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Theme: As we begin a heartfelt conversation with God, we become aware of both the freeing power of grace and the crippling effects of sin.
Opening prayer: O loving Creator, heal me with your resounding word and your gentle spirit.
About Teresa
In her writings on beginning to pray, Teresa spoke of the soul as being crippled or even paralyzed. Having been paralyzed herself, Teresa understood that relearning to coordinate one’s own movement comes gradually and only with painstaking effort that initially may be difficult and seem unrewarding. Beginning to pray may be difficult and seem unrewarding too, but is therapy for the paralyzed soul. Teresa wrote about a wise man who told her once that people who do not pray regularly are like paralytics. Despite having hands and feet, they cannot direct the movements of these limbs. Teresa recalled the passage in John’s gospel (5:1-9) concerning Jesus’ healing of the lame man. In this story, the movement beyond paralysis comes as a grace of God. This is true of inner paralysis also. Healing may come early in life, or it may come after many years, depending on one’s training, desires, and the freely given gifts of God. But prayer establishes the contact with God, the source of all healing for body or soul. Teresa assumed that we would always be delighted in the experience of God’s enabling grace.
Pause: Recall the experience of prayer in which you were aware of the presence of God bringing you inner freedom.
Teresa’s Words
Whoever has not begun the practice of prayer, I beg for the love of the Lord not to go without so great a good. There is nothing here to fear but only something to desire. Even if there be no great progress, or much effort in reaching such perfection as to deserve the favor and mercies God bestows on the more generous, at least a person will come to understand the road leading to heaven. And if one perseveres, I trust then in the mercy of God, who never fails to repay anyone who has taken Him for a friend. For mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us. (Life, p. 96)
Reflection
Teresa’s writings affirm, according to the traditions of the church, that God offers all humans the graces they need for salvation. One of these graces is the gift of prayer in which we enter into ourselves and speak to God, who loves us. Like any friendship, friendship with God takes initial effort, time, and personal presence. In this relationship, we may become aware of our weaknesses, our inabilities, and our destructive propensities. At the same time, we can come to realize that a new mode of life is beckoning and attracting us.
Teresa posed some questions that are worth reflecting on in this age of information and verbiage but of less communication:
Do I approach personal prayer as an attempt to speak to God, the one who loves me?
Do I allow myself to become discouraged when I feel inept in expressing myself to God?
Do I avoid prayer because it seems so unreal?
Reflect on the quality of the conversations in your daily life: your way of getting another person’s attention, your tone of voice, your sincerity about being heard, the content of your message, your ability to hear another person, and the verbal or nonverbal gestures that you use to close the conversation. Continue this reflection by examining how others communicate with you. Write a summary of these considerations.
Next, reflect on the way you approach and speak with God and on the way God approaches and speaks with you.
Do you speak with God like you speak with other people?
Are your expectations the same or different?
Do you find yourself trying to hide aspects of your life from God?
Do you tiptoe around issues with God the way you might tiptoe around issues with other people? Is this necessary?
End this reflection by talking with God about the relationship and communication that you share. Ask God to send you whatever you need in order to deepen and enliven your relationship.
In what areas of your spiritual or emotional life do you find yourself paralyzed or crippled? Find a friend to talk to about this, or write a letter to yourself explaining the whole situation. Finally, offer these areas of paralysis to God. Discuss them. Maybe you will be healed or find release soon, maybe not. Can you rest in God’s hands with or without remedy?
Trusting in the mercy of God, take time and find a space to be alone with the One who loves you. Speak your mind and heart; listen with your mind and heart.
Meditate on the passage from John’s gospel in “God’s Word.” Imagine yourself as the one with whom Jesus is speaking.
God’s Word
After this there was a Jewish festival, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem next to the Sheep Pool there is a pool called Bethesda in Hebrew, which has five porticos; and under these were crowds of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed. One man there had an illness which had lasted thirty-eight years, and when Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had been in that condition for a long time, he said, “Do you want to be well again?” “Sir,” replied the sick man, “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is disturbed; and while I am still on the way, someone else gets down there before me.” Jesus said, “Get up, pick up your sleeping-mat and walk around.” The man was cured at once, and he picked up his mat and started to walk around. (John 5:1-9)
Closing prayer: God, you know my heart. When I hear your voice, I realize that I am sometimes too broken to respond. In your mercy, heal me. Let me walk. Let me walk around in the temple of my soul and in the temple of your world.
Because God knows everything and loves me more than I can even begin to understand, I can only realize in deeper and deeper ways how closely are my life’s crosses related to the ways in which I need to grow, the things that God is telling me, if I would but listen--and prayer is not a monologue, it is listening, also, which for many years, was hard for me. But this is how much God loves and works in all of our lives! Because He is God, He can be with each of us as though we were the only one in the world. Prayer is a relationship and it is as necessary as breathing. Thank you for this article; it is wonderful!