AT THE CENTER OF OUR BEING
is a point of
nothingness…
Deacon John Ruscheinsky
In
today's Responsorial Psalm we acclaim, "Let the faithful exult in glory;
let them sing for joy..." (Ps 149:5). We want to learn to make our prayer
lively and our worship artistic, for the joy of our hearts and the glory of our
heavenly Father. "For the Lord takes delight in His people" (Ps
149:4a).
Jesus
Christ is a model of prayer. In today's Gospel He, before making His momentous
decision about the composition of the Twelve Apostles, "departed to the
mountain to pray, and He spent the night in prayer to God" (Lk 6:12).
Jesus' consistent pattern of prayer must become contagious in the lives of all
those around Him. Prayer involves withdrawal from the world of "business
as usual" to some kind of seclusion from all the distractions. Prayer
allows - indeed compels - the disciples of today to view the world from God's
vantage point. It urges us to adopt His criteria in assessing ourselves about
how to live our vocation.
A
prayerful life can include petitioning for the graces needed to meet the
challenges we face in our world. Prayer also encourages us, as believers, to
praise the lavishness and generosity of our heavenly Father. Prayer is the
lifeline that sustains hope! Here is a prayer of reflection from Thomas Merton:
"At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is
untouched by sin and by illusions, a point of pure truth, a point or spark
which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, but from which
God disposes our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind
or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of
absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us... It is like a pure diamond,
blazing with the invisible light of heaven. Amen."