DEVELOPING A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD: LEARNING GOD S LANGUAGE By Grace Padilla We are all social beings. There is, in us, a deep need to communicate with one another. In this technological age, there is an ever expanding proliferation of means to communicate telephone, email, fax machine, cell phones, i-touch, i-pad, i-phone, Skype, Twitter, Facebook etc. Most have a cell phones, some even more than one. I guess communicating is an innate desire to be in relationship, at the very least, to be in touch. How many of us know: That we can/should develop a relationship with God? That God wants even more to have a relationship with us? That God, in creating us, gave of Himself to us? That this Divine Indwelling is in the depths of our being? The desire to go to God, to open to His presence within us, does not come from our own initiative. We do not have to go anywhere to find God because He is already drawing us in every conceivable way into union with Himself. It is rather a question of opening to an action that is already happening in us. In the distant past, I gave workshops on prayer specifically centering prayer and lectio divina. I don t do that anymore. We now have Contemplative Outreach Philippines (COP) to give these workshops. They are available to you too, for our goal is to have a COP prayer group in every parish. I hope you will take advantage of these workshops and join this effort. When people come to me and ask: Teach me how to pray, or when nuns and even priests say: I want to pray, it does not mean they don t know how to pray, nor does it mean they do not pray. Teach me how to pray! That cry comes from some very deep part of our being. We need to get in touch with that center and let our prayer arise from this place. That cry comes from a desperate plea to have a deeper relationship with God in whom I live and move and have my being. In the final analysis it is the soul s yearning to experience God. Prayer is relationship. When we speak of prayer, we speak of relationship. Cultivating a relationship with a special friend or cultivating a relationship with God takes place in pretty much the same way. We need to make time to meet regularly and frequently. We need to make time to communicate regularly and frequently. There are two prayers that work hand in hand in developing this relationship Lectio Divina and Centering Prayer. Lectio Divina, developed by the Desert Fathers, is a kind of listening to the text in scripture as if we were in conversation with Christ, the Word of God, and He were suggesting topics of conversation. Introductory Talk for Parishes 1
Pope Paul VI recommended Lectio Divina for the general public. It was during his time when the dogmatic Constitution, Verbum Dei, was drafted. Benedict XVI, then a young theologian asserted, Lectio Divina will bring to the Church a new spiritual springtime. The Popes since that time, St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI continually emphasized in their important documents the actuality and relevance of Lectio Divina in the life of the Christian, and the power of the living Word of God to transform our lives, our society and our world. In his encyclical, Novo Millennio Ineunte, St. John Paul II says: It is especially necessary that listening to the word of God should become a life-giving encounter in the ancient and ever valid tradition of Lectio Divina, which draws from the biblical text the living Word which questions, directs and shapes our lives. The daily encounter with Christ and reflection on his word leads, beyond mere acquaintanceship, to an attitude of friendliness, trust and love. Our relationship with Christ grows deeper through reading, reflection, responding, and resting. In other words this daily encounter with the Word/Christ eventually leads to trust and love. Lectio Divina was originally taught in Latin and these levels continue to be called by their Latin names: Lectio or reading the Word, Meditatio or reflecting on the Word, Oratio or responding to the Word in prayer, and Contemplatio or a resting in the Word in silence, in love. This is what contemplation is a resting in God in love. Allow me to formally define Contemplative prayer. It is the normal development of the grace of baptism and the regular practice of Lectio Divina. We may think of prayer as thoughts or feelings expressed in words. But this is only one expression. Contemplative prayer is the laying aside of thoughts. It is the opening of mind and heart, our whole being to God, the Ultimate Reality, beyond thoughts, words and emotions. We open our awareness to God, whom we know by faith is with us, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than choosing, closer than consciousness itself. God is the ground in whom our life emerges at every moment. Contemplative prayer is a process of interior transformation, a relationship initiated by God and leading us, if we consent, to divine union. Our way of seeing reality changes in the process. A restructuring of consciousness takes place that empowers us to perceive, relate, and respond with increasing sensitivity to the divine presence and action within, through and beyond everything that exists. Contemplation is a gift. It is given to us. It is not something we earn or bring about. This is where we can speak of Centering Prayer and how it greatly enhances this relationship. As a method, it is designed to develop contemplative prayer by preparing our faculties, through the laying aside of our thoughts, to cooperate with the gift of contemplation. Introductory Talk for Parishes 2
Our faculties, our capacity to listen to the Word are greatly influenced and severely hampered by events that happened in our life from the time we are born based on: The need for security, affectation/esteem, power/control; learned values that were inculcated in us by our family, the mores of our society, even religion. Our over-identification with our group. (This is how biases and prejudices are formed.) These are the noises, in the form of thoughts, what we call our false self. These noises within us make us: Hesitate to reach out in love; Unforgiving; Seek revenge; Hold on to our possessions; Control people, places or things. We are continually rationalizing, justifying, or even glorifying our false self. These are the noises within us that the Word addresses when we do our Lectio. Through the silence of contemplative prayer, we begin to hear the Word speaking to our inmost being. It is in silence that we truly hear. (Ex. Love one another.to forgive 70 x 7) Contemplation is a gift given us.all we can do is cooperate with this gift. Centering prayer is a method designed to facilitate the development of contemplative prayer by preparing one s faculties to cooperate with this gift. In centering prayer we learn to lay aside our thoughts. We simply let them come and then we let them go. In the process we learn existentially what silence is. Fr. Thomas Keating, one of the Cistercian monks from whom I learned centering prayer wrote: Silence is God s first language. All other languages are poor translations. In order to hear that language, we must learn to be still and rest in God. After more than 25 years of doing centering prayer, I now realize that it is in the silence, the stillness, the openness, and the quiet, that one begins to taste the reality of God s presence within. St. John of the Cross once wrote: The Father for all eternity spoke just one word; and He spoke it in an eternal silence. And it is in silence that we hear. Perhaps the experience of Elijah, narrated in 1 Kings 19:11-12 when he climbed Mt. Horeb and waited for God to come, best describes the mystery of the Divine presence in the silence within. An angel said: Go out and stand on the mountain for the Lord is about to pass by. A great wind came. But God was not in the wind. Then came an earthquake; then fire. God was not in any of them. Then the presence of God appeared to Elijah in a tiny whispering sound the sound of sheer silence. I dare say it is the sound of sheer silence that best describes the inner peace of Centering Prayer. Silence calls to us and then leads us deeper into itself, the True Self that participates in the Trinitarian life of God. Silence is a fruit that grows within the interior regions of our soul that has begun to move beyond all the exterior commotion the noises of the false Introductory Talk for Parishes 3
self. Silence counteracts the impact of those noises that try to interfere with and interrupt the deep communion with God. Silence first draws us and then leads us into contemplation, a world of reality beyond words, a silent world that is experientially filled with the peaceful, transcendent, ungraspable reality that is God Himself. Both centering prayer and Lectio Divina work with the same goals in mind: developing a relationship with Christ/Word to transform us into the mind of Christ. Our fidelity to the practice of Centering Prayer and the daily encounter with the Word through Lectio Divina enables us to recommit in ways only the Spirit can open in us at home, in our work, and in our Ministry. We let all our plans, our activities, our goals flow from prayer. In the midst of the turmoil and the troubles of today s fast paced world, Centering Prayer is a way for us to stop the merry-go-round. These simple practices Lectio Divina and Centering prayer lead to the contemplative dimension of the gospel. Contemplation helps us to discover the reality of God s presence in the silence within. Psalm 46:10 reminds us: Be still and know I am God. Centering Prayer is not meant to replace other kinds of prayer. Rather, it adds depth of meaning to all prayers, and facilitates the movement from more active modes of prayer verbal, mental or affective prayer into a receptive prayer of resting in God. Centering prayer emphasizes prayer as a personal relationship with God and as a movement beyond conversation with Christ to communion with Him. The source of Centering Prayer, as in all methods leading to contemplative prayer, is the Indwelling Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The focus of Centering Prayer is the deepening of our relationship with the living Christ, the Word. The effects of Centering prayer is ecclesial from the Spirit of love welling from the common hearts of the Father and the Son, continually spilling out into the World to creation and to each one of us. Centering prayer builds up communities of faith and bonds the members together in mutual friendship and love. It opens us up completely to God and to genuine service of others. Service is the concrete expression of love. When one belongs completely to God, sharing of one s life and gifts continually increases. I would like to end this presentation with an invitation to learn these prayers, Lectio Divina and Centering Prayer through the Contemplative Outreach Philippines (COP). This would be a perfect preparation for a deeper relationship with Christ, and participation in the life of the Church. Here is a beautiful prayer written by the award-winning journalist and best-selling author Paul Thigen that well describes the point of this presentation. It is entitled SILENCE Sometimes You speak, Lord, in tongues so strange, that I must pray for grace to obey without understanding. Sometimes You sing such a lovely song that I must laugh at the silly tune I thought was wisdom. Sometimes You shout in a voice so loud that I must awake and confess again that I was sleeping. But in this moment when silence is Your word to me Introductory Talk for Parishes 4
and stillness is my prayer, I rest within a confidence, born in the quiet of Your smile: I am beloved. My personal favorite quote on contemplative prayer comes from Fr. Keating in Open Mind, Open Heart : Contemplative prayer is the world in which God can do anything. It is to be open to the Infinite and hence to infinite possibilities. Each time we grow in our relationship through Lectio Divina and through Centering Prayer, we prepare our faculties for the gift of contemplative prayer. We open ourselves to the Infinite, hence to infinite possibilities. Such is the gift of each one of us as the beloved. (Excerpts taken from Open Mind Open Heart by Fr. Thomas Keating) Introductory Talk for Parishes 5