Weekly Meditations

Each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honourable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God;  1Thes. 4:4-5

How often in the day do we push ourselves to be somewhere just ahead of where we actually are?  Maybe it’s a deadline, or an urgent need that creates an imperative in us for its fulfillment.  Or perhaps it’s just the tedium of “what is” that makes us want to rush ahead to be somewhere other than where we actually are.  Regardless of the reasons, whenever this mode overly defines our lifestyle the result is always the same—we end up losing touch with our souls.

Often, when I am trying to herd my family out the door to get somewhere, I will catch myself moving ahead to the next position I want them to be, perhaps standing at the doorway with my keys in hand, hoping that this might speed them up a bit.  How is this similar to the ways we often rush ahead of ourselves, as if to force us to pick up the pace?   And how does our refusal to accept or wait for ourselves contribute to feeling separated from our souls?

Feeling disjointed has a lot to do with the inner pace we set for ourselves in the course of our day.   This includes the many ways we overstep the truth of “what is” in favour of our projected ideals of what we wish it were.  “In patience,” we are told, “you shall possess your souls” (Luke 21:19 KJV).  St. Frances de Sales, a 16th cent. spiritual director, wrote similarly that, “to possess fully our souls is the effect of patience, made more perfect as it is less mixed with disquiet and eagerness.”

Peace and patience integrate us towards wholeness.  To “possess your soul” then, is to allow time throughout the day to literally catch up with yourself.  It asserts the reality of “what is” as the starting point of our lives rather than the imagination of where we would otherwise wish it to be.  Being patient with the actual pace of our lives is ultimately a matter of self-control.  And whenever we lose this virtue it leads to a less honourable expression of life.

Paul instructed the Thessalonians to “learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God” (1Thes. 4:4-5).  In other words, self-control better exemplifies a person who knows the sovereignty of God in their lives.  In the context of his letter, Paul was of course referring to moral self-discipline.  But the same exhortation applies to any lack of self-control we exhibit in relationship to our souls.  When the “passionate lusts” of our imagination drive us to live out of sync with the reality of who we actually are we tend to lose our sense of wholeness.  “In patience, you shall possess your souls.”  Perhaps this is what the apostle had in mind when he wrote, “since we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25).

The obvious antidote to “losing our souls” is to simply allow times in our day to catch up with ourselves—times to reclaim the peace that we’ve lost track of in the frenzy and distractions of our busy lives.  To “possess our souls” is to accept the reality of “what is” as more true than even the most attractive and urgent alternatives we can imagine.  And the more we exercise such times of restorative patience in our day the more in sync we will be with the truth of our lives.

The false self prays from where it thinks it should be or would like to be.  The true self prays from where it is.

Albert Haase,O.F.M.

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.                                                         Col. 4:2

So much good takes place in the mysterious environment of prayer. So many wrongs are set right. So many new foundations are laid. As I consider the many benefits of prayer I am so thankful to God for the countless graces that I can attribute to this most effortless of disciplines. From the wellspring of its daily renewal I get to drink deeply of God’s truth, purpose, and direction for my life

Prayer is where I get to examine all the different aspects of my life in light of the Lord’s counsel. In prayer I find my Way—instructions for my day, and for my life. There, God teaches me new truths and reminds me of ones I have forgotten. There, the Holy Spirit identifies whatever tendencies there are in me that obstruct His Way.

In prayer I defer all the considerations of my life to God. I assume more readily the posture of a servant rather than that of a labourer for God. Like Mary who saw herself as the handmaiden of the Lord, I wait in order to let God’s will be more freely expressed in me. Prayer is where I receive the relationship that God most desires to have with me.

In prayer I get to observe how I relate to all the different people and circumstances that surround me. I discover how I really feel about life. I get to sort through and re-establish my priorities—what God is calling me to, and what He is not. I also come to recognize my most profound desires as well as the fears that often influence my response to life.

Prayer helps me let go of the anxious grip I tend to otherwise hold myself with throughout the day. It loosens my fears, my worries, and the many burdens I’ve unnecessarily assumed for myself. If only for those few moments, everything stops. I know that I have returned to a place that has much more to do with eternity than the turmoil I have otherwise been living in

In prayer I once again lay down my life before God. It belongs to Him and I enter the freedom whereby I am able to give myself more fully to the Lord’s purposes. In doing so, I return to my most simple sense of self. There is nothing to do, no one to be, and nowhere else to look for myself than where I am. The only horizon I seek is the one right in front of me. Instead of the illusion that life is something I possess, I am once more reminded that it is actually something that is given to me. Moment by moment, I get to offer it all back to God in gratitude for the relationship I am in.

In prayer I place myself in the hands of the Potter, ready to be fashioned in any way that pleases the Lord. I try to remain malleable to God’s will and to wherever the Holy Spirit might lead me in my prayer. Whatever Jesus is in me, that is what I wish to be. In this submissive posture I learn much about the ways of God.

And finally, at its most sublime, prayer is where I get to pull away from my usual orbit of self-reference in order to simply gaze at Jesus. In the solitude of prayer, all other definitions of my life pale in comparison to the wonder of contemplating the beauty of God’s ways.

You know Him (the Holy Spirit), for He is with you and will be in you.  Jn. 14:17

As Christians, we often operate more from of an Old Testament understanding of our relationship with God than that of the new covenant.  More often than not we picture Christianity as a life that we live for God.  We try, on our own, to be good Christians, doing things for God.  But to the degree that we are formed by the language of the New Testament we will recognize that this way of relating to God falls quite short of the Spirit-breathed life that Jesus envisages for us.  According to the grace of Pentecost, God is not only with us, but now, more proximately, within us.

The prophet Jeremiah foresaw the event that would radically alter the nature of human/spiritual experience. In Jeremiah’s prophecy we hear of a new way that God has made possible by changing the very locus wherein He meets us.  Comparing this new way with the old, Jeremiah writes,

“The time is coming,” declares the LORD,
“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers.  (Jer . 31:31)

The old covenant, of course, is the external law that calls for our compliance.  It is this form of obedience, more than the law itself, that has been replaced by a more proximate means of God achieving His purpose in us.  Jeremiah elaborates on the distinctives of this new covenant.

“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.   (Jer. 31:33)

Jesus, as well, speaks of this distinction between the old and new initiatives of God when, referring to the Holy Spirit, He says, “You know Him, for He is with you, and will be in you.”  A very different spiritual potential exists for us ever since the day of Pentecost.   We are invited to a much more immediate relationship with God.

In his book, The School of the Holy Spirit, Jacques Philippe recognizes the attentive obedience that the Holy Spirit now calls us to.  He emphasizes the new modus operandus that this implies for those who live according to the new covenant.  Philippe writes,

We should endeavour, not to attain holiness as a result of our own efforts, but to let God act in us without our putting up any resistance against him; we should open ourselves as fully as possible to his grace, which sanctifies us, and be alert to recognize, welcome, and put into practice the inspirations of the Holy Spirit.

The new covenant invites us to cultivate a much more attentive life with God, and a joyful willingness to seek and heed His promptings.   We do so out of love and a growing desire to serve God as living expressions of His immediate will.  Philippe encourages the spiritual sensitivity that this will lead us to.  He writes,

Ultimately what will help us recognize and respond to God’s motions most easily and promptly is the interior development of a sort of “spiritual sense” which, to begin with, we may not have at all or may have only in a very rough form. We develop this sense by experience, and especially by faithfully and resolutely learning to follow our Lord in all things.

Jesus taught His disciples to listen for His voice and to not follow the voice of another (Jn. 10:4-5).  Philippe as well recognizes the precision that this attentiveness will bring to our lives.  He writes,

This “spiritual hearing” is an ability to recognize, among all the multiple, discordant voices that we hear inside us, the unique, unmistakable voice of Jesus. This sense is like a loving instinct that makes it easier for us to distinguish the voice of the Spouse, in the chorus of sounds that greet our ears.

It is the practice of attentiveness in prayer that sharpens this “spiritual sense” in us.  It fosters the humility by which “Christ must increase” as we decrease in our inner prominence.  Philippe encourages us to embrace the long process of incremental growth that this transformation will entail.

When souls have abandoned themselves to be led by the Holy Spirit he raises them little by little and guides them. At the beginning these souls do not know where they are being led but slowly, a light begins to shine within and allows them to see the guidance of God in all their actions, so that they have almost nothing else to do than let God do whatever he chooses in them and through them.

Through the prophet Jeremiah, we are invited to respond to God in a much more immediate way. “I will put my laws in your mind, and write them on your heart,” the Lord says.  What better way to reply but for us to say, “Write on Lord! We welcome your gracious initiative in our lives!”

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.   Heb. 12:2

Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity.   Heb. 6:1

As much as we try to avoid any hint of elitism in matters of faith the fact remains that there are more mature understandings and experiences of faith that we are called to grow in.  There truly are milkier and meatier forms of Christianity and the writer of the book of Hebrews calls us to make clear distinctions between what is elemental to our faith and what is the more solid food that leads to maturity.  From beginning to full maturity the progression of our faith is something that needs to be clearly taught and understood by all who journey towards God.

Whereas Catholic and Orthodox believers have deep-rooted traditions of holiness, with many persuasions of saints to look to as models of maturity, Protestants are often left with a much more curtailed vision of the spiritual life.  After learning the elemental teachings of the faith, our main objective often seems limited to converting others so that, in turn, we can teach these same elemental truths to them.  Though there is nothing wrong with this goal in itself, if it becomes the only thrust of our spirituality it will inevitably represent a thin expression of our faith.

If you were living in the earlier centuries of Christianity and wanted to grow in your faith you would seek out a saint—one who was mature in the wisdom of God and who had grown in prayer to become an expression of God’s proximity that others could learn and model themselves from them.  Such men and women were not uncommon though you would likely have to make the effort to seek them beyond the confines of the city or of the institutional church.

Many of these saints became teachers around whom disciples who sought maturity in their faith gathered.  It was the hunger of the student, more than anything else, that created the many schools of prayer that now anchor our Christian history.  As these saints modeled the fruit of spirituality in their lives, a real longing for maturity was encouraged in others by tangible examples of what the spiritual life might actually look like, and by a teaching that came from the first-hand experience of those whose own pilgrimage to God blazed a trail for others to follow.

If we compare the quest for holiness we see in historical Christianity to some of the objectives expressed in many of our present-day models of growth and maturity we find that pep rallies, motivational seminars, conferences and classroom teaching seem to be something of quite a different order.   Have we lost sight of the far-reaching possibilities that exist for maturity in our faith, and of the need to identify the Way of the saints—those who particularly express the fruit of a Christ-united life?

The book of Hebrews encourages us to move beyond the elemental teachings of our faith and to embark on the grand journey that leads to a life more united with God’s.  This also represents the way forward for the 21st century Christian.  We too need to be reminded that spiritual growth is not a matter of learning the elemental truths of faith over and over again, but of modeling for one another the bred-in-the-bone reality of what a life devoted to God might actually look like.

Who are the Christians who will once again blaze such trails for us?  Who, through their own mature faith, will model for us a sanctity beyond the beginnings of faith?  Who will offer themselves to bear such fruit for the sake of others?  In every generation the Lord calls forth such men and women.  The Holy Spirit whispers in each of our hearts, “Who among you would be a saint?”  May those who have ears, hear God’s word to them this day.

Who is he who will devote himself to be close to me?    Jer. 30:21

Most of the songs that we use in our fellowships are prayers, set to music. We draw from a variety of composers; from Taizé, Northumbria and Iona communities, among others.

We also use original music, copied below, which you are also welcome to use freely (see pdf for sheet music).