Still Learning How to Pray

I sat down this morning read the daily Gospel passage (please note, while this *should* be a regular, daily occurrence for me, it's not, and I am most certainly a work in progress when it comes to being a good Catholic).  The older two kids were outside with their Daddy, and Rachel was playing quietly, so it was nice and quiet for a change.  About halfway through the passage, I look over at Rachel, and she's sitting by the bookshelf, intently looking at a book...one of her favorite past times =)  I can't help myself, so I stop reading my Bible, and just watch her.  I notice how she turns the pages; the facial expressions she has at each page; how she stops at a page now and then, and her eyes move up and down over the pictures; the way she uses her little feet to help prop the book up.  After a few minutes, she looks up and sees me watching her.  So, she gets up, smiles, walks over to me, and climbs in my lap for me to look at the book with her.  I don't say anything..I just let her sit in my lap and turn the pages for her.  She cuddles close to me, babbles about something, and just enjoys being held.  Then, she hops down, says "bye", waves and goes on about her business.  The whole scene lasted maybe ten minutes.  While I was watching her, I realized that the way I just interacted with my child is exactly how Christ wants me to interact with Him!  So many times I try to figure out the "right way" to engage in meditation and prayer, but I always end up making it more complicated than it needs to be.  All it takes for a good meditation to occur is for me to just sit there and look at Christ.  Read a passage of the Gospel, then just look at it...the way Christ talked to others; the words He chose to use; the expression that may have been on His face; the emotion that was in His Sacred Heart; how He used His hands to heal and comfort; things He said to guide and correct our faults.  No words are necessary on my part.  And, if I'm lucky and sit still long enough, maybe He'll notice me watching Him, and He will smile and come sit with me, and speak to my soul.

Investment Tip

 

During Lent, the Church urges us to participate in the Sacrament of Penance more frequently.  While it is only required that Catholics receive this Sacrament one a year (CCC 1457), there are so many benefits to going more regularly.  Recently, I began using the book Divine Intimacy for daily meditations.  This book is really great.  There is a brief meditation for every day of the Liturgical year, so it follows the ebb and flow of Catholic seasons.  One of the recent mediations was on Confession.  While reading it, I discovered something that I had never realized before:

 

"At that moment it is Jesus who is acting in the soul, either by remitting sin or by producing or increasing grace.  It is well to remember that the efficacy of the absolution is not limited merely to sins that have already been committed, but that it even extends into the future." - Divine Intimacy, pg 306

 

I guess I've always known that Confession gives you the grace to avoid temptation and sin, but it never occurred to me that I should call on the graces of past confessions when I am in the midst of temptation.  I always just thought of it as grace working in my soul up to the current point in my life and not necessarily grace that lingers for awhile.  This is really comforting to know that the grace lasts longer than the moment of absolution! 

 

"The Blood of Christ is, in this sense, not only a remedy for the past, but also a preservative and a strengthening help for the future.  The soul which plunges into it, as into a healthful bath, draws from it new vigor and sees the strength of its passions extinguished little by little.  We see then the importance of frequent confession for a soul desirous of union with God, a soul which must necessarily aspire to total purification." - Divine Intimacy, pg 307

 

Beautiful!  Probably one of the best investments we can make for our eternal future.