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February 9, 2003 Fifth Sunday of the Year
† Rising very early before dawn, Jesus left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed. Simon and those who were with him pursued him and finding him said, "Everyone is looking for you."
Jesus told them," Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose I have come." So Jesus went into their synagogues, preaching and driving out demons throughout the whole of Galilee.
-Mark 1:29-39
A deserted place in your own room
A visitor to Russian Orthodox monastery shared with one of the monks her difficulty in praying. Although she prayed all her life, both is public liturgy and often for hours in private devotions, she had never for a moment had any sense of the presence of God in her life. Were her prayers not hear? Was she not loved by the God to whom she was praying?
The monk offered her this advice: When you next come to your tome of prayer, don't kneel, don't recite any prayers or psalms, but simply sit down in your favorite armchair by the fire relax and see what happens.
Sure enough, the woman followed the monk's guidance, and simply relaxed by the fire in her sitting room. A committed and busy woman, she had not usually allowed herself the "luxury" of time apparently wasted in this way.
What a lovely room, she thought, as she looked about her at the ornaments, the furniture and the pictures that had accumulated in the many years she had lived in this house. She had never stopped to look at the room in this way before, but now she was suddenly aware of how blessed she was in the symbols of family and friendship that surrounded her. She was warmed by the fire, supported by the cushions of her chair, and delighted by the view from her window…
Gradually, she realized that it was as if she was listening to God speaking words of love to her- and every aspect of her life was one of those words, mediated to her by the physical contents of the room in which she was sitting.
CONNECTION: In today's Gospel, Mark includes the short by important detail that Jesus, in the midst of his demanding preaching and healing, sets time aside for prayer. We all need that "out of the way" place to re-center our lives on the things of God. Like Jesus' rising at dawn and going to a deserted place, we must create our own "out of the way" place in our lives; as the visitor to the monastery discovers, that "out of the way" place can be just sitting quietly and emptying our minds of all our concerns and pressures and letting God "talk" to us in our surroundings. A true spirit of prayer is not a collection of rituals and words that we recite for God's benefit; prayer is the opening up of our hearts and spirits to God's presence in our midst and the sacredness of every moment God has given us.
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