From The Genesee Diary...
“The milieu of this place full of prayerful people prevents me from acting out, from getting angry, from bursting open. I can sit down and see how quickly the little empty place of peace in my heart is filled again with rocks and garbage falling down from all sides.
It is hard to pray in such a mood. But still during Terce, the short prayer immediately after work, standing outside in our dirty work clothes, we read: ‘Is anyone among you in trouble? He should turn to prayer.’ Indeed prayer is the only real way to clean my heart and to create new space. I am discovering how important that inner space is. When it is there it seems that I can receive many concerns of others in it without becoming depressed. When I sense that inner quiet place, I can pray for many others and feel a very intimate relationship with them. There even seems to be room for the thousands of suffering people in prisons and in the deserts of North Africa. Sometimes I feel as if my heart expands from my parents traveling in Indonesia to my friends in Los Angeles and from the Chilean prisons to the parishes in Brooklyn.
Now I know that it is not I who pray but the spirit of God who prays in me. Indeed, when God’s glory dwells in me, there is nothing too far away, nothing too painful, nothing too strange or too familiar that it cannot contain and renew by its touch. Every time I recognize the glory of God in me and give it space to manifest itself to me, all that is human can be brought there and nothing will be the same again. Once in a while I just know it: Of course, God hears my prayer. He himself prays in me and touches the whole world with his love right here and now. At those moments all questions about ‘the social relevance of prayer, etc.’ seem dull and very unintelligent, and the silent prayer of the monks one of the few things that keeps some sanity in this world.
But then again, how little it takes to have everything cave in on me and make my heart into a dark place of ignorance! Just today I read: ‘Faith is a thought of God free from passion.’ How meaningful that sounds after a passionate day.”
~Henri Nouwen (From The Genesee Diary – Henri, a priest, was given permission to spend 7 months at the Abbey of the Genesee – Trappist monastery in N.Y. state – this is from the diary he kept while there - any typo’s are mine)
It is hard to pray in such a mood. But still during Terce, the short prayer immediately after work, standing outside in our dirty work clothes, we read: ‘Is anyone among you in trouble? He should turn to prayer.’ Indeed prayer is the only real way to clean my heart and to create new space. I am discovering how important that inner space is. When it is there it seems that I can receive many concerns of others in it without becoming depressed. When I sense that inner quiet place, I can pray for many others and feel a very intimate relationship with them. There even seems to be room for the thousands of suffering people in prisons and in the deserts of North Africa. Sometimes I feel as if my heart expands from my parents traveling in Indonesia to my friends in Los Angeles and from the Chilean prisons to the parishes in Brooklyn.
Now I know that it is not I who pray but the spirit of God who prays in me. Indeed, when God’s glory dwells in me, there is nothing too far away, nothing too painful, nothing too strange or too familiar that it cannot contain and renew by its touch. Every time I recognize the glory of God in me and give it space to manifest itself to me, all that is human can be brought there and nothing will be the same again. Once in a while I just know it: Of course, God hears my prayer. He himself prays in me and touches the whole world with his love right here and now. At those moments all questions about ‘the social relevance of prayer, etc.’ seem dull and very unintelligent, and the silent prayer of the monks one of the few things that keeps some sanity in this world.
But then again, how little it takes to have everything cave in on me and make my heart into a dark place of ignorance! Just today I read: ‘Faith is a thought of God free from passion.’ How meaningful that sounds after a passionate day.”
~Henri Nouwen (From The Genesee Diary – Henri, a priest, was given permission to spend 7 months at the Abbey of the Genesee – Trappist monastery in N.Y. state – this is from the diary he kept while there - any typo’s are mine)
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