Our own spiritual seasons can be as subtle as a Florida autumn. Granted, in our spiritual journey we may indeed experience glorious autumns, radiant springtimes, interior snowstorms, and major heat waves; but often the seasons are subdued and may be overlooked if we are not paying attention.

• Perhaps we sense a dryness where spiritual fruit used to grow—or on the other hand we may find sweet nourishment in places where we would ordinarily not be likely to look.

• Perhaps there is a delicate shift in our image of God or in the type of prayer to which we feel called.
• It may be that God is present to us in a way that is simply less obvious than before, so that it seems for a while as if God were not there at all.

• Or God may be speaking to us in silence…
• …or through small events in our lives—outwardly unremarkable occurrences or encounters that we might tend to ignore.

One kind of prayer which can help us notice God’s presence in our everyday lives, as well as our own response to God’s love for us, is the daily Consciousness Examen. It doesn’t have to take more than a few minutes. Two forms of it are found at the sites below:

The Daily Examen

Prayer of Examen (from Creighton University)

"Let it be with me according to your word." Our Lady of the Cenacle (detail) by Maria d'Agliano

Perhaps the most basic version of this approach is exemplified by my ex-Christian friend Josh.  His view is that prayer means asking God for what we want; and the very fact of asking somehow obligates God to give it to us.  This a popular conviction, even, I fear, among many of us who wouldn’t admit it.

However, the fact that not all prayers are answered in the way we wish poses a problem which, for Josh, renders the usefulness of prayer null and provides for him evidence of God’s non-existence.  (See “Answered Prayer.”).  For the faithful there is often a different twist.  If the result is not what we prayed for, we conclude that we are to blame: either our prayer was not worthy, or our faith was not strong enough, or something was lacking in us that we can’t yet figure out.

The other day, glancing through the classified ads in our local newspaper I ran across a particularly Catholic example of the use of prayer as magic, this time in the form of a prayer to Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Now it is a fine thing to ask the intercession of Our Lady or of any of the saints.  What was troubling to me was not the prayer itself but the sentence tacked on at the end: “Say this prayer for 3 consecutive days and then you must publish it and it will be granted to you.” (This is a variation of the novena that requires two copies to be left in church every day for the nine days and assures that your request will not fail to be granted.)

I have no doubt of the faith and sincerity of the person who paid to have the prayer published for three days running and I heartily hope and pray that his or her needs will be abundantly met.  I also believe that God welcomed that fervent prayer into the embrace of the divine heart.

Nevertheless, the idea that we can obtain whatever we want from God – or even what we desperately need – by doing everything just right (whether by publishing a prayer, leaving copies in church, or even simply saying the right words at the right time) distorts what prayer is meant to be.  And it also misrepresents the loving sovereignty of God who does not require perfection of us, but who suffers with us, rejoices with us, and holds us in the everlasting arms no matter what happens.

Listen to the Carmelite Ruth Burrows:

What do we mean by prayer?…Almost always when we talk about prayer we are thinking of something we do and, from that standpoint, questions, problems, confusion, discouragement, illusions multiply. … Our Christian knowledge assures us that prayer is essentially what God does, how God addresses us, looks at us.  It is not primarily something we are doing to God, something we are giving to God but what God is doing for us.  And what God is doing for us is giving us the divine Self in love. (Essence of Prayer)

In the private prayer of Christians, there is no one form that is the most acceptable to God.  Prayers of petition, silent meditation, memorized prayers, novenas, rosaries, prayer with scripture, begging on our knees, singing, journaling, chatting with God during the day, simple presence – the list of Christian prayer practices is endless.  What is not optional is that we pray.

Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)

We are called to show up. We are called to be present and docile to the Holy Spirit working in us. But we are not the ones in charge when we pray.

All that concerns us here and now is what concerned Jesus: that God should have just whatever he wants.  Jesus … declined to live from his own wellspring but only from the Father.  This is what we have to do; this is how we must live. (Burrows, Essence of Prayer)

A voice cries out:
‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’

Isaiah 40:3-5

What is the wilderness in my life where God desires to come and reveal the divine Presence?  And how am I to prepare a way?

Is this wilderness:

• an untamed part of myself?
• a place of emptiness or sadness in my heart?
• the city streets, where so many are suffering, and, just as in a wilderness, can find no food or shelter?
• an area of my life where I feel out of control?
• or perhaps a desert time without cell phone, computer, or other media?

O God,
You who always take the first steps toward me,
show me how to prepare the way and to welcome you.
May I be attentive,
so as to recognize your Coming in my own wilderness.
If there are roadblocks that I have put in the path,
even if I don’t yet see them for what they are,
I offer them you you for your divine purpose.
Amen.

(1. Soul of Christ, sanctify me.)

(2. Body of Christ, save me.)

(3. Blood of Christ, inebriate me.)

(4. Water from the side of Christ, wash me.)

(5. Passion of Christ, strengthen me.)

(6. Within thy Wounds, hide me.)

- – - – -

Let me never be separated from thee.
Ne permittas me separari a te.

There’s a deep sense in which we are never, ever separated from God, for if we were not in God, and God in us, we would not exist.

But on another level, we can separate ourselves from God, when our lives are not in harmony with God’s love.  Or we can feel separated from God by simply not being mindful of God’s presence, by not reminding ourselves throughout the day of the love God has for us and for every person.

Or sometimes it happens that God seems to hide the divine face from us.  Then we feel ourselves in darkness; or as if all the road signs have suddenly disappeared from our path.  In reality God may be working in us in a quiet, unseen way that we can’t comprehend.

But not being able to see what God is doing may drive me absolutely crazy, or at the very least make me think I’ve forgotten how to pray.  In this holy wilderness, the Spirit of God can work unhampered by what I think I understand and by what I think I need for my own sanctity. And because I can’t see what God is doing, there is probably less chance that I will get in the way.

Then I need to pray (although I may not feel inclined to pray) and to remember that I am not really separated from God who is still with me and in me and guiding me.

So I cry out to God:

In you, O God, I live and move and have my being, but the least distraction seems to separate me from you.
Without you, I would not be, but I often try to go my own way.
You hold me in the everlasting arms, but still I am afraid in the darkness.
Remind me once again, O God, for I am weak and forgetful, of your abiding love and faithfulness.

Let me never be separated from thee.
Ne permittas me separari a te.

- – - – -

Presence in Darkness image by Rose Hoover, rc

The voice I overheard was talking about me.

“…but she couldn’t even find St. John’s Mercy Hospital.”

I recognized the speaker, as I had given her an ill-fated ride the day before. And yes, it’s true, I have what seems to be a genetic propensity for getting lost. At least I call it genetic. (Anne Tyler, in The Accidental Tourist, called the condition “geographical dyslexia.”) On the other hand, some people think that if I just concentrated, I wouldn’t have the problem at all. And others, like the owner of the voice speaking above, simply take my inability to navigate as a sign of mental deficiency.

Symptoms:

• I have been known to drive for a half hour on the interstate in the wrong direction.

• The words, “You can’t miss it,” send me into quivers.

• After giving up searching and telephoning for directions, I have had to admit that I had no idea where I was calling from (seriously hindering the direction-giver).

• I find highway signs woefully inadequate, disappearing just when I need then.

On the spiritual journey, however, there is a sense in which most of us, left to our own devices, are directionally challenged. The way is fraught with puzzling intersections and foggy back roads and trackless wastelands where we long for a GPS or a printout from Mapquest.

But happily, and often in spite of ourselves, we are being led, even when the haze appears so dense or the night so obscure that we can’t see our hands before our faces. And amazingly enough, we are being guided not just to where we ought to be, but to where we want to be.

The beautiful Latin verses of St. Thomas Aquinas, which we know as “Panis Angelicus,” end with this prayer:

Per tuas semitas
Duc nos quo tendimus,
Ad lucem quam inhabitas.

“Lead us,” we pray, “along your paths…” —

Lead us through everything:

• through interior struggles, through joy and pain, through knowledge and unknowing…

• through prayer, in the body and blood of Christ (panis angelicus: bread of angels), to the divine life of Christ that we receive and are called to live…

• from indifference to love, from judging to compassion, from violence to peace…

Lead us along your paths, because our own roads tend to get us lost.

“Lead us where we want to go,” continues the prayer, in the direction we are already leaning, if we are paying attention to our heart’s longing.

Lead us “to the light wherein you dwell.”

Where we are being led is indeed where we want to be. The goodness of God leads us, not to some desolate wasteland where we will still be wandering around hunting for a highway marker, nor even to a faraway or foreign land, but to the very place for which we were made and for which our hearts long: to the Light that is God’s dwelling and our home.

You show me the path of life.
In your presence there is fullness of joy;
in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.
(Psalm 16:11)

__________

P.S. There are many renditions of Cesar Franck’s “Panis Angelicus” on YouTube, performed by the likes of Luciano Pavarotti, Leontyne Price, and Placido Domingo. Unfortunately, Franck’s version uses only one verse of Aquinas’ hymn, omitting the words cited above.

Like anyone who uses the internet as a tool, I am sometimes asked to identify myself on websites I visit. When it’s a matter of ordering a book from Amazon.com, I obviously have to give my real name and address. I don’t even mind signing in with the New York Times or the Washington Post.

On others sites I can find my privacy antennae quivering. Occasionally, therefore, I use only my initials and last name (as I did when I inadvertently ended up on an ex-christian site last year [see the entry, Being Scorned]). Or I type in my middle name without a last name; or, if I am feeling particularly paranoid, a name I made up in high school when I had aspirations of being a poet and thought a pen name would lift me to the ranks of the literary immortals. (I won’t reveal that one to you.)

Human beings sometimes request personal identification from God as well (that is, when we are not just assuming we already know all there is to know about the divine). For example, when Moses encounters God at the burning bush, he asks for God’s name.

Moses says, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you’, and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” (Exodus 3:13).

Now God, being God, is not required to give out personal information–or as far as that goes, to answer any questions at all. Nevertheless, God, being God, treats Moses with respect and does give Moses a response of sorts, although it is probably not the response he hopes for.

“Ehyeh asher ehyeh,” replies God.

What in the world does that mean? No one really knows. “I am who I am” is probably the most frequent translation, but some contend that it is not the most accurate. The phrase can also read, “I will be who I will be,” or “I will be what I will be,” or, as Johannes Metz writes in Suffering unto God, “I will be for you who I will be.”

According to Martin Buber, the answer God gives is the answer we need to hear:

Not “I am that I am” as alleged by the metaphysicians—God does not make theological statements—but the answer which his creatures need, and which benefits them: “I shall be there as I there shall be” [Exod. 3:14]. That is: you need not conjure me, for I am here, I am with you; but you cannot conjure me, for I am with you time and again in the form in which I choose to be with you time and again. . .

“The Faith of Judaism,” The Martin Buber Reader: Essential Writings, edited by Asher D. Biemann (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 103.

You cannot conjure me, God says. No matter how often you go to church; no matter how many prayers you say or the assiduousness of your scripture study; no matter how long you sit in silence with your legs crossed or with your feet flat on the floor; no matter how many charitable deeds you perform; no matter how shining your virtues or upright your life: none of this suffices to conjure me up or make me present.

The good news is that you have no need to conjure me anyhow, for I am there.

Our own actions can be either welcoming or contemptuous of the blessing of divine presence; but God’s presence is a gift and a given, not the reward for prayer well prayed or a life well lived. Indeed, it is God’s loving presence that motivates us to prayer, to worship, to silence, to virtue, to good deeds—not the other way around.

But notice this: God says to Moses, “I will be for you as I will be,” or “I shall be there as I there shall be,” not necessarily as you would have me to be. I am there whether you want me to be there or not. And I am there the way I desire to be there. “Ehyeh asher ehyeh.”

You are not in control of my presence. I promise to be there whether you ask me to be or not, but “I shall be there as I there shall be.” Not always as you want me to be or expect me to be or think you need me to be. Perhaps not in the way I seemed present to you yesterday or will seem to you tomorrow. But I will be there.

And what is more: what I will be for you is what I Am in truth, not an illusion, not an imitation of godhood or a figment of your imagination—though you may at times mistake one of these for me, and though, with your limited human awareness, you will never be able to grasp the fullness of divinity.

I will be for you who I Am and always Have Been—and who I always Will Be, world without end. I will be there for you, I your heart’s desire, what you have always desired, whether you knew it or not.

So we pray,
You who are there for me as you will be, may I also be there for you as you graciously will me to be.

O God,
that at all times you may find me
as you desire me
and where you would have me to be;
that you may lay hold of me fully
both by the Within and the Without of myself.
Grant that I may never break this double thread of my life.
Amen.

(Prayer by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

“We’re overbooked for that part of town and can’t take any more reservations,” I was told.

An injured foot discouraged me from taking the “L,” so I resigned myself to calling a cab, my least favorite mode of transportation — not only because of the expense, but because my introverted self, already frazzled from packing, is wearied by the forty minutes of relating one-to-one with the stranger in the driver’s seat.

So my Sunday morning began with the expectation of just plowing with determination through the day. God, however, is full of surprises, and ordinary events soon reminded me of the abiding presence of God’s Spirit.

The Spirit of God in the Taxi

First, the taxi driver turned out to be a very polite young man from India, and as a bonus, he was quiet, freeing me from the necessity of conversation. Along the way, we stopped at a traffic light where an aging woman approached carrying a corrugated cardboard sign which read: “I am homeless.” The taxi driver motioned for her to stop, and gave her a dollar bill or two.

I said nothing, but pondered this simple gesture as we continued toward the airport. Finally I said to the driver, “I appreciate your compassion toward the homeless woman.”

In his lilting English he replied, “I believe that we have to help each other.”

“We don’t know,” I added, “the circumstances that brought her to where she is.”

His response evoked the Sermon on the Mount, “It’s easy to judge, but we can judge wrong.”

One can argue about whether or not it really helps a beggar to give him or her money, but what was unarguable was the kindness of the driver.

The Spirit of God in Midway Airport

Since traffic was light, we arrived early at the airport, and I began the long trudge toward the gate. (Midway is no longer a small airport.) On the way I noticed a sign for the airport chapel, and almost to the gate I heard over the loudspeaker: “Catholic mass will be celebrated at 11:00 in the chapel. It will last one half hour.” This was obviously designed to lure the harried traveler.

Letting myself be lured, I turned around and headed for the chapel. When I entered I was welcomed warmly and asked to be one of the gift-bearers at the offertory. The liturgy began, and somehow the priest, whose 59th anniversary of priesthood was that very day, managed both to give a homily (which he promised would last only three minutes, and to reassure us, held his watch before his eyes as he spoke) and also to have us sing at the proper moments — and all in one half hour.

Besides the general atmosphere of cordiality and efficiency, I was struck by the words of the priest right at the beginning: “I am available to hear confessions after mass. If you’ve been away for a long time, you don’t have to give numbers and details, just a general idea of what you’ve done against God. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been away. And if you don’t need to confess, come anyway for the grace of the sacrament!”

Nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But here in Midway Airport was the same Spirit which I met in the cab driver: a welcoming Spirit, non-judgmental and kind. My anticipated miserable day was turning out to be bright with the contemplation of goodness.

A final detail. There was one empty seat in the plane, and it was right next to me.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
(John 14:15-17)

When I approached Main Street the other day to make a right turn, I noticed a bicyclist at the corner, waiting to cross. He was less than respectable looking, bone thin, with a short scruffy beard and an arm covered with tattoos. I was fully expecting him to cross the street before I turned — after all, he got there before I did. Instead, he waved me on ahead of him.

That’s all he did — just let me go first. No big deal. But I felt as if his action were a sign of the goodness of God. More, it seemed at that moment that the kindness of God was visibly present in him.

“All creatures are by nature endeavoring to be like God,” says Meister Eckhart. “The heavens would not revolve unless they followed on the track of God or of His likeness. If God were not in all things, nature would stop dead, not working and not wanting; for nature fundamentally is seeking, although obscurely, and tending toward God.”

We human creatures are also, often very obscurely indeed, seeking and tending toward God. Our efforts may be misguided, as we mistake lesser things for God; or we may try to refuse the search or turn from Love. However, we are made for God and made to be like God, which is the only way we will be happy. Performing or receiving a simple act of kindness can provide a glimpse of that truth and bring us closer to the conclusion of St. John of the Cross, who said, “In the evening of our life, we shall be judged by love.”

“And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”
(2 Corinthians 3:18)

What is so mysterious is that the monarch butterflies fly each year to a place they have never seen. There seems to be implanted in them the need and the desire for this location and these particular trees, as well as the instinct for arriving there. In fact, the previous ones to winter in those trees are long dead — it is several generations of their grandchildren who make the next trip.

We also have a desire implanted in us — the desire for God. Ordinarily what we long for is something we don’t already have, and it can seem this way with God, too: that we long for God because God is not there.But strangely enough, longing for God is a sign of the divine presence. God is there in our longing. We wouldn’t be longing at all, if God weren’t already present, touching us and implanting in our hearts the desire for the divine. The longing itself draws us toward the one who is truly already with us.

Therefore we can pray, “Come, Lord Jesus!” in confidence and peace, because Emmanuel, “God-with-us,” is present to us and in us as we call to him.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is great power to redeem.
(Psalm 130:5-7)