Men's Rosary

I think of the expression, “all the wrong things for all the right reasons”, and wonder how often this pertains to the spiritual life. The wrong things are not necessarily bad things, just not the best things to be doing for the intended reason or purpose. To be sure, we must keep our temporal affairs within the context of our spiritual nature.  As I have grown older, this has become more clear.  Some would fret and worry that time was wasted, but it is actually just a season of life.

For love of family, we may work very hard to provide the necessities of life. The trouble is that it can blur what is really the most important thing to provide to our family. The reason is good but the things we are focusing on and doing are the wrong things. The balance needs to be met between the temporal and spiritual. Time with the family and leading in example of matters of faith and prayer are the most important but the desire, while noble, to provide takes our attention and focus away from what we are really called to do.

For love of Church we serve at our parishes. We do whatever is asked.  However, reason is good but the things can be bad.  Again, the balance can be off.  What does it profit the Church to be an exemplary volunteer and hard worker while not taking the time to meet people where they are and minister to them?  Busyness is not holiness and much less is it ministerial.

For love of God we can even fall into the same trap. It is not very beneficial to the soul to overwhelm ourselves with seminars, retreats, novenas and the like at the expense of encountering Christ.  It is easy to let the sacramentals become like a good luck charm or even superstitious.  These things are to bring us to Christ, not busy our spiritual life.  They are only as effective as the faith which is behind them. 

As I think of this, I am reminded that everything hinges on our relationship with God.  And this relationship is only cultivated through prayer. Knowing this to be true we find that our reason is good. But the myriad of things we do in the hope of connectedness with God, becomes an impediment to that goal. We find God in the stillness and silence that the prophet Elijah encountered him (1 Kings 19:11-13). If we are not careful all these things can become noise which will overcome the silence and we will not hear God’s voice.

It is a good exercise to look at what our spiritual practices are and weigh if they are good or bad as regards our building a solid foundation of prayer and discourse with God.  God will not force himself upon us, we must create the space and invite him to enter.  This means we need to take pause from doing – even good things!  Jesus gives perfect example of how to do this.  He worked diligently in ministering to people and building the Church but he knew that time must be made for God every day. “But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.” (Luke 5:15-16) Too much activity will bring anxiety and worry. We can only do so much and it really is not that much in the grand scheme of things. Too many novenas and pious devotions can leave us void of quality time with God. To make time for him and to simply listen with trust that he will instruct us will increase our sanctity and by default help us to serve the way God wishes and not how we decide. “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.” (Psalm 37:5-6) If we fill all of our time with doing and have no time to rest with the Lord, to listen to him speak, to give him the honor due him, we are actually not growing spiritually and in relation to God.  This should be our main focus in the spiritual life, starting each day with him and making time at the end of the day.  “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.” (Mark 1:35)

Sometimes prayer of this sort, silent prayer, or the prayer of quiet is avoided or given up on because we do not think we are getting anything out of it, that nothing is happening.  Well, we are – every time.  When we show up to pray this way, when we create room for God, we receive graces bestowed upon us by our creator.  If we do not show up we do not get the graces.  I think of it at times like fishing or hunting.  If you do these things, the idea is to catch a fish or bag game for the table.  And we all hope to land the record fish or bag the trophy buck.  But, similar to prayer, we must make the time and space. We have go to the place to hunt and we must silence ourselves in order for the fish or animal to appear.  Sometimes we get something, sometimes we don’t.  However, we always feel the presence and peace of nature.  I remember fishing and hunting with my dad.  He would sit calmly and quietly and I would squirm and make noise.  And I thought to myself, how can he do this?  Well, it was because he had done it for years and I was beginning.  He was seasoned.  He was at rest and trusted in the process.  So it goes with prayer and being still with God.  We must do it.  We must keep going back.  Some times will seem unfruitful and even hard to endure, some will seem fruitful and some may be extraordinary.  We take what God gives and are thankful, remembering that just being there means we are grace filled. These graces will make us effective in our families, the Church and the world at large. These graces will enable us to serve better.

In all that we do and are doing may we give thanks to God.  May we, in the midst of all we do, make space to sit with God to listen to his voice and direction in our lives.

“Whoever sits in solitude and is quiet has escaped from three wars: hearing, speaking, and seeing. Yet against one thing he must constantly battle: his own heart.”  (St Anthony the Great)