[continued from yesterday]
...The answer should be clear; keep the time, not the form of words; if I speak heart to heart with God even for two minutes my prayer is deeper, and will tell more deeply on me, than the words of another; and I shall learn soon how from that small beginning God will draw me forward and teach me more. If I am true to the appointed time I need not fear the danger that the objection suggests; and when I find that my mind wanders, or my heart is cold and unmoved, then I can always fall back upon my set prayers to fill up the time that remains.
Only let us be simple and genuine in our prayer, and we shaIl soon discover the value of this "liberty of the children of God"; for forms of prayer, excellent and constantly useful as they are, are best when they suggest this deeper praying of our own, not when they chain us down to their repetition.
Even the best prayers, if merely repeated and not delayed upon, will in time become a weary formula; and which of us has not gone through the experience of out-growing some form of prayer, and yet sometimes we are afraid to set it aside?
But such prayerfulness 'as is here suggested is always alive; and if the form is in consequence less often said, it has given way to something far more fruitful. I would rather say, "Jesus, I love you," for an hour, if I could mean it all the time, than repeat or read the most perfect act of love composed by the greatest saint or the most consummate poet.
My words would be fewer, and weaker, and more stammering; but Jesus would know that at least they are mine and no other's, the words of
An infant crying in the night,and I think He would hear them more tenderly....
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry;
[continued tomorrow]
___________
From The School of Love and Other Essays
by The Most Reverend Alban Goodier, S.J.
Burns, Oates, & Washburn, Ltd. 1918
No comments:
Post a Comment