Scripture for meditation: Psalm 46:10
Be still and know that I am God.
Scripture for
reflection: Mark 1:35
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus
got up, left the house, and went to a solitary place, where he prayed.
Henri Nouwen tells
us: Here we touch the question of discipline in the spiritual life. A
spiritual life without discipline is impossible….The practice of
spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small, gentle voice of God…and
willing to respond when we hear it…. It is clear that we are usually surrounded
by so much outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when he is
speaking to us. We have often become deaf, unable to know when God calls us and
unable to understand in which direction he calls us. Thus our lives have become
absurd. In the word absurd we find the Latin word surdus,
which means “deaf.” A spiritual life requires discipline because we need to
learn to listen to God, who constantly speaks but whom we seldom hear. When,
however, we learn to listen, our lives become obedient lives. The word obedient comes from the Latin word audire, which means “listening.” A
spiritual discipline is necessary in order to move slowly from an absurd to an
obedient life, from a life filled with noisy worries to a life in which there
is some free inner space where we can listen to our God and follow his guidance….The
core of all prayer is indeed listening, obediently standing in the presence of
God. A spiritual discipline, therefore, is the concentrated effort to create
some inner and outer space in our lives, where this obedience can be practiced.
Through a spiritual discipline we prevent the world from filling our lives to
such an extent that there is no place left to listen. A spiritual discipline
sets us free to pray, or, to say it better, allows the Spirit of God to pray in
us. (Devotional Classics, edited by
Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith, Harper Collins, 1993)
Prayer: O Holy
Spirit, beloved of my soul, I adore you. Enlighten, guide me, console me. Tell
me what I must do; give me your orders. I promise to subject myself to all that
you desire of me and to accept all that you permit to happen to me. Let me only
know your will. Cardinal Mercier (Catholic
Prayers for Every Day and All Day, St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2003).
My thoughts: Listening
to God takes great discipline in a world filled with noise, yet in many
spiritual books the authors describe one of the greatest marks of the devil as
the noise he makes. God, on the other hand, is peaceful, quiet, a still voice
inside of us calling us to Him. That is why we must take time, and discipline
ourselves to find a quiet place to simply listen, and become obedient. Maybe
then we can truly pray with Cardinal Mercier, “Let me accept all that you
permit to happen to me.” What a prayer!
Our prayer to God: Discipline
in our lives is hard to accomplish. Tomorrow we will continue with Henri Nouwen
as he describes how to do this. For now, let us try to turn from an absurd life
to an obedient life by listening to God in solitude for five minutes. Maybe as
distractions come up we can write them down, and then turn them into a prayer
when we have finished our quiet time.
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