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Note: There follow the meditations for two Sunday Liturgies, July 6^th and July 13^th.

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time; Cycle A, July 6, 2008

Gospel for this Sunday: Matthew 11.25-30  (RSV translation):

Let us enter into prayer following the process of Lectio Divina.  Let us invoke the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus our Savior and Lord that the words of this Gospel become as fire to penetrate our hearts and bring the divine presence into our deepest consciousness.

1.  Lectio-Reading:

Read the Gospel text as for the first time, seeking to receive the words as they speak for themselves.

At that time Jesus declared, “I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will.  All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.  Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (The Gospel Reading)

The Gospel text records a prayer from the heart of Jesus.  It is a Trinitarian prayer because it is the Son addressing His Father.  In Luke’s version, Jesus prays in the Holy Spirit.  The inner life of the Trinity  becomes visible in this Gospel vignette.  This Gospel Reading also evokes the spirit of St. John’s Gospel where concentrates on almost exclusively on the relationship of the Father and the Son.  “Knowing” between the Father and Son and their sharing this knowing with the followers of Jesus is the content of true Catholic mystical contemplative life.

The reality of grace is present.  It is not our efforts and techniques that bring us into mystical union.  It is the gift of God—“and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”  The call to grace is universal—Come to me all who are burdened.  In other words, the whole human race with its wounds and sufferings is called.  Jesus is the incarnation of the tenderness and mercy of God that has been revealed in the Old Testament and prophesized as being fulfilled in the Messiah who will come “Meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt…”(from the First Reading).

Meditatio-Reflection

Read the text again, this time seeing its application to your life.

Growth in the contemplative life depends on humility.  Each time I understand my powerlessness both in virtue and understanding then I am open to the movement of grace.  An almost insurmountable obstacle to the grace of Trinitarian union is a self-centered reliance on intellectuality and on a false sense of self-sophistication.  My labors and my burdens are not obstacles.  My sins that are repented of and rejected in the freedom of grace are not obstacles.  In fact that which crushes me to the ground can become the most effective means of coming to Jesus as Savior by the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The “rest for our souls” is what contemplative grace is in its simplicity.  St. Pope Gregory described contemplative union as rest, in Latin, “quies” or “vacatio” (the base word in English for vacation and for emptying as in vacant).  As the Spirit empties my self-dependence I find my roots in God, in the Trinitarian life.  Coming to Jesus with my burdens I find the rest and “vacation” of being in God beyond all the workings of imagination, commentaries, regrets, thoughts and imagined projects.

Oratio-Affective Prayer

Let us read the text again, this time allowing the Spirit to pray within us, forming the words that come from our heart.

Lord Jesus I rest in your Sacred Heart.  It is the Holy Spirit who brings me there.  And in your Love I find rest in the Father.  In the Father I leave all my burdens behind.  Let me rejoice in your love and meekness and humility.  Take all of me in faith and hope.  Faith takes all my doubts; hope takes all my memories and experiences; then, Jesus, in love I rest in the eternal knowing and loving within your Triune Life.

Contemplatio-Prayer of the heart in silence.

Let us read the text again.  At the conclusion, we close our eyes and rest in the Holy Trinity.  Repeat the sacred word of your love commitment each time thoughts move you away from the resting in silence.  In fact, at any time in this “lectio” process, when you experience the movement to silence, follow it.

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time; Cycle A, July 13, 2008

Let us enter into the prayer process of Lectio Divina. Let us invoke the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus our Savior and Lord that the words of Scripture become as fire to penetrate our hearts and bring the divine presence into our deepest consciousness.

1. Lectio-Reading:

Read the text from Romans as for the first

 time, seeking to receive the words in their literal meaning.

Second Reading: Romans 8.18-23

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Commentary:

The first dimension of the reading deals with the Glory' of God, that is, the reality of God's sharing with all who are baptized in Christ the glory of adoption as sons of God. What God is by nature, we are by grace. We share the divine life of the Trinity. This glory is shared with us by the power and workings of the Holy Spirit. Those living in the state of grace of their baptism, many times regained in Reconciliation, "have the first fruits of the Spirit."

The second dimension of this Scripture tells us about the condition we share with creation. By creation in this Reading is meant all created beings apart from the human race. Although there is a sharing with all creation

--we all participate in the basic elements and are sustained by the same life-forces-- only human beings have spiritual consciousness, the powers of memory, intellect and free will, and an immortal life principle, the soul. The state we share is our exile, our subjection "to futility", our common groaning for complete salvation. Our consciousness then allows us to groan for creation as it shares our condition. This touches upon the doctrine of original sin. We all bear a wounded nature; our nature ,like all creation, possess a share in divine beauty, but it is wounded; it "is subject to futility." Creation is not evil as is taught in some Greek philosophies, nor is it an illusion as is taught in Far Eastern religions.

The Christian dynamic running through this real, but wounded creation is the theological virtue of hope which moves us to remember what yet is to come: "For the creation was subjected to futility ... by the will of him who subjected it in hope."

Again the primary dimension of this piece of Revelation is the ultimate state of final redemption, our resurrection from the dead as the sons of God and with us, the final restoration of creation, sharing in the glory to be revealed. This grace is operative now in hope and it is the basis for our "liberty" as the children of God.

2. Meditatio-Reflection

Read the text again, this time seeing its application to your life.

Our prayer is never "private prayer." Whether we are participating in Liturgy or alone in our rooms in contemplative meditation or the silence of our hearts, our faculties of soul, our memory, our intellect, our will become one with God's life of knowing and loving; prayer becomes the prayer of the Mystical Body of the Church; we exercise the priesthood of our baptismal consecration as sons of God. A priest is a mediator. We mediate for the whole human race and all of creation in its birthing and dying, in the endless chain of becoming and passing into oblivion. The death of every flower and senseless beast, their groaning for life, the great movements and changes of nature, all become part of the prayer of our hope. All the cemeteries of the dead, especially of the dead youth slain in wars, all those killed in the shedding of blood out of hatred and greed in violence, all the cries of the oppressed find their prayer expressed in the quiet sighs of the heart, in the prayer of the Holy Spirit within us.

Our prayer is centered in our state of sons of God. Our prayer is the pure breath of "the glorious liberty of the children of God." And our breath as prayer becomes the breathing of all creation; our prayer in the dark night of our hope is the groaning of all creation. Our prayer as our whole life in Christ in the present time is "the first fruits of the Spirit."

3. Oratio- Affective Prayer

Let us read the text again, this time allowing the Spirit to pray within us, forming the words that come from our heart.

Lord Jesus, your disciples asked you to teach them how to pray. You gave them the words that we now call the "Our Father." In the Holy Spirit, Lord, so move my faith and hope that each time I recite the Our Father, its words will give expression to what this Reading proclaims. Through you in the Spirit, all creation returns to Our Father who inhabits the glory of the divine existence; your Father's Kingdom is creation totally transformed in you; his name made holy is his glory shared by all creation. Our daily sustenance that comes out of creation, our daily bread, points to the divine sharing of life, goodness and beauty. All the harm we have done to creation calls us to ask for forgiveness as we forgive the hurts and wounds inflicted upon us in this combat of life. Creation in its fallen state and our own selfishness become temptations; and Satan, the Evil One continues the rebellion against your Father's goodness and truth. Lord Jesus, it is in the power of your resurrection that we ask the Father to deliver us. Our prayer is prayer because it is the groaning of Your Spirit within us, the gift of the Father of lights from whom all good gifts come. Nothing can compare in this life with the glory of that final Revelation of your glory in creation's and our transfiguration.

Contemplatio-Contemplative prayer of the heart in silence.

Let us read the text again. At the conclusion, close your eyes and rest in the Holy Trinity. Repeat the Sacred Word of your love commitment each time thoughts move you away from the resting in silence. In fact, at any time in this "lectio" process, when you experience the movement to silence, follow it. Let the Sacred Scripture that is in your heart now move into the background as an arch through which you pass beyond in the silence of love into the bosom of the Father, one with the Son-Word and the Holy Spirit.

--William Fredrickson, Obl.OSB, D.Min. 

Questions or Discussion: Fredrickson46@msn.com