"About This Life"(Acts 5:20) # 2
Contemplative prayer is a
relationship with God that penetrates the deep levels of my soul. It is a
covenant relationship of love and communion. Only if I have overwhelming
experiences of God's love will I make Him the vibrant center of my life. He
must become the supreme, essential value for me. Only then will I organize my
life around this central love. It's a choice of God alone and a love beyond all
others. As the lyric line of a Catholic hymn states, "What wondrous love is
this, O my soul, O my soul?" Such profound contemplative "touches" should
impact me to the point of changing my priorities, preferences, desires,
attitude and perspective on life because such touches of God change me more
and more into Jesus!: "Him whom my heart loves" (Songs 3:2).
Jesus invites me to encounter him
personally: "Come, and you will see" (John 1:39). Entering into my heart I am
led into the banquet hall of the King (see Songs 2:4). As I "taste" the Lord in
rich, contemplative engagement my heart begins to experience a new spiritual
hunger . This hunger is essential if I am to grow in the interior life. One
might say that the "taste buds" of my heart begin to change. I begin to acquire
a spiritual "palate", a yearning for Him whom I have been created for.
Contemplation is always meant to be
a transforming reality. I need to have such overwhelming experiences of
God's love to the extent of letting go of my own life. I need to have such
deep, profound touches of His Presence in prayer that a desire grows for His
life. Consider that the goal of contemplative inner union with God is for
each of us to be filled with the divine life. This is transforming union.
This is why the more intense work in the formation of a contemplative
intercessor is the contemplative formation. Once one is filled with the divine
life, one is filled with the Spirit of Jesus: "Yet I live, no longer I, but
Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20). He is the one, true Intercessor between the
Father and humanity. He will begin to intercede with the Father from within me.
Hence, these profound contemplative
experiences should make me want to surrender all else in order to have Him, and
to prefer His words, His will, His way over my own: "The man who loves God is
the one who mortifies his self-love for the sake of the immeasurable blessings
of divine love" ("From the Treatise On Spiritual Perfection by Diadochus of Photice, bishop"; in
LH, vol. 3, p. 101). In the contemplative journey this is the choice that
everyone needs to make: To either let go of self and let Jesus live, or not. It
is the decision that decides one's destiny: Either Jesus lives supremely within
me, or I do!
Scriptures: Psalm 63:2-9; Songs 1:4
Questions: Has God become my love beyond all
other loves? How is contemplative prayer changing me?
