“We are a capacity, a pure capacity for Jesus; none can actuate and fill it but He…. We must not suffer ourselves to be in ourselves, except to see to it that Jesus Christ be living in us, and that He may use and enjoy possession of all that is within us.” (Cardinal Pierre de Berulle)
Image credit: Luis Carlos Bonilla Soto from Cathopic
“Well, I broke a piece off of the Rocking Santa while I was pulling it out of storage,” Dad said when I called him the other day. I caught my breath in the moment of awkward sadness. One more thing broken. One more memory chipped away. One more thing my mom loved that she would never be able to enjoy now that she is in Memory Care. One more piece of our life with her that wouldn’t be the same.
Since selling the house four years ago, Dad has one by one broken items that belonged to his family or Mom’s. He had held on to these fence posts that marked out the territory of his family identity, history, and memory. They were strategically placed around the apartment as if to say, “Everything is still the same.” They were physical connections to people and places that lived with him and within him all along. They were signposts to something important, but not important enough.
As each object is mended or boxed up and put away, Dad is assuming the role of becoming himself the memory keeper. The value of the things he has held on to is giving way to memories that are living with a depth he wasn’t capable of before this part of his journey to ultimate meaning.
The truth is that change is the essence of life. That existential crises are our greatest moments, passages in which we become more soulful, more transcendent, more thoughtful.
I must admit that there are things that I don’t want to break. Memories I don’t want to lose. I still create ways to convince myself that “everything is the same.”
I don’t know why I hang on to structures and routines and things for comfort and security. I don’t understand why even when I see its futility, I cling to the familiar and try to control things in order to reduce my anxiety.
The truth is that change is the essence of life. That existential crises are our greatest moments, passages in which we become more soulful, more transcendent, more thoughtful.
My experience with brokenness began with a stroke when I was just twenty-one. During the next forty years, Jesus visited me regularly with events that chipped away at what I thought was mine forever. Holding these things too tightly I had lived too close to the surface.
Just what does it mean to plunge deep into the capacity of the human soul to feel, to suffer, to glory, to remember, to cry, to laugh, to dream? Does it perhaps happen only when the things that we thought constituted memories are chipped and broken and quietly laid away?
We have no way of knowing the tender way in which God will open us to our own inner worlds. But we can be certain of this: God will turn us inside out and upside down through losses and sorrows probably many times in our life to accomplish in us what we so desire in ourselves.
Advent is a perfect time to reflect on the way the Lord is coming with song and jubilation to reconnect you to things deep and abiding in your life. For everything that chips and breaks, every memory you need to tuck away, every tear of nostalgia that is shed, God is kneading your heart, opening it to deeper presence, a greater nobility, and relaxed openness to the movement of love and grace.
Zion, herald of good news, go up on a high mountain. Jerusalem, herald of good news, raise your voice loudly. Raise it, do not be afraid! Say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” See, the Lord God comes with strength, and his power establishes his rule. His wages are with him, and his reward accompanies him. He protects his flock like a shepherd; he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them in the fold of his garment. He gently leads those that are nursing (Isaiah 40:9-11).
The grace we are asking of God: a deeply felt awareness of how God in all of history and most powerfully in the Word made flesh draws us into the unfolding of the mystery of his love which always is extravagant and which is ever seeking to save us. We desire that in doing this we enter into a process of healing and conversion that we might love Jesus and follow him more intentionally, completely, and 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.
Offer your prayer to God, desiring that in every way it will give him glory.
Enter into one of the moments where the Gospels record Jesus praying to his Father. For instance, Jesus retiring to the mountains and spending the night in prayer. Draw near Jesus, perhaps kissing the ground upon which he is kneeling.
Imitate as nearly as you can the spiritual sensitivity of Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, in his all-night vigil before the Father… his posture… his grateful amazement… his return gift to his Father of complete surrender to him.
Assume the same posture, the same way of being, with all the way it spills over into your spiritual senses. “Taste” the sweetness of this gaze between Jesus and the Father. “Delight” in the divine communication of love that never ends between Father and Son….
End with gratitude, the gratitude Jesus shows his Father.
Recall or determine what passage of the Gospel you will be using for your meditation. Take a few moments to center all your senses on the way one person or group is personally experiencing a single moment of this Gospel passage. Do you personally resonate with this experience in some situation or aspect of your life?
Ask for what you desire.
Read the passage from the Gospel. Focus on the moment of the engagement with Jesus. What is the person (or group) experiencing.
When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going (John 6: 16-21).
Enter more deeply into the experience of the disciples as you feel inspired. Here is a possible thread you could follow:
The apostles were terrified. They were accomplished fishermen, but the Sea of Galilee was known for storms that arose without warning, putting small boats in danger of capsizing. These storms resulted from differences in temperatures as well as the differences in height between the seacoast and the mountains beyond. This resulted in strong winds that would drop to the sea, funneling through the hills creating violent results. Because the Sea of Galilee was shallow the waters could be “whipped up” more rapidly than deeper water, creating violent waves that put even larger boats at risk.
Yes. The apostles were terrified. Look, listen, taste, touch, smell that terror. What do you see? Grown men crying out, rushing around, depending on themselves to do something to save themselves. What do you hear? The disciples crying out in fear, their cries lost on the wind, as they faced death and loss. You taste the terror of men losing control of the situation, tossed about by the winds of nature.
Re-read the passage from the Gospel, noticing how Jesus experienced that moment, how he sensed it with all his bodily as well as emotional, mental, intuitive, and spiritual senses.
How is Jesus experiencing this moment? Don’t come up with an intellectual answer. Abide, instead, with the Word. Remain within Jesus and his experience. Allow him to reveal to you how he is most deeply experiencing his relationship with the disciples in this moment.
This may take you in any number of directions. In this passage Jesus is showing me he had this stance toward his disciples: no matter how hard they try, they cannot save themselves.
Revisit the narrative, using “the five senses of the imagination.”
Antonio Guillén helps us deepen this in this way:
Now it is no longer a matter merely of seeing and listening to the scene with the imaginative senses of sight and hearing. At this stage, all the other bodily senses come into play in one’s imagination: ‘to smell and taste with the senses of smell and taste the infinite gentleness and sweetness’, so that one touches with the sense of touch, ‘embracing and kissing the place where these persons tread and sit’ (Exx 124–125). This prayer becomes more a matter of the senses and feelings, and thereby emotionally more constant. (Imitating Christ our Lord with the Senses: Sensing and Feeling in the Exercises, The Way, Jan/April 2008).
In this passage, I was given to “taste” Jesus’ stability and power. I found myself bowing before him as my clothes and hair were whipped by the waves and rain. There I kissed his feet. Here there was a strange quietness, even in the midst of turbulence and danger. I “touched” clearly, how Jesus was more powerful than any storm. I felt immersed in his stability, as firm as a rock, in the midst of everything happening on the Sea of Galilee at that moment: the storms, the cries of fear on the part of the disciples, their terror at losing everything, even life itself. Jesus’ words: “It is I, do not be afraid,” were like incense, a sweet-smelling fragrance.
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.
Antonio Guillén continues:
Thus as we pray, we allow the mystery of the life of Christ, which has become connatural with us and present…, to take over and engulf us. No one would deny that this exercise—something at the intuitive and not cognitive level—impregnates the soul and establishes firmly that ‘inner knowledge of the Lord.’ For now the senses and feelings have taken on the same orientation as the reason and the affective will, ‘a more intimate assimilation of what has been contemplated, a sort of impregnation, the spirit’s soaking up what has already been felt’—‘that I might the better love and follow him’ (Exx 104).
Explore the two ways of experiencing this one situation: the way of the disciples and the way of Jesus. We are also in the same type of stormy situations and have a choice about the way we will live through them: as the disciples or as Jesus.
The disciples in this story experienced terror. They did not experience Jesus’ presence. They felt alone. They had no trust or confidence. They were without hope.
Their experience is a window into what Ignatius called “spiritual desolation.” St. Ignatius describes desolation as, “darkness of soul, disturbance in it, movement to low and earthly things, disquiet from various agitations and temptations, moving to a lack of confidence, without hope, without love, finding oneself totally slothful, tepid, sad as if separated from one’s Creator and Lord.” Spiritual desolation is fundamentally a movement away from feeling the reality of the presence of God.
Now enter into your experience of Jesus in this same situation. In my case, it was an experience of stability and power, the firmness of the rock that is attributed to God alone, and that nothing in this world can move. There was a sense of God’s nearness, an increase in faith.
This experience is a window into what Ignatius called “spiritual consolation.” t. Ignatius said consolation is when, “Some interior movement in the soul causes the soul to come inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord,” it is when the soul strives to love no created thing more than the Creator of all. Saint Ignatius also calls consolation, “Every increase of hope, faith, and charity, and all interior joy that calls and attracts the soul to heavenly things and to salvation.”
Take a few moments to reflect upon how right now you can find yourself in such “storms” in your life: in relationships, reversals of fortune, accusations and misunderstanding, losses, illness. Our first reaction may be to cry out in terror, and that is perfectly understandable. If we remain here, however, we are experiencing only our fear with no real means of dealing with it, just like the disciples. When we move from terror into the stability and power of Jesus who is in the storm but not affected by the storm, greater than the storm, walking on the waves created by the storm, we discover how he reveals his presence to us, “It is I, do not be afraid.” The decisions we make from this space are truly wise, inspired, and blessed.
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 more perfect understanding when we take quality time to feel with Jesus, as he reveals himself, looking and hearing, touching and tasting, in the Gospel Word. Contemplating Jesus becomes the path to imitating Jesus.
Rest in that awareness as Jesus helps you to resonate with what he resonates with. As you enter into his feelings and the way he uses his senses, you will gradually lose interest in your own spontaneous reactions, defenses, and self-promotions. Jesus will bring you to his way by attraction, sweetness, and beauty. He will make you feel safety, belonging, and hope.
“To educate our senses and feelings, to become imbued with his way of being and feeling, of resonating with everything that made him resonate, of abhorring everything that he abhorred, of reacting to things and to people as he sed to react, to spontaneously (the goal) feel with Jesus—to be more like him [than ourselves]…” (Imitating Christ our Lord with the Senses: Sensing and Feeling in the Exercises: Antonio Guillen (The Way, 47/1-2, Jan/April 2008), 225-241).
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.
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: Yousef from Unsplash
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-7znhx-140eec3
Highlights:
Questions about life’s meaninglessness, about the way in which our days pass like vapor, about how all that we do and accomplish seems to vanish without a trace as we age, these burden not just the heart of Qoheleth in today’s first reading, but at certain points in our lives these questions haunt us too. I once heard that the book of Ecclesiastes identifies the question to which the whole of Revelation is the answer. In this quickly changing world, all that our life has been seems to slip through our fingers, and our heart longs for life, true life, life that is a treasure that neither moth nor rust can destroy.
There is something cyclical in this description of continual, unending, “coming and going” of things. In this reading there is no sense of the enduring, of divine gift and guidance and mission, of an end which has been ordained for all things by God. Instead, the more things change, as the saying goes, the more things stay the same, endlessly repeating to seemingly no purpose.
Today many experience life in this way. Not being grounded in the fertile soil of God’s action and love, much of what constitutes activity in our world seems to have no real meaning. I believe that during the pandemic many began to feel this way. The tasks they had been doing in their jobs were now no longer satisfying to them, no longer seemed purposeful, no longer worth devoting their whole life to. They began to seek something more meaningful to do with their careers.
It is ultimately only God who truly defines us and the purpose of our lives, their unending purpose.
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The grace we are asking of God: a deeply felt awareness of how God in all of history and most powerfully in the Word made flesh draws us into the unfolding of the mystery of his love which always is extravagant and which is ever seeking to save us. We desire that in doing this we enter into a process of healing and conversion that we might love Jesus and follow him more intentionally, completely, and 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.
Offer your prayer to God, desiring that in every way it will give him glory.
Enter into one of the moments where the Gospels record Jesus praying to his Father. For instance, Jesus retiring to the mountains and spending the night in prayer. Draw near Jesus, perhaps kissing the ground upon which he is kneeling.
Imitate as nearly as you can the spiritual sensitivity of Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, in his all-night vigil before the Father… his posture… his grateful amazement… his return gift to his Father of complete surrender to him.
Assume the same posture, the same way of being, with all the way it spills over into your spiritual senses. “Taste” the sweetness of this gaze between Jesus and the Father. “Delight” in the divine communication of love that never ends between Father and Son….
End with gratitude, the gratitude Jesus shows his Father.
Recall or determine what aspect or event in Jesus’ life that you will be using for your meditation.
Ask for what you desire.
Read the passage from the Gospel or simply recall this event in Jesus’ life. For example, his childhood in Nazareth, the agony in the Garden, his resurrection.
Focus your attention on Jesus. Ask him to reveal himself to you. Notice with your senses what he is experiencing in this mystery of his life.
Re-read the passage from the Gospel, noticing how Jesus experienced that moment, how he sensed it with all his bodily as well as emotional, mental, intuitive, and spiritual senses.
Don’t try to come up with an intellectual understanding of what is happening in Jesus’ life. Abide, instead, with the Word. Remain within Jesus and his experience. Allow him to reveal to you how he is most deeply experiencing and expressing his relationship with the Father or with others in this moment.
If we were to remain at a simple explanation of Ignatius’ prayer method, it could seem that the point of Ignatian Contemplation is to simply imagine with our five senses, for example, to imagine ourselves using our senses in whatever Gospel passage we are praying with. The problem with this interpretation is that first, a person would need a vivid imagination to pray in this way, and second, this would not lend itself to the general goal of loving Jesus and following him more intentionally, completely, and wholeheartedly. Or, as Ignatius puts it, seeing more clearly, loving more dearly and following more nearly.
Ignatius was a master, instead, at a very contemporary focus on the body as a conduit for contemplation and discernment. This way of praying, as Gemma Simmonds, CJ has written, “can lead to the concretisation of whatever movements the Spirit is prompting, as we reach a deeper understanding of our own senses by experiencing and sharing how the embodied eternal Word uses his. Our imitation of Christ becomes more exact as we feel each sensation with and in him” (Thinking Faith, March 7, 2018).
We can use the senses as a means of prayer and discernment. In a deeply contemplative prayer we can be present to Jesus as he acts through his own bodily senses.
Gemma Simmonds helps us see the power of this contemplative presence:
“It helps to think how often we refer to bodily sensations in order to describe a powerful and instinctive reaction: ‘I had a gut feeling’, ‘I found that hard to swallow’, ‘it took my breath away’. We incarnate within our bodily sensations some of our strongest responses, and in the gospel we see Jesus doing the same. In the English translation of John’s Gospel, we find him deeply moved as Mary weeps for her dead brother Lazarus. The Greek verb indicates the snorting of a horse or the growling of an angry creature. It is a strong bodily reaction indicative of many possible emotions: grief, frustration, anger – a general sense of being overwhelmed by his own feelings and those of others.”
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 feeling in this event or at this point in his life.
Antonio Guillén helps us deepen this in this way:
“Now it is no longer a matter merely of seeing and listening to the scene with the imaginative senses of sight and hearing. At this stage, all the other bodily senses come into play in one’s imagination: ‘to smell and taste with the senses of smell and taste the infinite gentleness and sweetness’, so that one touches with the sense of touch, ‘embracing and kissing the place where these persons tread and sit’ (Exx 124–125). This prayer becomes more a matter of the senses and feelings, and thereby emotionally more constant” (Imitating Christ our Lord with the Senses: Sensing and Feeling in the Exercises, The Way, Jan/April 2008).
In the event or mystery of Jesus’ life that you are contemplating, enter into what is transpiring, as Ignatius says, ‘to smell and taste with the senses of smell and taste the infinite gentleness and sweetness’, so that one touches with the sense of touch, ‘embracing and kissing the place where these persons tread and sit’ (Exx 124–125).
What is it that you notice?
What in Jesus is drawing you?
What in Jesus is speaking to your life’s story right now?
What does Jesus do?
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.”
Antonio Guillén explains it this way:
Thus as we pray, we allow the mystery of the life of Christ, which has become connatural with us and present…, to take over and engulf us. No one would deny that this exercise—something at the intuitive and not cognitive level—impregnates the soul and establishes firmly that ‘inner knowledge of the Lord.’ For now the senses and feelings have taken on the same orientation as the reason and the affective will, ‘a more intimate assimilation of what has been contemplated, a sort of impregnation, the spirit’s soaking up what has already been felt’—‘that I might the better love and follow him’ (Exx 104).
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 soul causes the soul to come inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord,” it is when the soul strives to love no created thing more than the Creator of all. Saint Ignatius also calls consolation, “every increase of hope, faith, and charity, and all interior joy that calls and attracts the soul to heavenly things and to salvation.”
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 more perfect 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. As you enter into his feelings and the way he uses his senses, you will gradually lose interest in your own spontaneous reactions, defenses, and self-promotions. Jesus will bring you to his way by attraction, sweetness, and beauty. He will make you feel safety, belonging, and hope.
“To educate our senses and feelings, to become imbued with his way of being and feeling, of resonating with everything that made him resonate, of abhorring everything that he abhorred, of reacting to things and to people as he sed to react, to spontaneously (the goal) feel with Jesus—to be more like him [than ourselves]…” (Imitating Christ our Lord with the Senses: Sensing and Feeling in the Exercises: Antonio Guillen (The Way, 47/1-2, Jan/April 2008), 225-241).
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.
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: Elfran from Cathopic
“Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing [his master’s will].”
If there is one thing of which we are all certain regarding ourselves, it is that we will one day die. We don’t know the circumstances of that moment in which we will close our eyes to this earth and open them to eternity. We don’t know when that moment will come upon us. The certainty of our death, however, binds us all together as mortal beings. “You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”
Jesus tells us today how to prepare for that inevitable meeting with him in death. “Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing [his master’s will].”
I often pray these lines of the Our Father: Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. They are a quiet simple plea of the heart that every day, in everything, in every way I will be faithful with the fidelity of the angels and saints, the fidelity of Jesus the Lamb of God.
“Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing [his master’s will].”
As St. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: “How consoling it is to see a just man die! …From this bed of mourning, whereon he leaves a precious load of virtues, he goes to take possession of the true land of the living, Jesus acknowledges him as His brother and as His friend, for he has died to the world before closing his eyes from its dazzling light. Such is the death of the saints, a death very precious in the sight of God.”
Walking the narrow way of faithfulness to the master, St. Bernard says we find ourselves weighed down with the “precious load of virtues.” The word “narrow” conjures up images of restriction, being confined, stuffed into a path that has no room, no joy, no life. In this parable, Jesus tells us that the narrow way actually gives freedom and opens the door to the death of the saints of God, a death very precious in the sight of God. The narrow way, the faithful way of the servant who does his master’s will, is constituted by the day in and day out ordinary living of the virtues.
“Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing [his master’s will].”
Most of us won’t be like the unfaithful servant who says to himself, “ ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, to eat and drink and get drunk.” However, there are small and subtle ways in which we refuse our Lord the faithful service and obedient love that is his due. Take some time today to immerse yourself in the abundant life that this parable promises. Name three things you are grateful for and three ways God has unexpectedly blessed you. Arouse sentiments of gratitude and wonder at the way in which God has preserved you and provided for you all these years. Then very humbly, ask him to help you see one area in your life in which he is calling you to greater fidelity. Perhaps it is in a situation or relationship, or an attitude or way of speaking, the way you characterize certain groups of people or cling to possessions. Wait very quietly until you begin to understand in simple honesty what God is asking of you. Perhaps write in a journal some practical ways in which God is calling you to choose fidelity in the small everyday simple things of life. Rejoice, for in following God’s invitation you will find yourself weighed down with a “precious load of virtues,” prepared for the hour in which you will close your eyes to this earth and open them in eternity.
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 movement 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.
But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”
Peter asked, “Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?”
The Lord answered, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But suppose the servant says to himself, ‘My master is taking a long time in coming,’ and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.
“The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.
Meditate (meditatio) – Read the same passage a second time. As you re-engage the text, let the word or phrase that stood out become your invitation to speak from your heart with God who wishes to share his heart with you. Allow this word or phrase to wash over you and permeate your thoughts and feelings. You may wish to repeat this phrase quietly and gently for a period of 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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Touching the Sunrise 