The Holy Spirit Helps Us in our Weakness -- Part 2

In the last entry, I wrote about agreeing to pray for a priest, and then discovering that I had no clue about how to do that.  What I was about to find out, however, is that God gives us what He asks us to do.

The same day I went to Adoration and heard the words, "I want you to suffer with him," I was led to open my bible to the book of Zechariah, chapter 3.  As I began to read, I was amazed to read about Joshua, the high priest, who was being accused by Satan standing at his right hand.  The angel of the Lord rebuked Satan and told those standing near to take off Joshua's filthy clothes and to dress him in fine linen.  In addition, the filthy turban around Joshua's head was removed and replaced with a clean one.  Then the angel said to Joshua, "See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you" (Zech. 3:4).

The Word of the Lord is absolutely overflowing with audio-visual aids for us poor and weak students.  God is able to make us see and understand what He wants us to learn.  Now I had a clear image of my priest being cleansed of his sins and impurities so that he could indeed be an alter Christi -- another Christ -- and do the things God has called him to do. And I was able to pray, "May it be done unto him according to Your Word."

Another week passed and then I was led to begin praying Ephesians chapter 6, where Paul urges us to "put on the whole armor of God": the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the shoes of readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.  These are the "rich garments" with which the Spirit of the Lord wishes to clothe those who take their stand against the devil's schemes: "For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

I had asked the Lord to show me how to pray, and now I thought I had enough direction to last a lifetime.  Little did I know that there was more to come.  Somehow, The Book of Pastoral Rule of St. Gregory the Great appeared on my Kindle.  As I began reading Part II -- The Life of the Pastor -- I realized that I was being given even more very specific direction for prayer.  In chapter after chapter, Gregory urges the pastor to be pure, discreet in keeping silent, but profitable in speech, sympathetic, contemplative, a good friend, humble, zealous for righteousness -- and the list goes on.  (Our poor priests!)

I guess my "take-away" is that I should never tell the Lord that I don't know how to do what He asks me to do.  He knew that from the beginning, but He also knows that He will provide over and above -- more than we can ask or imagine, according to His power at work in us (Eph. 3) -- all that is necessary for us to carry out the mission He gives us.  In the words of St. Paul: to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Spirit Helps Us in our Weakness

The Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express (Rom. 8: 26).

Recently, I agreed to begin praying for a priest, but immediately found myself in a dilemma.  My  prayer is most often unstructured and unfocused, often consisting more in silence and listening than in "saying" anything.  Now, however, I felt that I had a "job" to do, and I was floundering.  I thought maybe I needed to be intentional in how and what I was praying --- but at the same time, I felt that my patron (St. Therese, who always prayed for priests) was probably very ashamed of me and embarrassed by my stabs at prayer in this regard.

Most people would probably say a Rosary for a special intention, but for years I have spectacularly failed at saying the Rosary.  During the day, or when I am walking, I probably say the equivalent of a Rosary, but put a Rosary in my hands, and I become a fool.  I get tangled up in the prayers, since I keep trying to contemplate and forget the words --- or I get stuck on an Our Father and start thinking about all the places "Thy Kingdom come" need so desperately.  

Finally, after a week of trying to do my "job" without knowing even where or how to begin, I went to Adoration.  How do you want me to pray? I cried.  I don't know how to pray for ……  The answer came in a short time: I want you to suffer with him!  This was not the answer I expected, but I immediately understood it.  I was not to undertake any kind of special "suffering" or penance, but I was not to abandon him in his suffering.  If I decided to back off praying/ standing with him, then I would be leaving him to suffer his burdens alone.  For me, this was the perfect answer: I knew that I could not give up praying just because I thought I didn't know how to do it.

In the weeks following, I began to see and understand things that were new to me: Mary standing helplessly at the foot of the cross, refusing to leave her Son in His suffering; the loneliness and lack of intimacy in priestly life; the fact that there is no one to share in the small and large moments.  I began to understand the fact that if even one person understands our suffering, it begins to be bearable.  That is why therapy is so effective -- someone else knows what we are going through! Even though I don't really know what my priest is suffering at any given moment, I can still "stand there" in silence.

I understood also that as Mary stood with Jesus, she was offering His suffering to the Father in submission, not understanding, but obeying.  She was not necessarily "saying any prayers," but standing there yielding to God's will. I finally began to understand that I did not have to twist myself into new forms of praying, but that I could continue to pray as I always had -- more waiting and receiving than "doing."  

And once I began to open myself to what God wanted to give me in prayer for my priest, I was amazed at what began to unfold.  I was beginning to understand that "The Spirit helps us in our weakness," that we truly do not know how to pray, but that the Spirit always gives us what He asks us to do.  In the next entry, I will unfold the things the Holy Spirit began to show me about how to pray in this regard.

God Loves Through Us!

In my line of vision every morning as I pray is a statue of St. Francis; in his hand are two small birds to whom he seems to be speaking.  At his feet is a small lamb and there is a wolf curled against his right leg, looking up at him.  Every time I see this statue, I think that God is loving His creatures through St. Francis.  And then I glance beyond the statue to my back yard, filled with the trees I have cultivated, the plants I have sown, and the grass that I tend weekly.  I love all these things because I have cultivated them -- and because they bring me so much joy and peace every day.

One of my favorite prayers is "Holy Spirit, think Your thoughts in me until Your thoughts become my thoughts."  Once we begin to allow the Spirit of God to breathe through us, think through us, act through us, our vision changes and we begin to see from His perspective.  I cannot think of a better "vocation" than to allow God to love His creation and His creatures through us -- through our eyes, through our minds, through our actions.  What if we could every day say what He wants us to say, do what He wants us to do, go where He wants us to go, and give away what He wants us to give away?

Of course, that means that our "old man," or the "natural man," as St. Paul calls it, must gradually fade away -- and be buried, in fact.  Our natural antipathies cannot be in charge if God is to love His creatures through us.  I remember one time complaining to our prayer group about someone in our neighborhood that bothered me a lot.  In fact, when I would see this guy in front of his house, I would pray that he would stay on his side of the street and not come over to talk to me.  I didn't like feeling this way about anyone, but my "old man"  -- the flesh-- just wanted nothing to do with him.

One of the members of the group suggested that I pray about my feelings (instead of praying that he would stay on his side of the street).  So the next time I was working in my yard and I saw him, I began to place my feelings before God.  Almost immediately, I heard the words in my spirit:  How can you be a blessing to him?  Now this was most definitely NOT what I wanted to hear!  But it made me begin to think along entirely different lines.

I remembered how much he had admired one of my plants which had orange blooms.  He loved the color orange!  So I dug up part of that plant, put it in a nice pot, and brought it over to him. He was clearly touched at the kindness -- evidently most of the other neighbors had been avoiding him the same way I had been doing.  In the conversation that followed, he ended up telling me about a motorcycle accident that had killed his best friend when he was a teen.  The accident was his fault, and it has haunted him all his life.

That conversation has now haunted me.  I have begun to see him not so much as a nuisance but more as a lonely person who has no friends.  I still don't want to be his best friend, but I think my "old man" is beginning to die a little in this regard, and the "new man" created in Jesus Christ is beginning to surface.  How wonderful it would be if we could allow God to love His creatures through us!

Opening to Divine Life

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning....In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it (or overcome it).

No one has ever seen God, but God the only Son, who is at the Father's side, has made Him known.(John 1)

For in Christ, all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head of over every power and authority (Col. 2:9).

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation...for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him (Col.1:15; 19). 

And the Word was made flesh, and pitched His tent among us (Jn. 1).

The culmination of Matthew's conversion story was that Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house (Matt. 9), along with publicans and sinners "who came to the table with Jesus and His disciples."  

Jesus said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone will open to me, I will come in and sup with him, and he with me" (Rev. 3:10).  He sits at our table and we sit at His.  Sometimes we are the host; sometimes He is the Host.  The end of Revelation pictures us seated at the wedding banquet of the Lamb, when He is finally united with His Bride, the Church.  The sinners and publicans, including Matthew, seated at table with Jesus and His disciples is the beginning of that eternal celebration and feast.

To the Greeks, the Logos (Word) was how God manifested Himself to the world.  From the Logos, we know Who God is, we know what He thinks.  And here is the Eternal Word, the exact image of the invisible God, seated at table -- eating -- with sinners.  Now we know that we cannot eat with our enemies; we sit at table with our family and friends.  It is amazing that God, the Eternal God, wants to come to our house, to sit at our table, and to eat with us. Indeed, He calls us His family and His friends.  After the Resurrection, Jesus told Mary Magdalene to go tell His "brothers": "I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."

Somehow, the Rising of Jesus has made us His family, and now His God is our God; His Father is our Father. John says that no one has ever seen God, but God the Son has made Him known. If we are seated at His table, we are seated at the table with the Father, and we know Him.  If Jesus is seated at our table, surely it is to reveal to us the Face of God, that we might know Him as Jesus knows Him. 

Jesus has come in the flesh that we might not be afraid to open the door to God, to allow Him to enter our homes and to eat with us.  And the further away from Him we are, the more He goes in search of us.  He does not ask us to be worthy; He only asks that we open to door to Him.