keep his eyes on Jesus and become proficient enough in faith to walk on water?

Most of us are much luckier in this than Peter was. We often get second, third and fourth chances to try our hand at faith. Sure, we keep falling into our familiar sink holes, but as we go over the same terrain again and again, we do have opportunity to learn how to approach our spiritual life differently, and to avoid the particular snares that we keep getting caught in. What are some of the repeated pitfalls in your life? What thoughts or attitudes keep causing you to sink? And how does God give you new opportunities each day to experiment with different approaches to these recurring problems? Like learning to ride a bicycle, how does the Holy Spirit keep you from overly losing your balance until you learn to ride on your own?

Because of the Lord’s infinite mercy we often get to go back to the drawing board of our lives. He truly is the God of second chances, and we’ve all been given many more opportunities than we deserve to start over and over again in our lives. As we continue to seek the Spirit’s counsel, we have every reason to hope that we will eventually learn whatever is needed to live a more consistent spiritual life. That is, as long as we don’t give up on ourselves, or on God. Maybe Peter never thought to ask for a second chance. Do we? Or do we presume that we are permanently stuck in our inability to live as we should?

Anyone who has watched toddlers learn how to walk will often see one of two responses to the many times they fall: they either sit where they have fallen and cry, or else they pick themselves up and try again until they get it right. Let us be grateful that God affords us many opportunities to correct our unfruitful approaches to life. And let us also live with hope that, in spite of our many failings, we can eventually grow from toddlers who keep falling, to a maturity that, with God’s help, might one day even walk on water.

My heart says of you, “Seek his face.”  Your face O Lord, will I seek.                                         Psalm 27:8

If your heart in any way longs for unity with God then you are certainly in the company of many saints who, throughout history, have also yearned for this same end.  Our desire, in the words of St. John of the Cross, “to be united with the Object of our love” represents the most foundational human need for which metaphors of home, of belonging and of rest are often used.  Below is a litany of quotes from many saints who have articulated their own understanding of what this longing implies.

Jeanne Guyon, a 17^th century spiritual director speaks, for instance, of the birth of our spiritual life when we first begin to respond to the love of God, as David did, saying, “Your face O Lord, will I seek.”   She writes,

The experience of union begins very simply when there is born in you a desire for God. When the soul begins to turn inward to the life of the Spirit; when the soul begins to fall under the powerful, attraction of the Spirit.  At this point, an earnest desire for union with God is born.

This desire is understood as the initial seed, planted by God, that then urges us to seek greater intimacy with the goodness that we have tasted.  Guyon adds, “The desire for God becomes more refined and profound.  This desire for God is the preparation for union with him.”

Another metaphor that many spiritual writers use to describe this unity is that of the marriage of our wills with God’s.  Jesus, as the firstfruit of many brothers and sisters, modeled this new creation for us—the unity of the human will with that of the Divine.  It is the disposition we hear in Mary’s consent to, “Let it be unto me according to Your word.”  It is the obedience perfected by Jesus at Gethsemane, “Nevertheless Your will be done.”  It is the hope of the Lord’s prayer by which we petition, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Teresa of Avila recognized as well that, “the union of our wills to God’s is the only type of union essential to holiness—the union of the will of God with a dynamic, passionate, fully alive human will.”  Such compliance is simply the appropriate posture of the creature in relationship to its Creator.  And the recovery of this right relationship is the goal of our sanctification.  In other words, the more we submit to God in the posture of prayer the more we participate with our ultimate destiny.  As Thomas Dubray writes,

Prayer is God’s perpetual call within us, drawing us toward the fulfillment of the ultimate purpose of our creation—our union with God. The farther we advance in the life of prayer, the more we will relish this sense of union with God.

And finally, the 12^th century Cistercian Bernard de Clairvaux, a man well acquainted with the vocabulary of life-long desire for God, celebrates the fruit of such a consecrated life when he writes,

Blessed is the soul with whom God takes up His residence and makes it the place of His rest.  Blessed is he who can say, “He that formed me has lodged, and now dwells, in my tabernacle.”

As we see, we are in good company whenever we recognize and respond to the Holy Spirit-prompted desire for unity with God.  The communion of saints, both past and present, invites us to join then in seeking the profound intimacy of God that our hearts so long to embrace.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.     Mat. 10:29

When my son was two years old we used to play a game of trust where he would jump into my arms from the roof of our Volkswagen van.  I was the one who called it a game of trust.  He simply called it fun.  I would lift him onto the roof of our van, stand back a few feet, and then invite him to jump off.  Without a moment’s hesitation he would leap into my arms.  I would then take another step back from the van and call him to jump again.  And once more he would fly off the roof into my arms, laughing all the way. I remember doing this after church one Sunday and having a little crowd gather around to watch.  It was quite a spectacle to see.

But I will always remember the last time we played this game together.  As we had done so many times before I put my son on the roof and waited for him to jump to me.  And then I saw it in his face.  Whatever thought entered his mind, I knew that it had introduced him to the notion of fear.  For the first time in his short life, he had entertained the possibility that I might not actually catch him.  I could see the struggle between faith and doubt so evident in his hesitation.  It paralyzed him until I went over and helped him down from the roof.  And that was the last time we ever played this game together.

It was inevitable that this moment would one day arrive but I wonder if God too has such memories of times when we have chosen fear over faith.  Does the Lord remember the first time He saw us hedging our bets, or setting up a back-up plan just in case He didn’t come through for us?  What does God see on our face whenever we entertain the possibility that He might not actually catch us?  And what would it take for us to return to that child-like trust where, without hesitation, we would gladly jump into God’s arms?  As you anticipate the coming year, how might this apply to something that God is inviting you to trust Him with?

There is no more direct way of honouring another person than by expressing our trust in them.  We withhold trust when we are uncertain about a person’s motives or competence.  We hesitate to rely on someone if we’re not sure they can be counted on to deliver or to succeed in a task.  We lack confidence in someone if we doubt that their word or promises are really worth anything.  And we are naturally more cautious if we suspect a person’s intentions might not be in our favour.

To exercise trust in God then is to express faith that God’s character is good, that He is up for the task, and that we expect Him to be faithful to His word.  It also honours God that we are at peace in the certainty that He has our best interests in mind.  Trusting God then is the most direct means we have of honouring the trustworthiness of His character.  In the coming year, the many ways by which we express such confidence in God’s faithfulness will surely be what most touches our Father’s heart.