In the first part of this meditation we pondered the invitation of God to come into His presence, a presence that opens us and makes us vulnerable to healing on many affective and spiritual levels. Fr. Thomas Acklin, OSB, encourages all Catholics to receive this healing in a commitment to prayer .
Just as many in our times do not persevere long enough to see what happens if they remain in that troubled marriage, many do not enter deeply enough into prayer to outlast the dryness, the distractions, the doubts. Consequently they never get very deeply into a relationship with the Lord and never develop much interiority (Thomas Acklin OSB, The Passion of the Lamb 90-91).
If we are to receive the gift of being a contemplative even in action, we must suffer the presence of the mystery of Christ both affectively and intellectually. There is much in us not rooted in this mystery, and so a purification process is needed to enable us to welcome Christ at ever-deeper levels within our soul. The means to such depth lies in our vulnerability toward the promptings of the Spirit, as this same Spirit bears the mystery toward our heart. Being vulnerable in prayer usually means entering into patient waiting. This waiting, however, is not devoid of measured activity, such as reading, silent prayer within our hearts, gazing at religious imagery, confronting our fears and sins with and through the power of Christ, and so on.
One of the keys to such prayer is to expect frustration and even a certain skepticism, realities which normally arise within those committed to prayer. Our commitment to let the Paschal Mystery enter the heart, however, keeps these realities from destroying a prayerful pattern of living. Yielding to desolate feelings can make the heart hard, creating difficulty in receiving the myriad of graces given each day. As we grow into contemplative prayer, our minds become full with the consciousness of regular and small graces shared between God and the soul. This habitual consciousness marks the transition from contemplative prayer to contemplative living. Such living is a gift from God and is, paradoxically, punctuated with an even deeper desire to set time aside for intentional prayer and meditation.
The touchstone for the day, however, is what we see in the sacramental symbol of all that Christ is for His Church. Did we receive that beauty and hold it in our hearts, thus becoming the source for our seeing each and every day? Over time, such beholding comes to define our very way of seeing, and such attending to the Word comes to define our very way of listening. “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil. 4:8ff). We all have a choice about what fills our mind; the contemplative lay person chooses the beauty and truth of Christ.
“I am so busy; when can I contemplate the mystery of Christ?” As was just noted, we contemplate most fully during the Eucharist, but in order to appropriate what is presented in the Mass we need times of silent seeing and listening throughout the day, even to the point of spiritual multi-tasking. By this I mean, for example, in the midst of activity we become aware of the Spirit’s movement within us, assuaging some fear we are harboring or gifting us with some other consolation that we need. Silently we begin to give praise and thanksgiving to God, even as we are attending to the activity before us. The contemplative can both see and listen to the movements of God interiorly and attend to the needs of persons before them. Beyond this we obviously contemplate outside of the Eucharist in the traditional ways of setting aside time for full concentration upon the presence of God.
To turn our attention to the Paschal Mystery of Christ, we need to set time aside each day to let it alight upon our mind and will. The duration of such prayer is somewhat subjective — the commitment to such an active waiting before the mystery is what is so crucial. Intimacy with God is not our natural conscious state; it must be willed in the beginning if it is ever to be borne as a daily gift. One may allow the mystery in by way of the Word of God, Eucharistic adoration, or meditation upon the encounters with this mystery in and through the act of ministering, and so on. Even though the duration of such a prayer cannot be individually mandated, a sufficient length of time is needed for restlessness and distractions to settle out, making room for a focused beholding of the mystery of Christ. The question of when does a person contemplate is more easily answered now: Catholics are called always to contemplate. Over time we can become people who see and listen to the beauty and truths of the Paschal Mystery and in so becoming long to pass on what we see and hear to the secular culture. The dignity of the lay vocation is to evangelize the culture, but there is no true evangelization except that which flows from a deep communion with Christ in prayer.
