“What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops” (Matthew 10:27).
My spiritual director asked, “How’s your prayer?” He asked it calmly, openly, without any hint of reprobation. The answer was, “Dry.”
And I think he knew that based on the myriad of struggles I laid out before him on that conference room table, in that room lined with books, clutching my paper cup with ice water between two sweaty palms.
In my nagging prayer, in my loud prayer, I couldn’t sense God’s presence. In my prayer that consisted of a demand list and a sob fest, I wasn’t relying on Scripture, just my damp lists. In this prayer, the well was dry, the bucket lost, the rope cut short.
But when I think on today’s Gospel, I am prodded into the spiritual reality that the Lord is here, in this very breath, waiting, patiently, watching, lovingly, to reveal Himself to my quieted heart.
Is your heart quiet and peaceful enough to hear His voice, sister? Peace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, one we can cultivate and widen when we’re in the state of grace.
Because when it is, and when we are, we will have so much to speak, to proclaim. My prayer needed that reminder of silence. If yours does too, don’t be embarrassed. Quiet yourself in His presence and let His living water pour over you.
Is your heart quiet and peaceful enough to hear His voice, sister? // @WholeParenting Click To Tweet
All sorts of prayer have flowed in and out of my heart over many years. All those you mentioned and others. As a Benedictine Oblate for nearly twenty years, and even before, I’ve learned to rely upon the daily prayer of the psalms, regular as clockwork, season after season, year after year. St. Benedict, in his Holy Rule, sets up the rhythm of the 150 psalms to be prayed by every member of the monastic community day by day. Listening to the psalms over the years, memorizing many, singing almost all, I have been blessed to draw deeply from the well of the Church’s prayer over time and space. These ancient cries of the heart embody every human emotion, even the ugly ones. We need never be ashamed of authentic prayer of whatever kind. And it has constantly strengthened and consoled me to know that the Psalms were Jesus’ prayer book on earth. It is his eternal prayer, as well, so I enter into his prayer when I pray the psalms. Whether it is “O God, you are my God; at dawn I seek you; for you my soul is thirsting.
For you my flesh is pining,
like a dry, weary land without water. I have come before you in the sanctuary to behold your strength and your glory,” (Ps 63) or “ My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you far from saving me, so far from my words of anguish? O my God, I call by day and you do not answer; I call by night and I find no reprieve.” (Ps 22) or “ I will bless you day after day, and praise your name forever and ever. The LORD is great and highly to be praised; his greatness cannot be measured,” (Ps 145) I know that I am where I need to be, with Jesus in prayer to the Father. Over the years I have found that times of dryness are the call of the Holy Spirit to go deeper, to remain steadfast, and to ground my life in hope, to move forward in faith and to abide in love. Thank you for your reflection. May we thirsty ones hear the Lord’s invitation to come to the springs of living water. St. Teresa of Avila in her “Interior Castle” has wisdom for the spiritual life worth remembering: sometimes we are carrying buckets of water from the well to the garden of the soul, sometimes we are digging a channel from the water source to the garden, and sometimes we are drinking in the soaking rain from the heavens. All are good.❤️
So beautiful! Thank you for sharing!