Deacon Keith Fournier
© Third Millennium, LLC
Catholic Online

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“Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit. St Paul to the Thessalonians(1 Thess. 5:16-19)

“When the Spirit dwells in a person, from the moment in which that person has become prayer, he never leaves him. For the Spirit himself never ceases to pray to him. Whether the person is asleep or awake, prayer never from then on departs from his soul. Whether he is eating or drinking or sleeping or whatever else he is doing, even in deepest sleep, the fragrance of prayer rises without effort in hid heart. Prayer never again deserts him. At every moment of his life, even when it appears to stop, it is secretly at work in him continuously, one of the Fathers, the bearers of Christ, says that prayer is the silence of the pure. For their thoughts are divine motions. The movements of the heart and the intellect that have been purified are the voices full of sweetness with which such people never cesa to sing in secret to the hidden God.” St. Isaac of Nineveh

Jesus, in whom the fullness of God dwells, has become our home by making his home in us he allows us to make our home in him. By entering into the intimacy of our innermost self he offers us the opportunity to enter into his own intimacy with God. By choosing us as his preferred dwelling place, he invites us to choose him as our preferred dwelling place. This is the mystery of the incarnation. Here we come to see what discipline in the spiritual life means. It means a gradual process of coming home to where we belong and listening there to the voice which desires our attention. Home is the place where that first love dwells and speaks gently to us. Prayer is the most concrete way to make our home in God. Henri Nouwen, Lifesigns, 37-39

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Prayer is a dialogue of intimate communion with the God of the whole universe who reaches out to us through His Son Jesus Christ. This God not only created the world but fashioned men and women as the crown of that creation. He made us in “His Image” and created us for communion with Him. We only find our fulfillment as human persons by entering into the full embrace of this relationship. This is the meaning and purpose of life itself.

Our relationship with God was broken through sin which is a misuse of freedom. We chose against His invitation into communion. That capacity to choose is a part of the Image of God that is fashioned within each one of us. The consequences of the separation occasioned by sin have ravaged the world. The “Good News” is that through Jesus Christ, the way has been opened into an even fuller communion. In Him we can be re-created, re-fashioned and redeemed. He comes to all make a place for Him within the center of our lives. This “making a place” is the essence of Christian prayer. It is not about doing, but about being. Prayer is about falling in love with God.

The Christian revelation answers the existential questions that plague every human heart and trouble every generation. Through His Incarnation, Saving Life, Death, and Resurrection, Jesus opens full communion with God. He leads us out of the emptiness and despair that is the rotted fruit of narcissism, nihilism and materialism. When we enter into the dialogue of prayer, we experience a progressive, dynamic and intimate relationship with God and He transforms us from within. We “become prayer” as we empty ourselves in order to be filled with Him.

Through prayer, daily life takes on new meaning. It becomes a classroom of communion. In that classroom we learn the truth about who we are - and who we are becoming - in Jesus. Through prayer we receive new glasses through which we see the true landscape of life. Through prayer darkness is dispelled and the path of progress is illuminated. Through prayer we begin to understand why this communion seems so elusive at times; as we struggle with our own disordered appetites, and live in a manner at odds with the beauty and order of the creation within which we dwell. Prayer opens us up to Revelation, expands our capacity to comprehend truth and equips us to change.

Through prayer we are drawn by Love into a deepening relationship with Jesus whose loving embrace on the hill of Golgotha bridged heaven with earth; His relationship with His Father is opened to us; the same Spirit that raised Him from the dead begins to give us new life as we are converted, transfigured and made new. Through prayer, heavenly wisdom is planted in the field of our hearts and we experience a deepening communion with the Trinitarian God. We become, in the words of the Apostle Peter “partakers of the divine nature.” That participation will only be fully complete when we are with Him in ...