The Pearl of Great Price

The Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls.  When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it (Matt. 13:46).

 

Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent (Jn. 17:3).

 

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Jesus told Martha that she was anxious about many things, but "only one thing is necessary."  If we want to know that 'one thing,' the "Pearl of Great Price," a good place to begin would be to read the Gospel of John seven times until it sinks deeply into our hearts and minds.  The first time we read it, I think maybe it would be good to read it quickly, without really trying to absorb it -- just read it for information, even though I really don't recommend reading the Bible for information.  In this case, however, we know that we will be reading the same Gospel again and again, so the first time is an overview, to get a bird's -eye view.  The initial reading prepares us to see and make connections during the subsequent readings.

 

In Jesus' great prayer to His Father, the night before He dies, He says, "This is eternal life: that they may know you...."   This is the "one thing necessary," of which He spoke to Martha.  For He told a parable about those who will say on "that day," "Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?"  And His answer is "I never knew you." 

 

The Pearl of Great Price is knowing God and the One He has sent, Jesus Christ.

 

Without that knowledge, all our service is in vain.  We may think we are good people if we are serving the poor, or casting out demons, but if our service is not the fruit of the true Vine, we are, as Paul said, "clanging cymbals."  As for good works, they must be the overflow of the Spirit of Jesus Christ dwelling in us:  Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good...all these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each man, just as he determines (1 Cor. 12: 7&11).

 

So it is not what we are doing that brings about the kingdom of God, but only what the indwelling Jesus, the only One who can establish the kingdom, is doing in us and through us.  When we know Him, and He knows us, the kingdom of God arrives through the Spirit He gives us.  When Paul commends the Macedonian churches for their generosity, he says, "...they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God's will" (2 Cor. 8:5). 

 

That is the pattern of the kingdom of God:  For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Eph. 2:10)....for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose (Phil. 2:13).

 

Everyone sooner or later seems to ask, "What is the purpose of my life?"  "What am I supposed to be doing?"  The answer is the Pearl of Great Price --- draw close to God, and He will draw close to you, and then, and only then, will the Spirit of God begin to work in you and through you to establish on earth "His will, as it is in heaven."

When We Pray

Many, if not most, of us save our praying for a time of crisis or danger.  We tend to turn to God when our own resources have run out; when there is no hope, when no one else can help us.

But how wonderful it would be to know our Helper at every moment of our lives!  What a blessing it would be for the Incarnate Word to be present in the smallest moments of our lives -- even those we think we are 'capable' of handling on our own.  To have a true Partner in life is what we were meant for--although, like two-year-olds, we always want to "do it myself."

When Mary and Joseph traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census, with Mary 9 months pregnant, they were hoping to find lodging among Joseph's relatives in Bethlehem or the surrounding area.  On the way, they had to rely on God at every moment.  They had to be in prayer constantly for protection, for food, for shelter. 

We are no different.  No matter how simple the day appears, we also are on a journey, and we need the constant 'hovering' of the Holy Spirit over our lives.  Psalm 103 is a song of praise, thanksgiving, and petition for God's constant Presence in our lives:

Praise the Lord, O my soul;

All my inmost being, praise his holy name.

Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

 

He forgives all my sins

and heals all my diseases;

he redeems my life from the pit

and crowns me with love and compassion.

He satisfies my desires with good things,

so that my youth is renewed like the eagle's.

 

Here is a wonderful Psalm to start us on the way of Lectio Divina.  If we read it the first time, we may tend to gloss over its deeper implications and go on.  But if we slow down and read it a second time, letting each word and phrase sink deeply into our souls, pondering each phrase as Mary keeping all these things in her heart, then we really begin to pray -- and not just read -- the Psalm. 

 

Suddenly, Scripture becomes "ours."  It is "my" soul we are talking about; it is "my" sins the Lord has forgiven and "my" diseases" He has healed.  It is "my" life He has redeemed from the pit, and "my" life He has crowned with love and compassion.

 

When we pray the Psalms on a daily basis, we begin to connect them to whatever large or small daily events are happening in our lives.  And the joy of discovering that God is present and active in those events is priceless!  Here is where our faith leaps, when we discover that we are not alone.  Prayer is simply giving God an opportunity to flow into the situations of our lives -- opening a 'window,' as I wrote yesterday, to the Divine Presence. 

 

A friend of mine has been struggling with a family situation for years.  It has kept her on edge and upset, even losing sleep.  Sometimes the situation fades into the background, but always comes back again and is never settled.  Finally, after listening to her talk about this situation for several years, I began earnestly to seek God's answer for her.  Morning after morning, a particular psalm would come to me, and I began passing on the psalms to her.  She too began to read the psalms on her own -- and then, suddenly at Mass one day, a solution came to her with a peace that passes all understanding.  She followed through on the solution she was given and was amazed at the peace it brought to her as well as to the situation.  God has been waiting all this time for a window through which He could enter the situation, but no one in the family was ever willing to open the window for Him. 

 

We need every single day to open a window for God, no matter how "small" the situation may seem.  I have learned to pray even when I run out of mulch in my big yard:  Lord, I need more mulch now.  I know people would tell me that there are hungry children and wars for God to be attending to, that in the grand scale of things, my mulch is totally unimportant to God.  I smile, knowing how small is my request, but also knowing that my small request takes nothing away from the larger scale of hungry children and wars.  And very soon, my doorbell rings.  Here is the man with pine straw, who needs my money to feed his family.  Or here is my next-door-neighbor with 16 bags of leaves he raked out of his yard -- do I want the leaves?  He is happy to dispose of them, and I am happy to get them.

 

If He cares that I have a supply of mulch, I know he cares that I have also my daily bread and peace in my family.  When we pray about small things, and God shows Himself present in our lives, we then have the faith to pray also about the big things, knowing God's love and concern for us is real.

 



Opening a Window

Although I have been writing about Lectio Divina for several days, and although that method of prayer has freed people for centuries to respond to the Presence and Power of God in their lives, there is always a danger of reducing prayer to a "method," no matter how wonderful the method may be.  If we continually hold before us the image of a close relationship -- husband to wife, friend to friend, etc. -- we will know that our relationship to God simply means that we continue to keep a window open to His Presence in our lives.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (love his name!) speaks of the Sabbeth as a 'window on eternity."  What a great image!  And Sr. Miriam Pollard, in The Laughter of God, refers to prayer also as a "window" that allows God into our lives.  Nothing could be more simple than that.  If we sit for 15 minutes a day, simply "opening a window" to eternity, our lives will forever change.  Will not the Lord of the Universe flow into our lives if we give Him an opening?  Jesus compared the Holy Spirit to the wind that blows where it wills, to something that we cannot control, but only observe.  If we "Open the windows of our souls," He will surely refresh us with His gentle breath and strong breeze to blow away the debris that clutters our lives.

We don't really need a method, although we do need to experiment to find what works for us.  More than a method, we need to give God an opening to our hearts and minds.  Scripture works to open the window because it has been revealed by God and because it is not dependent on our fears and failures; it is not tied to our history, but instead opens our personal history to the light of revelation.

Paul Billheimer, in Destined to Overcome, puts it this way:

A few hours alone with God can open up treasures of wisdom and knowledge in Christ which may have eluded one during years of purely academic training.  Christ is the original source of all knowledge.  One may learn much about Christ and spiritual things from the written and recorded works of others, but that is 'second-hand' knowledge, which is not to be despised.  But if one is willing to spend time along with God and make prayer the main business of his life, he may tap the original source of all wisdom and knowledge for himself (p. 80).

 

And Jesus Calling for July 28: 

 

Open yourself fully to My transforming Presence.  Let My brilliant Love-Light search out and destroy hidden fears.  This process requires time alone with Me, as My Love soaks into your innermost being.  Enjoy My perfect Love, which expels every trace of fear.

 

Anyone who has ever experienced fear -- and who among us has not?--- will run to Someone whose Presence promises to cast out fear from our hearts.  And this is exactly what Jesus promises us.  No other religion, except Buddhism, has made that promise.  And the difference between Christianity and Buddhism is that, in Christianity, Jesus says simply, "Come to me," and He will do it in us.  In Buddhism, we must discipline ourselves and practice for years turning out fear for ourselves.    Since I have never been a person of discipline and self-control, and since I have experienced for myself the Power and Presence of Jesus Christ in my life, I know my Savior and the Source of all my peace, and He is the only One Who holds in His hands the power of life and of death.  If I but "open a window" to His Presence, He will do all the rest.

 



Nourishing the Spirit Within -- Part 4

Attentiveness to me is not only for your quiet time, but for all your time.  As you look to Me, I show you what to do now and next.  Vast quantities of time and energy are wasted in obsessive planning.  When you let Me direct your steps, you are set free to enjoy Me and to find what I have prepared for you this day -- from Jesus Calling, July 26.

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In all thy ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct thy paths (Prov.3:6).

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When and if we begin to study the Bible, it soon becomes difficult and complex, and many of us readily give it up as too difficult to understand.  But one way to rejuvenate our interest and enthusiasm for the Word of God is to let Him feed us.  Most of us do not or cannot just relax with the Bible on our laps and allow the Holy Spirit to direct our reading.  We go at it as if it were a lesson to be learned or studied through our own efforts.

 

I recall once going into a restaurant in Rome.  The menu, of course, was in Italian, and though I have studied Latin and thus could recognize a few language roots, by no means did I understand what foods the menu referred to.  Then the owner of the restaurant appeared and said, "Let me feed you!"  What followed was a meal to be remembered forever!  I put myself in his hands, knowing that he was going to serve me the best he had, the "specialite of the house," the pride of his hands and heart.  I went home that evening not only wonderfully fed, but also carrying a brand new bottle of apricot liquor, a gift from the owner -- because he saw my appreciation of that drink.

 

Would Our Lord do less if we put ourselves in His hands and said, "Feed me the best of the house!"  Give me to drink of your finest wine and to eat of your finest wheat!"  Would we not leave our time of prayer filled to capacity with the best He can offer us?

 

Here is a time-tested way to approach Lectio Divina, letting the Holy Spirit take the lead:

 

1.  Recognize that Lectio Divina is a dance with four movements, an exchange between God and man.  When God takes the lead, do not insist on going through the steps in order, but let Him decide what you will do next.

 

2.  Agree to be still between movements of the dance, and to give room to God to take the lead.

 

3.  As you open your Bible, ask the Holy Spirit to show you what you need to read today.  Then, attend quietly to the passage he shows you.  Notice anything that is going on within you as you read-- any images, memories, or experiences that come to mind.

 

4.  Respond to the direction of the Holy Spirit with prayer from the words of Scripture or from what is arising in your heart.  Or just let your heart move without words, in openness to the movement of the Spirit.  Rest in the Lord Who is feeding you from His word and His Spirit.

 

The four movements of the dance are called Lectio, meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio.  It is a journey from the words on the page (lectio,) to a searching out the meaning from the Holy Spirit (meditatio), to prayer/ response (oratio),  and finally to resting in the gift of God's presence (contemplatio).  It is a movement from conversation to contemplation.

 

When we allow God to feed us at His table -- Your words, O Lord, are spirit and they are life! --we come away richly fed.  No one ever need go hungry when they come to the Lord's table, and He will certainly never turn anyone away from His banquet.

Soul Food-- Nourishing the Spirit: Part 3

As you listen to birds calling to one another, hear also My Love-call to you. 

I speak to you continually: through sights, sounds, thoughts, impressions, Scripture.

There is no limit to the variety of ways I can communicate with you. 

Your part is to be attentive to My messages, in whatever form they come.

When you set out to find me in a day, you discover that the world is vibrantly alive with My Presence.

You can find Me not only in beauty and birdcalls, but also in tragedy and faces filled with grief.

I can take the deepest sorrow and weave it into a pattern for good.

 

Search for Me and My messages, as you go through this day.  You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with your whole being (Jer. 29:13).

--Jesus Calling, July 25--

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During the 1970's we owned a house in Waveland, Mississippi, where we would take the children for a weekend, or during the summer, for a week or more.  The house was about a half-mile or so from the beach.  One day, I was returning from the beach and very conscious of the presence of God in creation.  Jesus Christ spoke to me in my heart saying, "Let me show you the world My Father made."  Suddenly, the world around me became even more alive with beauty and sound -- the colors of the bushes, the sky, the trees; the sound and movement of birds and the wind; the feel of dust between my toes and the touch of grass -- everything seemed to be moving and alive and even singing a song of praise and thanksgiving to the Creator of heaven and earth.

 

In a sense, that moment of awakening to the beauty of the world remains with me to this day.  God still speaks to me in the wind and the trees and the sky and the birds each day.  Whenever I see a blue heron standing by the water's edge, I am reminded of the poem that began this blog three years ago:

 

When no one listens

To the quiet trees,

When no one notices

The sun in the pool;

 

When no one feels

The first drop of rain,

Or sees the last star;

 

Or hails the first morning

Of a giant world

Where the peace begins

And rages end:

 

One bird sits still

Watching the work of God:

One turning leaf,

Two falling blossoms,

Ten circles upon the pond.

(Source unknown)

 

Yesterday, I wrote about Lectio Divina, not as a method of reading or of praying, but as an attitude of expectation that God wants to speak to us and as a way of listening for His Voice.  All of Scripture tells us that God will fill us with the finest of wheat, that He will pasture His sheep in green pastures and beside still waters, that He will prepare a table for us in the midst of our enemies.  When we walk with God, as did Enoch; when we sit with God, as did Deborah; when we stand with God, as did Abraham, He will surely feed our souls as well as our bodies. 

 

 Jesus taught us to pray for "our daily bread," but He also told us that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.  When we expect God to speak to us, to teach us, to lead and guide us every single day of our lives, we shall eat at the table of the Lord; in the words of the Good Shepherd: they (the sheep of His Pasture) shall go in and come out and find pasture -- or soul food.

 

More tomorrow on the Table of the Lord-- Nourishing the Spirit, Part 4.

Nourishing the Spirit -- Part 2

One of the best ways we can strengthen the Spirit/spirit within us is prayer --- not "saying prayers," so much as "praying" -- or breathing in and out the Spirit which nourishes our own spirit.

Prayer is not what we do so much as it is connecting with the Spirit of God.  As David Brenner says in his book Opening to God, prayer is opening our own spirits to the work that God Himself wants to do in us.  Whoever we are as persons, God wants to do His work in us, just as He did and does in creation in the beginning and now -- pushing back the darkness and filling us with light, moving things around, building a foundation for His own place of dwelling.

One of the very best ways to pray is the ancient monastic practice of lectio divina, literally "divine reading," or "spiritual reading."  Our minds are filled daily with 'junk,' so to speak, that keeps us from hearing the Voice of God speaking to us.  When we try to read Scripture, the junk in our heads keeps Scripture from speaking to us personally, for we are reading it the way we read history, literature, or philosophy.  We think about it, argue with it, disagree with it, or treat it as culturally irrelevant to our times. 

But lectio divina is a way of prayerfully engaging with Scripture in order to hear God's personal word to us.  It comes to us from the earliest days of Christianity, with roots in Judaism.  Jews have always had two ways of engaging with the Torah.  The first is informational and analytical -- the way we read today -- and seeks to understand the meaning of the text.  The second way is subjective, seeking the deeper and more personal spiritual meaning.

In the 3rd century, Origin described a way of approaching the Scriptures for the purpose of finding a personal message from God.  Shortly afterwards, St. Benedict made lectio divina central to Western monasticism. This practice is not so much as "method" of reading Scripture as an expectation when we read Scripture.  It arises out of a desire not only to hear the words of Scripture, but to hear the Word of God to us today. 

Most people will read Scripture for insights, eternal truths, and precepts for living.  But in lectio divina, we seek not information or motivation, but communion and union with Jesus Christ, Who is the Eternal Word of God.   When Jesus encountered people on His journeys through Palestine, He spoke to each one the word they needed to hear to respond to God's invitation to come closer.  To Mary Magadalene, He spoke the word which delivered her from 7 demons; to Peter, James, and John, He said, "Come, follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."  To the woman at the well, He said, "I will give you a spring of water welling up to eternal life." 

Our question today is "What does the Word of God want to speak to me today?"  Is it a word of strength, of comfort, of Truth?  Is it a word of direction, of guidance, of peace and joy?  In reading the Scriptures, we seek not information as much as God Himself in our hearts and minds.  We attend to the Word as a way of opening our hearts and minds to God's Living Word to us right now.  Lectio Divina treats Scripture not as a text to be studied, or as a set of truths to be grasped, but as the Living word of God-- alive and active, fresh and new.

It is not so much a way of reading as a way of listening.  The posture it encourages is more passive than active.  We don't need to force ourselves to stay awake and attentive to the words on the page; we need to be still and even sleep, if that comes, in the Presence of God.  We are waiting for the Gift of God that Jesus promised us.  We are waiting for the Voice of God, communicated through the Scriptures and revealed by the Holy Spirit.  We are opening our hearts to God, Who speaks to us in various ways.

In the church of St. Clement of Rome in Metairie, there is a statue of Mary, Spouse of the Holy Spirit. She is clasping to her breast a dove with wings outstretched.  That image is perfect for this concept of prayer.  In Lectio Divina, we are reaching for the Spirit of God, Who will lead us into all truth -- but it is a communion of Spirit to spirit, not a matter of understanding and study.

Tomorrow I will write more about this way of praying and listening.

Nourishing the Spirit Within Us

As men, we are made up of body, soul, and spirit.  We do not last very long at all if we fail to nourish the body; in Mazlow's "Hierarchy of Needs," that comes first -- taking care of physical needs. 

The "soul," or as the Greeks called it, the "psyche," is comprised of mind and emotions.
Most of us in the 21st century have at least a basic education, which helps to nourish the mind if not the emotions.  As we feed our minds, our emotions often come under some kind of control also, but not always.  Some people are highly developed intellectually, but they never really learn emotional control, because our emotions are not rational.  We, like St. Paul in the seventh chapter of Romans, can say, "In my inner being, I delight in the Law of God, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of the sin at work within my members....I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do...As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?...in my mind, I am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."

If we agree with Paul that the mind is not strong enough to keep us from "the law of sin at work in our members," then what is the solution?  Educating the mind is not enough to keep us from sin and spiritual death.  We nourish the body, but a healthy body is not enough.  We nourish the mind, but a highly developed intellect is not enough.  How many of us realize that we must also nourish the spirit that is within us?

Proverbs 4:23 says this:  Guard well your heart, for out of it flow all the issues of life.

When the Bible uses the word "heart," it is not speaking of the emotions, as we so often do.  It is referring to the spirit that God has put within mankind -- His own Spirit.  When God created Adam, He "blew into his nostrils the breath ("ruah") of life, and man became a living being" (Gen. 2:7).  Now the "breath"/ (ruah in Hebrew) is not the mind or emotions; it is the very breath, or life, of God Himself, His own Spirit.  It is our life-principle; when the breath departs from us, we die.  It is not the body; it is not the psyche--the mind and emotions; it is our spirit, God's breath in us.

Yet man lives his entire life without acknowledging his own spirit -- what the Bible calls man's "heart."  We fail to nourish the life God has given us, the part of us that is most like Him and that enables us to commune with God Himself.  And so, even though we live, we are also dying spiritually.  And dying spiritually, we fail to really live, for "out of [our hearts] flow all the issues of life."  "The mind of the sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace" (Romans 8:6)....."for you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.  And by him, we cry "Abba, Father" (8:15).

Daily we are dying spiritually, or daily we are growing stronger spiritually as we nourish and feed the spirit God has given us.  If we do not know how to nourish the spirit within us, let us ask the Father of our spirits, the One who has birth to our souls and hearts.  He will not fail to answer us, for what parent does not want his child to grow strong and healthy?