A recent survey showed that Americans on average pray 8.4 minutes a day and only 9 percent attempt to pray – at all – each day. Could this have anything to do with the chaos and confusion we see in our country today? Jesus invites us to make ourselves “available” so that His grace might reach us and accountable for those stretches when we get too busy. As the old saying goes, “If we are too busy to pray, we are simply too busy!
Prayer, as we know, is more than “talking to God.” It is all of that which involves building a loving relationship with Him, including just sitting at the feet of Jesus and “doing nothing more.” Can we make the time necessary to listen to Him speak? Listening to His message, after all, is something Jesus tells His disciples and the crowds (in the Gospels) that they need to be doing all the time. We cannot wait for the prayerful moments in life to fall from the sky or magically appear. Prayer is work, as is true with the building of all friendships. Listening involves working at understanding, accepting, and assimilating the message – so much so that it becomes part of our very selves.
We are pretty good at being actively engaged when it comes to working for justice and caring for one another, but if we do not spend time listening to Christ, how can we know that our activity is properly directed? How might we slow down today, put ourselves in a quiet place, and simply listen to God?
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Bonus: St. Thomas Aquinas (in 1265) wrote: Contemplare et contemplata aliis tradere. By it, he meant: “Contemplate (pray) and share with others (or hand down to others) the fruits of contemplation. Speak with God and share with others what you have heard. Study, and share with others what you have learned. Search for the Truth and join others in their search.” St. Thomas, pray for us.
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Acción y contemplación, servicio y silencio. Qué claro lo tenemos, y cuánto nos cuesta vivirlo. La vida católica es una misma actitud con dos caras. Y lo reafirma el lenguaje popular y religioso: “A Dios rogando y con el mazo dando,” “ora et labora” (trabaja y reza). Es en verdad nuestra condición católica: Dios y el hombre, visible e invisible, verdadero Dios y verdadero hombre, signo y misterio.
Dicen los entendidos en la sabiduría del hombre que “alcanzar la unidad personal,” desde tantos campos dispersos, es una señal de madurez. Qué bien se entiende esto contemplando a una vida “unida,” de alguien, por ejemplo, que se levanta de mañana y se recoge largamente en oración con su comunidad, y luego se entrega, con pasión al enfermo, al niño que educa o al indiferente a quien Evangeliza.
La dimensión contemplativa de nuestra vida es una llamada al silencio, al asombro, a la sorpresa, a la reflexión, a la interiorización, y a la profundidad. De un obispo misionero es esta oración a la Virgen María: “Quédate con nosotros, con el Espíritu que te fecundaba en la carne y en el corazón. El mundo se ahoga en el mar del ruido, y no es posible amar a los hermanos sin un corazón callado y atento. Haznos comprender que el servicio sin silencio es alienación, y que el silencio sin entrega es comodidad. Envuélvenos en el manto de tu silencio y comunícanos la fuerza de la fe, la altura de tu esperanza y la profundidad de tu amor. Amén.”
