Author: Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSP

The image that has drawn me in my ministry is Touching the Sunrise. I believe each person, no matter where they are and what they have lived, is a temple of the Trinity and can, indeed, taste the presence of God within. You can find resources for healing and prayer and follow me at touchingthesunrise.com.

How to Be Good Soil (Matthew 13:18-23)

Published on by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSPLeave a comment

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Hear the parable of the sower.
The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word of the Kingdom
without understanding it,
and the Evil One comes and steals away
what was sown in his heart.
The seed sown on rocky ground
is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy.
But he has no root and lasts only for a time.
When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word,
he immediately falls away.
The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word,
but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word
and it bears no fruit.
But the seed sown on rich soil
is the one who hears the word and understands it,
who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”

Matthew 13:18-23

Jesus is the divine Sower who sows the seed of his word in the community of followers he is calling apart from the world. It is in hearing the word of God that the seed takes root in us.

To hear, to really hear, to absolutely hear the voice of God and not the myriad other distracting voices that call out for our attention, we must do something that is very difficult. We must cultivate silence.

Most retreatants discover on the first day or so of a retreat, in the quiet of the retreat house with nothing to do except listen to God’s voice, that a thousand other voices—strident and loud—all of a sudden appear, clamoring for attention. Listening to their stories and letting them go can be an essential first step to creating the silent soil that can receive God’s word.

We don’t need to be on a retreat to enter into this ambient of silent recollection. It is possible to spend a short period every day as a mini-retreat to cultivate the soil of our heart. We can start by disconnecting from social media and our phones.

At first it may seem frightening to be cut off from the torrent of words and images that flood our media-saturated consciousness. We might feel nervous as we wait in silence for the work of the divine Sower. Our soul may feel fragmented and untilled and unprepared for the seed. In patience we will acquire the stillness that longs to receive the fullness of God’s word.

It is a spiritual art and discipline to be able to distinguish the harmony of God’s voice from the discord of worries, temptations, desires, and ambitions. This discernment comes precisely from the experience of entering into silence.

Pope Benedict XVI said, “‘Only in silence can the word of God find a home in us, as it did in Mary, woman of the word and, inseparably, woman of silence’ (Verbum Domini, n. 66). This principle — that without silence one does not hear, does not listen, does not receive a word — applies especially to personal prayer as well as to our liturgies: to facilitate authentic listening, they must also be rich in moments of silence and of non-verbal reception” (General Audience, March 7, 2012).

How does God desire you to open wide your heart in silence? Ask the Lord what practical steps he desires you to take to recover this contemplative dimension of life.

Image: ThePixelman via Pixabay.

Praying with this Passage of Scripture

Lectio Divina is a way of listening to God as he speaks in his Word. It is a practice of communicating with God through Scripture and attending to God’s presence and what he wishes to tell us. In this slow and prayerful reading of the Word of God, we allow ourselves to be transformed by the Spirit who forms us into the image of Christ. There are four movements in Lectio Divina: Read (lectio), Meditate (meditation), Pray (oratio), Contemplate (contemplation).

Begin by finding a still space to pray. Breathe deeply and become quieter within. Abandon any agenda, worries or thoughts you bring to this prayer and entrust these things to the merciful care of God. Ask for the grace to be receptive to what God will speak to you through this Scripture reading. Grant me, Jesus Divine Master, to be able to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God and your unfathomable riches. Grant that your word penetrate my soul; guide my steps, and brighten my way till the day dawns and darkness dissipates, you who live and reign forever and ever Amen.

Read (lectio)
Begin by slowly and meditatively reading your Scripture passage out loud. Listen for a particular word or phrase that speaks to you at this moment and sit with it for a time.

Pray (oratio)
Read the text a third time. Listen for what God is saying to you. Speak heart to heart with God. Notice the feelings that this conversation with God raises up within you. Share with God what you notice about your response to this conversation. You may wish to return to repeating the phrase quietly and gently, allowing it to permeate you more and more deeply.

Contemplate (contemplatio)
Read the text a final time. Now be still and rest in God’s embrace. Ask God to give you a gift to take with you from this prayer. You might ask God if he is inviting you to do some action, for instance, make some change in your thoughts, attitudes or reactions, in the way you speak or how you treat others. Thank God for this gift and invitation as you conclude your prayer.

Image: Myriams-Fotos; pixabay.com

Jesus asks, “Will you come to me?” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Published on by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSP1 Comment

Jesus said:
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

“Come to me.” The words of a lover. Powerless words. Vulnerable words. The one who says these words must wait upon the response of the one to whom they are addressed.

“Will you come to me?”

The loved one must answer yes or no.

If he or she answers “Yes,” than this love of Jesus has triumphed, and Jesus can open his heart completely to pour out on the loved one that fullness of the life he shares with the Father. If the answer is “No,” a love refused, then the gift of love has met with a tragic end.

Ultimately, the invitation of the Father and the Son to the world, inviting  each person into their eternal loving and living and giving is, in fact, limited only by human refusal.

As soon as we say our “Yes” to Jesus, we discover that the pressures that weigh upon us from both the world and our own selves begin to fade away. We are let in on the “secret,” so to speak, of the mystery Jesus came to reveal to us.

We begin to see how we receive all from the Father, every last thing that we are and have and accomplish. In Jesus we see the way to live in relation to the Father: in blessing and thanksgiving, wasting our time in worship and wonder. We make the astounding discovery that in truth the world has no power over us when we make our home in God.

Jesus asks you today and every day, in situations of joy and in pain, in laughter and in tears, in circumstances that demand outstanding courage and those that require a humble peace, “Come to me!”

Jesus stands at the door of our hearts as a beggar, but—oh!—how much joy fills his heart when we reach out our hand to take his that we might go with him wherever he leads. Image: Leiloeira São Domingos, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Praying with this Passage of Scripture

Lectio Divina is a way of listening to God as he speaks in his Word. It is a practice of communicating with God through Scripture and attending to God’s presence and what he wishes to tell us. In this slow and prayerful reading of the Word of God, we allow ourselves to be transformed by the Spirit who forms us into the image of Christ. There are four movements in Lectio Divina: Read (lectio), Meditate (meditation), Pray (oratio), Contemplate (contemplation).

Begin by finding a still space to pray. Breathe deeply and become quieter within. Abandon any agenda, worries or thoughts you bring to this prayer and entrust these things to the merciful care of God. Ask for the grace to be receptive to what God will speak to you through this Scripture reading. Grant me, Jesus Divine Master, to be able to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God and your unfathomable riches. Grant that your word penetrate my soul; guide my steps, and brighten my way till the day dawns and darkness dissipates, you who live and reign forever and ever Amen.

Read (lectio)
Begin by slowly and meditatively reading your Scripture passage out loud. Listen for a particular word or phrase that speaks to you at this moment and sit with it for a time.

Pray (oratio)
Read the text a third time. Listen for what God is saying to you. Speak heart to heart with God. Notice the feelings that this conversation with God raises up within you. Share with God what you notice about your response to this conversation. You may wish to return to repeating the phrase quietly and gently, allowing it to permeate you more and more deeply.

Contemplate (contemplatio)
Read the text a final time. Now be still and rest in God’s embrace. Ask God to give you a gift to take with you from this prayer. You might ask God if he is inviting you to do some action, for instance, make some change in your thoughts, attitudes or reactions, in the way you speak or how you treat others. Thank God for this gift and invitation as you conclude your prayer.

Image: Myriams-Fotos; pixabay.com

Jesus Preaches in Nazareth – Spiritual Consolation (Horizons of the Heart 37)

Published on by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSP3 Comments

The grace we are asking of God: to discover Jesus in my own personal story so that my personal myth may be transformed in Jesus, as was that of Ignatius, that I will be disposed to hear God’s call and follow it wholeheartedly

Horizons of the Heart is inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius and my own notes from my thirty-day Ignatian retreat in 2022. See an index for the whole series.

Begin by relaxing your body, your mind, letting go of anxieties and ambitions and expectations and plans… Lay all that you notice and all that you are bare and exposed before the Father who welcomes you with a gaze that is gently loving. Settle into the silence that runs deeper than emotional turbulence… Move beyond imagination where you wait upon the stirring of the soul and the movement of the heart. Return to Jesus to find the Rest he offers…to welcome the gift…to become a child held in safe arms….

Making Space for the Word

Ask Jesus that every aspect of this prayer will please him and will give glory to God.

“He has sent me … to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.

The last part of Jesus’ proclamation stated that he was sent to proclaim a year of the Lord’s favor or grace that had been announced by Isaiah. Luke uses this same phrase in the Acts of the Apostles as a reference to the gospel proclamation.

The Greek verb μαρτυρέω (martureo) translated often as “speak well of” means simply to “testify” or to “bear witness.”  Daniel Hoffman explains that translated literally, the statement reads like this: “And all were bearing witness about him and were marveling at the words of grace coming from his mouth; and they were saying, “Is this not the son of Joseph?”

“They were not impressed with his words, they were amazed (in the skeptical sense) that he was telling them that the time of the Lord’s favor was now. They doubted it, and their question confirms this—Asking ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ is not a compliment, but a scoff. “

They only became angrier as Jesus continued:

Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”

“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” (Luke 4:20-27)

Pause and enter into the drama of these words of Jesus and the consternation with which they must have been received…. Noticing the way in which the sunny skies of excitement and pride over Jesus were quickly turning to bafflement, confusion, and aggression.

Be present to the way Jesus “senses” the situation. As Gemma Simmonds reminds us, in Ignatian prayer, to “sense” includes mental thoughts, intuition, emotions, as well as bodily processes (our emotions often generate strong bodily reactions as when our cheeks become flushed when we are embarrassed or our fists clench when we are angry).

Be present to all the intensity in Jesus who has come as the ambassador of the Lord’s love and compassion and faithful loyalty to his people. And instead of welcoming and receiving that love, they respond by scoffing at him.

Entering still deeper into the mystery of Christ, allow your heart to taste, to smell, to touch the infinite gentleness and sweetness of Jesus. Allow your spirit to soak up what has been felt and known in this contemplative prayer.

As you do this your mind’s activity will fade into the background, and the mystery you are intuitively contemplating will begin to take over and engulf you, planting within your spirit an inner knowledge of the Lord.

You will at some point begin to intuitively sense the difference between the way Jesus spontaneously feels, speaks, and acts in a situation and the way you yourself feel, speak, and act in similar situations in your own life.

As you stay within Jesus, he will reveal to you how he is experiencing the rejection of his offer of love, freedom, good news, grace and salvation.

What is it that you notice?

What in Jesus is drawing you?

What in Jesus is speaking to your life’s story right now?

Let the mystery of Christ’s life become present to you. Take much time with this. Let your senses and his be tuned together by the action of the Holy Spirit. Let them play in harmony. Let Jesus’ interior life absorb your inner life so that you become “connatural” with him and your inner world is “taken over” at an intuitive level, being established firmly in the “inner knowledge of the Lord.”

This experience of feeling with Jesus, or enjoying this inner knowledge of the Lord, is a window into what Ignatius called “spiritual consolation.” Ignatius said consolation is when, “Some interior movement in the souls causes the soul to become inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord.” This prayer changes the way we perceive and experience reality. We learn how to be in Jesus and to imitate him in the way he experienced every aspect of human need and desire.

We reach greater understanding when we take quality time to feel with Jesus, as he reveals himself, looking and hearing, touching and tasting, in the Gospel Word. Contemplation of Jesus becomes the path to imitate Jesus.

Rest in that awareness as Jesus helps you to resonate with what he resonates with.

A gift to take with you

Allow an image or object that encapsulates all these experiences to form in your mind. Take some time to speak with God about the meaning or significance of this object.

Ask Mary, Joseph and Jesus to show you one specific gift they wish to give you. Receive it and remain in stillness and quietly relaxed presence under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Reviewing the Graces of Prayer

When you finish praying, write down the main gifts and discoveries from this time of intimate contemplation. What is one concrete thing you can do to solidify these gifts in your life.

Jesus Preaches in Jerusalem – Entering Into the Mystery (Horizons of the Heart 36)

Published on by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSP1 Comment

The grace we are asking of God: to discover Jesus in my own personal story so that my personal myth may be transformed in Jesus, as was that of Ignatius, that I will be disposed to hear God’s call and follow it wholeheartedly

Horizons of the Heart is inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius and my own notes from my thirty-day Ignatian retreat in 2022. See an index for the whole series.

Begin by relaxing your body, your mind, letting go of anxieties and ambitions and expectations and plans… Lay all that you notice and all that you are bare and exposed before the Father who welcomes you with a gaze that is gently loving. Settle into the silence that runs deeper than emotional turbulence… Move beyond imagination where you wait upon the stirring of the soul and the movement of the heart. Return to Jesus to find the Rest he offers…to welcome the gift…to become a child held in safe arms….

Making Space for the Word

Ask Jesus that every aspect of this prayer will please him and will give glory to God.

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked. (Luke 4)

Here you are entering into the Mystery

Notice the sounds of everyone sitting that day in the Synagogue. Everyone turning toward Jesus, the village boy of Nazareth that had grown up among them.

His words crack like thunder on a serene day: “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

The statement is met by silence then an uncomfortable clearing of throats and shifting of position. Some exchanged glances, alarmed and uncertain….

“Today this scripture is fulfill in your hearing.” As if Jesus were saying: You are used to listening to the reading of the prophets Sabbath after Sabbath, as a recounting of thoughts and events and ideas and prayers of people who populated history but who are now longer here. Now I am here. I am the fulfillment of the prophecies.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.”

It was as if Jesus is trying to tell them: I want you to know that the heart of the Father who has described himself again and again as being full of hesed has now been broken open and is now at this very moment pouring out love upon you. Not loving words, or ideas, or promises, but the deed that is the sending of his Son because he has so loved the world.

Hesed is a Hebrew word that appears some 250 times in the Old Testament and is variously translated in the Scriptures as mercy, compassion, unfailing love, faithful love, grace, and faithfulness. Hesed at its very core communicated faithfulness within God’s covenant with his people. It expresses God’s faithfulness to his people.

Jesus stated that day that God was giving them the gift of his love in faithfulness to the covenant he had made with them. Jesus, God’s gift, would free, give sight, forgive, offer salvation, heal, proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor in the gift of forgiveness and salvation in Christ.

“He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

What was in Jesus’ heart as he looked into each face, saying “I am here. God is here. I am God-with-you. I am love. God is love. I am going to free you so that you may be lifted up into the love that is God.”

We know the end of the story, you know the part about the villagers trying to toss Jesus off the cliff. And that kind of spoils the rest of the story. We might think that Jesus showed up at the synagogue that day in a feisty mood, arrogant, resistant…. But just forget the ending of the story of the minute and listen to Jesus’ heart….

Listen! I hear my lover’s voice.
I know it’s him coming to me—
leaping with joy over mountains,
skipping in love over the hills that separate us,
to come to me (Song of Songs 2:8).

Jesus’ heart is filled with amazing grace for the people he loves. Those people in Nazareth that day…. Enter deeply into the mystery of that moment. See the love reflected in Jesus’ gaze. Re-read his words and let them be filled with a loving offer he is making to them.

Is there hope in his heart? Excitement? Joy at being able to bring his friends and fellow Nazareans along with him?

And how does he look at you? Let there be that same excitement, joy, faithful love. That loves doesn’t come from the behavior of the one loved. Hesed, steadfast love and compassion comes from the one who is offering the love to the other.

“Will you receive my love?” Can you hear Jesus ask you this?

This deeper contemplation of Jesus is an apprenticeship of your feelings and senses in which you are formed in such a way that you feel with Jesus, that your feelings becomes those of Jesus.

Entering into the mystery you humbly allow Jesus to be your Master, to educate your senses and feelings according to the pattern of his own life and teachings. It is a matter of becoming saturated with Jesus’ own way of being and feeling.

Allow your spirit to soak up what has been felt and known in this contemplative prayer.

Allow the offer of freedom, mercy, healing, joy to wash over you….

Where is there resistance to the gift of God’s love in Christ….

To this love story into which you and I are being drawn….

This place that may feel shadowy and messy God has always known, because it is a part of your life and your struggle. But at the core of who you are, what is most deeply human within you, responds with delight and pleasure to this being drawn into the proximity of loving relationship through which our humanity will be made whole again.

“He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

This God who approaches us first, who shows us our beauty and our goodness when we are bathed in the light of his loving gaze…

It is from God’s love for us that we learn what love is… How beautiful the experience of God-like love is….

Entering still deeper into the mystery of Christ, allow your heart to taste, to smell, to touch the infinite gentleness and sweetness of Jesus. Allow your spirit to soak up what has been felt and known in this contemplative prayer.

As you do this your mind’s activity will fade into the background, and the mystery you are intuitively contemplating will begin to take over and engulf you, planting within your spirit an inner knowledge of the Lord.

A gift to take with you

Allow an image or object that encapsulates all these experiences to form in your mind. Take some time to speak with God about the meaning or significance of this object.

Ask Mary, Joseph and Jesus to show you one specific gift they wish to give you. Receive it and remain in stillness and quietly relaxed presence under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Reviewing the Graces of Prayer

When you finish praying, write down the main gifts and discoveries from this time of intimate contemplation. What is one concrete thing you can do to solidify these gifts in your life.

Image Credit: Berthold Werner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Words that Changed My Life (Matthew 5:33-37)

Published on by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSPLeave a comment

Jesus said to his disciples:
“You have heard that it was said to your ancestors,
Do not take a false oath,
but make good to the Lord all that you vow.
But I say to you, do not swear at all;
not by heaven, for it is God’s throne;
nor by the earth, for it is his footstool;
nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.
Do not swear by your head,
for you cannot make a single hair white or black.
Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’
Anything more is from the Evil One.”

Matthew 5:33-37

The single most important shift I have experienced in my relationship with God, the deepest transformation I have received in my prayer is connected to today’s Gospel passage…

I am not the Center of the universe. I do not and cannot ever understand what life is all about. Relying on my powers of understanding has led me repeatedly down a dead-end street.

And God said to me on one quiet day of retreat, “I know. Only I know.”

Those words have changed my life.

Someone who swears something on oath is basically exhibiting their  reliance on their own personal power of making sense of the world. One who swears an oath manipulates words to convince others of their own version of what is real, true, or good. Perhaps their version does correspond to what is real, but most of us have to admit we have only a slight comprehension of the total picture of anything that concerns us or the world. In an almost idolatrous way, the one who swears an oath proclaims, “I know. Only I know.”

In this passage Jesus says that the vast reaches of the cosmos should give a person pause. The wonder that the universe should spark in our heart should humble us to realize our own impotence and dependence on the Creator.

God knows all things. Only God knows what is true, what is really happening. God alone can see how everything is connected and how all things participate in a mysterious way in the overflowing of his loving wisdom that guides all things. We can simply and sincerely only attempt to understand all that is unfolding.

Before the glory of heavens and the beauty of earth, therefore, I can only humbly bow. I can leave God free. I can leave others free. I can entrust myself to him, holding nothing back. I am secure enough to let things be.

Because of this transformation, I can examine my words. Are they manipulative? Are they pressured? Are they self-oriented? Am I inwardly disturbed?

Or are my words simple? Are they free? Are they trusting? Am I at peace?

Image: Noel Bauza via Pixabay

Praying with this Passage of Scripture

Lectio Divina is a way of listening to God as he speaks in his Word. It is a practice of communicating with God through Scripture and attending to God’s presence and what he wishes to tell us. In this slow and prayerful reading of the Word of God, we allow ourselves to be transformed by the Spirit who forms us into the image of Christ. There are four movements in Lectio Divina: Read (lectio), Meditate (meditation), Pray (oratio), Contemplate (contemplation).

Begin by finding a still space to pray. Breathe deeply and become quieter within. Abandon any agenda, worries or thoughts you bring to this prayer and entrust these things to the merciful care of God. Ask for the grace to be receptive to what God will speak to you through this Scripture reading. Grant me, Jesus Divine Master, to be able to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God and your unfathomable riches. Grant that your word penetrate my soul; guide my steps, and brighten my way till the day dawns and darkness dissipates, you who live and reign forever and ever Amen.

Read (lectio)
Begin by slowly and meditatively reading your Scripture passage out loud. Listen for a particular word or phrase that speaks to you at this moment and sit with it for a time.

Pray (oratio)
Read the text a third time. Listen for what God is saying to you. Speak heart to heart with God. Notice the feelings that this conversation with God raises up within you. Share with God what you notice about your response to this conversation. You may wish to return to repeating the phrase quietly and gently, allowing it to permeate you more and more deeply.

Contemplate (contemplatio)
Read the text a final time. Now be still and rest in God’s embrace. Ask God to give you a gift to take with you from this prayer. You might ask God if he is inviting you to do some action, for instance, make some change in your thoughts, attitudes or reactions, in the way you speak or how you treat others. Thank God for this gift and invitation as you conclude your prayer.

Image: Myriams-Fotos; pixabay.com

A Bold Prayer (Mark 9:41-50)

Published on by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSP2 Comments

“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.
It is better for you to enter into life maimed
than with two hands to go into Gehenna,
into the unquenchable fire.
And if your foot causes you to sin, cut if off.
It is better for you to enter into life crippled
than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna.
And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.
Better for you to enter into the Kingdom of God with one eye
than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna,
where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.”

Mark 9:41-50

How would you live differently if you knew the full glory that awaits you in heaven? I think we really need to stop and sit with that question, more so perhaps than our ancestors in the faith. In a world where the here and now, the immediate satisfaction, the hard work required to just survive leaves us exhausted and burnt out, we have little spiritual energy to think about the beyond.

What is heaven? Pope Francis described it this way: “Paradise is not a fairy tale, nor is it an enchanted garden. Paradise is an embrace with God, (who is) infinite Love, and we enter thanks to Jesus, who died on the cross for us” (Wednesday General Audience, October 25, 2017).

On another occasion Pope Francis reflected: “‘So what’s heaven?’ some ask. There we begin to be unsure in our response. We don’t know how best to explain heaven. Often we picture an abstract and distant heaven… And some think: ‘But won’t it be boring there for all eternity?’ No! That is not heaven. We are on the path towards an encounter: the final meeting with Jesus. Heaven is the encounter with Jesus. Heaven will be this encounter, this meeting with the Lord who went ahead to prepare a place for each of us” (April 27, 2018).

In heaven we will have an unimaginable capacity for joy, a joy that will ever increase, a joy that will never entirely be satisfied because God will never come to the end of giving himself to us to be our everlasting happiness.

When our heart is lit with the anticipation of God’s glory and the immense happiness the Lord will have in satisfying our deepest human longings with his life and love, it is easy to understand why Jesus says, “If something gets in the way of the this, throw it off and keep running to your ultimate destination. Say, ‘Good riddance,’ and surround yourself instead with people and things and activities and ways of being and living and loving that fulfill your dignity as a child of God and a citizen of the Kingdom.”

Pope Benedict leads us to pray, “Come, Holy Spirit! Enkindle in us the fire of your love! We know that this is a bold prayer, with which we ask to be touched by God’s flame; but above all we know that this flame and it alone has the power to save us. We do not want, in defending our life, to lose eternal life that God wants to give us. We need the fire of the Holy Spirit, because only Love redeems. Amen” (Feast of Pentecost, May 23, 2010).

Image: Laura Tapias via Cathopic

Praying with this Passage of Scripture

Lectio Divina is a way of listening to God as he speaks in his Word. It is a practice of communicating with God through Scripture and attending to God’s presence and what he wishes to tell us. In this slow and prayerful reading of the Word of God, we allow ourselves to be transformed by the Spirit who forms us into the image of Christ. There are four movements in Lectio Divina: Read (lectio), Meditate (meditation), Pray (oratio), Contemplate (contemplation).

Begin by finding a still space to pray. Breathe deeply and become quieter within. Abandon any agenda, worries or thoughts you bring to this prayer and entrust these things to the merciful care of God. Ask for the grace to be receptive to what God will speak to you through this Scripture reading. Grant me, Jesus Divine Master, to be able to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God and your unfathomable riches. Grant that your word penetrate my soul; guide my steps, and brighten my way till the day dawns and darkness dissipates, you who live and reign forever and ever Amen.

Read (lectio)
Begin by slowly and meditatively reading your Scripture passage out loud. Listen for a particular word or phrase that speaks to you at this moment and sit with it for a time.

Pray (oratio)
Read the text a third time. Listen for what God is saying to you. Speak heart to heart with God. Notice the feelings that this conversation with God raises up within you. Share with God what you notice about your response to this conversation. You may wish to return to repeating the phrase quietly and gently, allowing it to permeate you more and more deeply.

Contemplate (contemplatio)
Read the text a final time. Now be still and rest in God’s embrace. Ask God to give you a gift to take with you from this prayer. You might ask God if he is inviting you to do some action, for instance, make some change in your thoughts, attitudes or reactions, in the way you speak or how you treat others. Thank God for this gift and invitation as you conclude your prayer.

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