Eve Hazel C.

Santos
2nd yr - C

SUSTAINING OURSELVES in the SPIRITUAL LIFE

To pray, I think, does not mean to think about God in contrast to thinking about other things, or to
spend time with God instead of spending time with other people. Rather, it means to think and live in
the presence of God. All our actions must have their origin in prayer. Praying is not an isolated
activity; it takes place in the midst of all the things and affairs that keep us active. In prayer a 'self-
centred monologue' becomes a 'God-centred dialogue." Henri Neuwen

"Spiritual Life" is Rolheiser's key phrase. This is something beyond mere spirituality. It is in our life,
our action, our energizing of the spiritual dynamic that we come to understand the meaning of life
and to grow our spirituality. He notes St. Augustine from the experience of his own life said
"Knowledge alone cannot save us." The secret says the author is we need both knowledge and heart.
And how shall we move along in our journey, what practices shall we follow? Well the time-
honoured one of course. Nothing has changed here he says. Prayer. Charity. Help the Poor. Be active
in church. Love.

Be a Mystic.

Personal Experience. Our culture no longer carries our faith for us. Our understanding of Christian
tradition is more agnostic than believing today, more the adoption of a Christian ideology he says,
than a matter of Christian belief. We need a personal faith and that depends upon prayer. All those
who have experienced the divine are people who pray though prayer may seem to mean different
things, and have different names and practices. But fundamentally prayer seems the same the world
over.

"Only prayer can provide for you that fine line (spiritual, psychological, and emotional) between
depression and inflation. ... because only prayer can ground a soul - and only it can save you from
being either a depressive or an asinine personality. If you do not pray, you will either be habitually
depressed or obsessed with your own ego."

A Mysticism for Our Age - Prayer as Pondering, Carrying Tension. Scripture he says tells us to
"Pray always" and he asks how do we do this. The delightful word ponder give us insight. Biblical
characters pondered. They stood before life's great mysteries with a willingness to carry a great
tension says Rolheiser. "We are better persons when we carry tension, as opposed to always looking
for its easy resolution. " And he finds this same theme in great literature. "Great joy depnds upon
first having carried great tension. Jesus embodied this tension - in his life and in his death.

"In Jesus' message there is a strong motif of waiting, of pondering, of chastity, of having to carry
tension without giving in to premature resolution. The idea is that the resurrection follows only after
there has been an agony in the garden. That is also true for faith."

Respect says Rolheiser is why we should carry tension. Living without restraint is disrespect.
Carrying the tensions of life provides opportunities to transform hurt to forgiveness, anger to
compassion, and hatred to love.
Sin Bravely

We have shared this Lutherism before. Rolheiser sees its boldness and its meaning essentially as
honesty. Luther saw in the Gospels that it "is not weakness that is problematic within our
relationship to God, but rationalization, denial, lying, and the hardening of our hearts in the face of
truth." There is only one unforgivable sin. Here is Rolheisers insightful paraphrase of Jesus:

"Be careful not to lie, not to distort the truth, because the real danger is that, by lying, you begin to
distory and warp your own hearts. If you lie to yourself long enough, eventually you will lose sight
of the truth and believe the lie and become unable any longer to tell the difference between truth and
lies. What becomes unforgivable about that is not that God does not want to forgive, but that you no
longer want to be forgiven."

"If we are Honest, eventually God, truth, and love will find us."
This provides a key to the success or failure of all therapeutic programs respecting addictions he
says. Without this kind of honesty, there can be no help.

Gather Ritually Around the Word and Break the Bread ..."

"For where two or three gather in my name, I am there among them." ... Jesus

"Christian life is not sustained only by private acts of prayer, justice, and virtue. It is sustained in a
community, by gathering ritually around the word of God and through the breaking of the bread.
However, it is important to understand that this kind of gathering is not simply a social one, capable
only of doing what social gatherings can do. To gather around the word of God and the breaking of
the bread is a ritual gathering and ritual brings something that normal social gathering does not,
namely transformative power beyond what can be understood and expllained throught the physical,
psychological, and social dynamics that are present."

We the "adult children of the Enlightenment, tend to be ritually tone-deaf in that we distrust
basically everything that we cannot rationally explain." But there is he notes in our time, a returning
interest to spiritual matters and a recognition that there is comfort and purpose in ritual gatherings. It
is a mystery how this works. "How does a kiss work?" he asks. Ritual helps us not to "fall apart",
and to "stay alive". In considering ritual, we are not in an area of change and novelty, but a place of
archetypal rhythms. In a beautifully expressed sentiment he says

"We gather to communally worship God and to let God do in us what we cannot do within ourselves,
namely, give us faith and shape us into a community beyond our conflicting emotional pulls and all
the things we need therapy for. Christianity has sustained itself for two thousand years. ... We just
have to gather in his name around the simple, clear rituals he gave us. He promised to do the rest."
Worship and Serve the Right God.

He finishes the book again with Neuwen. In The Return of the Prodigal Son we have an image of
God, new in its time, and fresh in our time; and we have images of ourselves. We have often
projected our anger into our image of God. Rolheiser says in our effort to get rid of the punishing
god, we have not done very well in replacing him. The god of orthodoxy bears a frown and the
liberal god is a worried whining god. But the God of Jesus, of Julian of Norwich, smiles on the
planet and on its people. "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and every manner of being shall be
well."