When she was 15, my eldest daughter, Maire, getting ready for Confirmation, volunteered for the Children’s Liturgy at our parish. Small children would file out of mass with cute music just before the readings. They would be led into a little side room where volunteers read the Gospel to them in a way they could understand. My daughter, Maire loved little kids. She was perfect for this ministry. She loved little kids she met or played with so much she would write their names on her notebooks with hearts and other designs equally sweet.
She came in to teach the kids when it was her turn. It was nearing the end of Advent. The adults looked nervous when this little goth girl came in to work with the kids. The first thing she did is ask them what they wanted for Christmas and let them talk about that. Then she asked them, “What does Jesus want for Christmas? It’s his birthday! What do you think he would like best?” Visible relief on adult faces around the room.
But this is a really good question. What does he want? I think one thing leads to another and covers everything and that’s “making time to be alone with the One who [you] know loves [you.”] (St. Teresa of Avila). I think this because making that time, being with him, leads us to all of the other things he likes, such as transformation in him, generosity, love that leads to service. He wants YOU for Christmas.
As Mother Teresa of Calcutta wrote:
The fruit of Silence is Prayer. The fruit of Prayer is Faith. The fruit of Faith is Love. The fruit of Love is Service. The fruit of Service is Peace.
When we make time to be alone and quiet with the One Who we know loves us, our faith is deepened as we come to know Jesus more intimately. Love expands in us as we cultivate a deeper relationship with him, and this love pours out naturally in service.
So what does Jesus want for Christmas? You, of course. Your time, your love, your attentiveness, your quiet heart (yes you can have a quiet heart), your receptivity to him.
Do we have to pray at Church to carve out this time for Jesus? In the presence of the Blessed Sacrament is always a great place to pray. However, no. Anywhere you can be alone for a while is good.
As someone who was a single parent for many years, I know how hard it can be to find any alone time. You can, though. You just have to be creative and flexible that’s all. He can work withy whatever time you have. You can pray in the car if you arrive early somewhere. I love it when I am ten minutes early. Since I have social anxiety it helps a lot to get someplace early and take that time to sit with Jesus for a while before dealing with people.
I confess I also hid in the tree house sometimes once the kids were older. Just for a while. I could still hear them.
I did all this getting up early so I had time to pray, or staying up late to do so, or praying in silence on my break at work because once you get in the habit of silent prayer, it’s something you want very much to do. I cherished that time with Jesus, even if out of necessity it had to be short.
After a while I came to love prayer because I knew he wanted me there. He really was the One who I knew loved me and it made him happy for me to stop what I was doing and set aside time for him.
St. Teresa of Avila said that if we can get into the habit of the Prayer of recollection we will “attain what we desire in six months.” What do we desire from prayer? What do we long for most from God?
I love this quote from the poet Hafiz
Ask the Friend for love.
Ask him again.
For I have learned that every heart will get
What it prays for
Most.
I think we are made for love and we know God is love. Any trouble we could take to give the Lord our time is infinitely worth it. As St. Teresa says, “life is like a night at a bad inn.” But Jesus is forever.
So go into your room, shut the door, and pray to your Father in secret. The Son and the Holy Spirit will come and live with you.
*I am including a guide to the Prayer of Recollection I wrote some years ago. My new little book about the Prayer of Recollection is out right now, Meeting the One Who loves you; the way of prayer of St. Teresa of Avila, and available from Our Sunday Visitor Bookstore as well as Amazon and Barnes and Noble or whatever you buy books.
One of the best tools I have ever found to form new habits is the book Atomic Habits by James Clear
I am quite neuron-divergent in several ways and forming a new habit is sooooooo difficult for me. My favorite idea from that book was to commit to two minutes daily to this new thing you want to start doing. You won’t be overwhelmed by two minutes at all for anything. It won’t see like such a big deal to you to sit down with Jesus for only two minutes at the same time each day. Stay with the two minutes until you are into the swing of it and then you’re off! Start adding to it little by little.
How long should you pray? My personal goal has always been thirty minutes at a time daily. After years of the practice of interior prayer, it’s not a big deal to pray that long. In fact I add in little snippets of it where I can through the day. I think of them like flowers tucked into a rock wall here and there with a little moss. You have the nice strong wall at the cornerstone of your 30 minutes of interior prayer, and then these pretty little flowers modestly adorning it; your few minutes here and there in the car in a parking lot, between jobs, a few minutes before bed, or after evening prayer or after mass.
The rewards of this little habit are like water to the soul. All your other practices of faith are immeasurably deepened. Your faith will mean more to you than ever and not in a weird way that makes you annoying to other people, but in a way that flows out with honest love to everything and everyone in your life. Most of all it makes the Lord so happy and you will grow so much closer to him.
As St. John of the Cross wrote, “In the evening of your life you will be judged on love; so love, the way God wants, and leave off your own way of acting.” This makes me chuckle a little. We all have our own little ideas about what is the most holy thing to do and sometimes it’s not what we thought. He seems to like the simple things. “Sit down with me, and let yourself be loved.” Or as our St. Teresa said, “I am only asking you to look at him.”
Come, and you will see. Advent is the perfect time for this; to cherish Jesus within you as Mary did, to ponder the Lord in our hearts, to reflect him as she did, love him as she did. Right here. It’s the perfect gift.
Last summer I finished the manuscript for a little book about the Prayer of Recollection of St. Teresa of Avila. This summer it will be released. My goal was to teach the prayer in an engaging and accessible way. Lots of people know Lectio Divina as a contemplative Christian method of prayer and rightly so, but few people know the Prayer of Recollection from the Doctor of Prayer, St. Teresa of Jesus. The only book I could find exclusively about the prayer was just a series of Teresa’s quotes about it. So I wrote one myself.
Saint Teresa said she never knew what it was to pray with satisfaction until the Lord himself taught her what she named “The Prayer of Recollection.” Meeting the One Who Loves You teaches this method of prayer step by step, along with its underpinning concepts, in a friendly, personal way.
Saint Teresa of Ávila taught that the sacred humanity of Jesus is our way to him. She believed in the power of prayer, even the simple inner silence of contemplative prayer — spending time with Jesus and loving him.
Wherever you are in life and in your walk with God, fear not. Only good can come of learning this prayer and making it an important part of your daily life. Saint Teresa knew the transforming love of God in prayer, and consequently, she lived a life of extraordinary richness. If you have a desire to pray more deeply, to grow exponentially in love, and to be connected to God more profoundly, then this prayer is perfect for you.
The release date is Monday, August 25. You can find it at osvcatholicbookstore.com,Amazon, Barnes and Nobles , and other places you find books! Go get one and if you buy it on Amazon be sure and leave a review!
I have been writing about the Prayer of Recollection. If you have begun and continue to practice this prayer consistently, you may have noticed some things; maybe some potholes along the path; maybe some flowers, too. How we respond to each of these will be important for our growth in prayer.
One of these, as I mentioned before, are distractions. Again, I want to emphasize that distractions are normal, and to some extent, in the work of prayer, we will always have them. It’s important not to be mad at yourself about distractions in prayer. They are what the human mind does. In this prayer, we are training the mind to remain with God in a conscious, continual way for a time, so that we might grow in intimacy, love, and knowledge of the Lord, the “Friend who we know loves us,” as St. Teresa of Avila calls Him.
Our Friend knows our minds are unruly, that we are anxious and worried about many things. He knows. You have chosen the better part, though, and it will not be taken from you. He will complete the good work He has begun in you. He Himself will fight for you. You have only to remain still.
So when distractions come, recognize them, and gently bring yourself back to the presence of the Lord, over and over again. I promise it gets easier as your mind comes more under control with practice. And God will give you strength.
Another pothole along the road of prayer is aptly called aridity, or dryness. Prayer starts to feel like reading the phone book. Remember that St. John of the Cross teaches us that prayer is the secret, quiet inflow of God. Sometimes that quiet inflow is even secret to ourselves. It feels like nothing is happening, or that prayer is painful and empty. This is when we go on trusting that God is in us and working in us whether we have any sense of that or not. As I am fond of saying, the quality of our prayer, and God’s power to work His will in us is not limited by our personal perception or experience of how “well” prayer is going. Do tell God how you feel and ask Him for what you need. St. Teresa said we need determined determination to continue on the Royal Road of prayer. I think of it as the dogged pursuit of God in prayer. The mystics of our faith say that God deepens our prayer and blesses us all the more for our faithfulness and love for Him in times of aridity. Be strong and take heart. God is with you.
The opposites of dry spells in prayer are usually called consolations. You may sometimes feel a deep sense of peace and joy when you pray, intense love or even feelings of euphoria. You may experience the sensible closeness or touch of God on your soul. You may receive flashes of understanding or the unravelling of a difficulty. There is nothing wrong with these things. Carmelite wisdom says enjoy them while they last, but don’t try to cling to them or perpetuate them. Understand that these experiences come and go. Try to be peaceful and accepting when they stop. These are wonderful gifts. They draw us closer to God within and away from outward show. God gives us this sweetness from time to time. Consolations can be very healing and inspiring. When these good things are withdrawn, though, we need to allow them to go easily. Simply continue the prayer, with your focus on the Giver. In this way, you will be learning to love Him more and more for Who He is in Himself, whatever He gives or does not give.
When consolations come, then, just smile, be thankful, receive. Then let go as easily as a breath. Keep loving, keep praying, keep present. If we practice this easiness about the presence or absence of consolations, our prayer life grows immeasurably.
As Our Lord said to St. Angela of Foligno, “Make of yourself a capacity and I will make of Myself a torrent.”
He’s kind of sneaky so His torrent could feel any number of ways to us. But if we persevere in prayer, we will see the fruits of it in what Gandhi called “the total transformation of character, conduct, and consciousness.” These are the fruits of the life of prayer.
All God wants of man, is a peaceful heart. ~ Miester Ekhart
If we dispose ourselves to Him, in the way St. Teresa has taught us, and we don’t give up, then He will surely come to us, and we will grow in awareness of His indwelling.
Bethany Hang Out 