Boring Prayer Life or True Friendship?

     As I was walking to class one day recently I was thinking about what seemed like a very mediocre (at best) holy hour I made that morning.  It seemed to me like I had been having many of these types of holy hours where "not much was happening."  In many talks I have given as a seminarian on prayer I have told people that prayer is developing our friendship with God.  I then began to think about my friendships.  This led me to an interesting realization.
     When you spend time with friends what do you do?  Many times at the beginning of a friendship, you will find out many interesting things about a person; where they grew up, what their childhood was like, what they do for a living, favorite movies, how many brothers and sisters they have, what they hope to do in life, etc.  This period can last for quite some time as each person is unique and has a history spanning many years, even several decades.  However, even if this initial stage of getting to know someone last for a few years, eventually the friendship will change, it must change!  Eventually, we will no longer learn something new about the other person every time we get together, at least not one that will make us think twice.  Despite this change, or rather because of this change, our friendship will go to a new level, it will continue to grow and deepen, only in different ways.
     Reaching this new stage of friendship, we will simply be happy to be in the other's presence.  We will not need to learn anything new about them, or even do anything.  I'm sure we have all had the experience of going to the movie with someone...you don't say anything to one another in the movie (hopefully, especially if you are sitting next to me), but you still enjoy your time together.  This also applies to our relationship with God.  God is infinite, and His Word can always speak to us, revealing something new.  But God is not going to entertain us.  At the beginning of our relationship, he will try to "woo" us, to draw us into his loving presence.  However, once we make that gesture of returning our love to Him, he may seem to fade away.  Many of the great saints have experienced this and some have gone through intense periods of what felt like abandonment by God called a "dark night."  In reading the writings of people in a dark night of the soul, the reader can tell that God is actually close to the person.  The one going through this pain, however, is so close to God that they cannot see his presence.
     I went through a period when I was in minor seminary where I would walk into the chapel in the morning and the first thing that would come to mind is the Eric Clapton song that goes "hello old friend, it sure is good to see you once again."  After a couple of days of this I started to ask what was wrong with me that I would think of such a song in the presence of our Lord.  Once I recognized it and thought about it, I realized that it was not necessarily a bad thing.  I had become familiar with God and simply being with Him was enough, I didn't need to do anything, to have any major revelations.  I started to see this as a blessing to be able to walk into the chapel and say hello, to realize that God truly was an old friend!
     All this being said, we must always be alert in our prayer life so that we do not become lazy and allow our minds to wonder.  There is a difference between God speaking to us in silence for our own good and us coming to prayer distracted and not putting in the effort.  The next time you are thinking that your prayer life is boring, spend some time in prayer to see if maybe your friendship with God has progressed to the point where He no longer has to entertain you, then persevere through the difficulties!

O Come Let us Adore Him,
Patrick

Greatness

     I want to be a saint!  I frequently think about this and I think that it is good and healthy.  We believe that a saint is someone who has made it, anyone who has entered into the presence of God in heaven.  In this sense, we should all want to be saints one day.
     My problem arises because I don't just want to be a saint who makes it to heaven, I want to be a great saint!  Now, again on the surface, this is not a bad thing, but when I really look at my motives I begin to see the problem.  What is it about being a saint that really attracts me?  Well, when I am honest about myself it has a lot to do with the way people think about the saints.  Hearing about the heroic acts of a St. Maximillian Kolbe giving up his life for another in Auswitz, staring at the volumes and volumes of the writings of the Angelic Doctor (Thomas Aquinas) or the Doctor of Grace (St. Augustine), learning about the conversion and susequent work of St. Ignatius Loyola, and reading the account of the martyrdom of St. Polycarp makes me want to be a saint even a martyr!  But is it love of God I am seeking or greatness?  Isn't greatness a good thing?  After all St. Thomas Aquinas listed magnanimity as a virtue; Pope Benedict stated that we are not made for comfort but for greatness.
     Shouldn't we want to be great?  YES!  But greatness takes on a new look when we speak about it in relation to being a saint as opposed to the world's view.  None of the saints I mentioned (none at all for that matter) became great by simply seeking after greatness.  They all became saints by seeking after Him, Greatness Himself.  It was only because of their amazing love for God that they were able to do great things.  In fact, they didn't do great things, God did great things through them because they were humble enough to let Him.  Mother Theresa was well known for saying that we cannot do great things, only small things with great love.  There is something about those Theresas.  Mother Theresa and St. Therese (the Little Flower) can teach us a great deal about this.
     When they first began their ministries I'm sure they did not think they were doing great things.  One was ministering to the poorest of the poor and one was living in a convent and very sick.  In Mother Theresa, we see the means by which we can become great, the starting point for all saints.  We must do the little things that our life demands right now!  These thoughts came to me when the Gospel was about the lost sheep.  The shepherd, losing one sheep, leaves the 99 and goes in search for the 1 lost sheep.  Now, I've never shepherded sheep, but this seems ridiculous.  Leaving 99 sheep to try to save one.  But such is the love of our God for us; it is ridiculous, at times it doesn't make sense.  God's love doesn't make sense to us because it is too great for us to understand.  The aspect of this reading the Mother Theresa lived was this.  There are always 100 things that we could be doing.  We must focus on the 1 thing we are doing, the 1 person we are helping.  Our greatness must begin with the person God has sent into our lives at each moment.  We must show His love for them through our words and actions.  It is only through humble service of each individual we encounter throughout each day that we will truly become great, we will become saints.  We will not be great in the eyes of the world.  Rather, we will be great in the eyes of the One who really matters.
     Let us spend time in prayer during this season of Advent of the lowliness that our God took on in order to bring us to greatness.  He humbled Himself and became man so that we could become like Him.  May this season of joyful anticipation for the coming of Christ anew into the world and in our lives help us to grow in our love for Jesus, the Savior of the world!