“I look at Him and He looks at me!” It is like this: loving contemplation, typical of the most intimate prayer, does not need many words. A gaze is enough. It is enough to be convinced that our life is surrounded by an immense and faithful love that nothing can ever separate us from. ~ extract from a catechesis on contemplative prayer by Pope Francis
There has been so much to pray about these past few weeks. Aloud and in silence, and with all our hearts we have prayed, still pray, for peace... for Ukraine, and Gaza... for troubling, heart-rending situations of anguish and pain... and, of course, we have all prayed, still pray, alone and together, for Pope Francis, during what we have feared to be the end of his earthly pilgrimage, and mission here. Last week, in a world filled with scarily lurching uncertainties and instability we began Lent, holding on to prayer, maybe more than in most years; and certainly conscious of life's fragility, and of the only One in whose faithful love and presence we can rest secure.
In this Jubilee year, too, this Pilgrimage of Hope, I entered Lent newly aware that we are all pilgrims, journeying alone, but also supportively together, in hope, and mutual encouragement and prayer.
And in today's Gospel, Jesus responds to his disciples' need for prayer, teaching them not just words, but the attitudes with which to be before God; the attitudes with which to gaze at God and others, and know his deeply loving, tender and all-forgiving gaze on us. (Matthew 6: 7-15)
At the Mass I attended this lunchtime, the response to each bidding prayer was Lord, open our hearts. And I thought: isn't this the very essence of prayer? Opening our hearts, opening our deepest selves, to God, and to God's grace and action in us... Opening ourselves to our own need and weakness, and to our often unplumbed desire and delight, bringing all this into the light of God's gaze... And opening our hearts, opening our very selves, to the pain and beauty, hope and despair we see all around us... bringing them into our prayer, and into the endlessly compassionate Heart of our God.
This is prayer, and these are the times in which we are called to pray, with ever greater trust and intensity.
How is God calling you to be with him in prayer today?
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