Getting to the end of a book that I’m enjoying is difficult because in someway there is a sense of a friend moving on to a different place. I realize that I do not know if I am that friend or if the friend is the book. This is, as you can well imagine, a bit of a tossup. And likely it is a bit of both.
Finishing Fr Ron Rolheiser’s Prayer: Our Deepest Longing is a sentence that I am almost unable to fully complete. I will likely return to this friendship, this book at least once more. Fr Rolheiser speaks of prayer in:
Chapter One as Struggle. This place of struggle is a familiar experience from busyness and boredom to shame and false notions. He invites us, as does Our Lord, to take a look at these places and face them, open the eyes of our heart.
Chapter 2 asks us how we listen to the voice of God, offering us some insight into how to listen for God’s voice in a way that offers us certainty.
Chapter 3 speaks of Priestly and priestly prayer, in a way that I’d not considered before. There are distinct differences and purposes here. I may pick up praying Morning and/or Evening Prayer for Advent.
Chapter 4 speaks of Practicing Affective Prayer, its goal, being bold, surrendering, contemplating dogged fidelity and the domestic monaster. This is both a stick to the daily commitment or in current language, showing up. I spoke with my spiritual director while reading this as I was struggling a bit and he reminded me to continue just showing up. I may not *feel* anything, that feeling doesn’t change my need to talk to God. This need deepens and also widens at the same time.
Chapter 5 speaks of Growing to Maturity in Prayer, beautifully dovetailing Chapter 4 and the need for consistency and constancy. Maturity is more than simply leaning into prayer it begins with giving thanks for all of it, even the things we experience that are painful for us. When things are hard in life we experience a deeper need to pray, and this is often when we abandon it.
Chapter 6 Listening to God’s Heartbeat is the one where my mind and heart were blown away. One of the things I’ve longed for and have spent time asking the Father to let me sit on His lap and listen to His heartbeat. Fr Rolheiser speaks of the shift in worldview, and approach to all I/we do, the how we do all the things. John, the Beloved Disciple, takes this posture of leaning on Jesus, listening to his heartbeat at the last Supper. Oh how in this moment did Jesus connect the dots to my childhood, the desire for intimacy with God and for intimacy with others.
First, when you put your head upon someone else’s chest, your ear is just above that person’s heart and you are able to hear his or her heartbeat. Hence, in John’s image, we see the Beloved Disciple with his ear on Jesus’s heart, hearing Jesus’s heartbeat, and from that perspective looking out into the world. This is John’s ultimate image for discipleship: The ideal disciple is the one who is attuned to Christ’s heartbeat and sees the world with that sound in his or her ear.
Prayer: Our Deepest Longing Chapter 6
Attune my ears Lord. Let me listen as much as speak. Let me be drawn to and comfortable in the silence. Increase my yearning for you, for Your company. Let me deeply experience Your company in those you bring into my life. Permit me the grace of Patience dipped, soaked, basted, stitched in the Love of the other.
May your deeply experience God’s peace in your heart.
Teri
A Quilter's Heart 