Prayer

You Are…God’s Masterpiece! Lectio for Discerners

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

God’s Masterpiece

Discerning with the Word: A Guided Lectio Divina for Those Discerning

"St. Paul Writing His Epistles" attrib. to Valentin de Boulogne, c. 1618-1620

“St. Paul Writing His Epistles” attrib. to Valentin de Boulogne, c. 1618-1620

Introduction: We know that God’s invitations to us flow from our God-given identity. In this lectio, we pray with how God sees us, how God’s love shapes our very identity, and how God’s love frees us to be more fully ourselves.

Lectio: Ephesians 2:4-10

But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—  and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Read through this reading slowly and attentively at least twice. Take your time with it.

Meditatio

Saint Paul’s dramatic encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus (Acts 9) completely changed Paul’s relationship with God from Pharisaism to experiencing the fullness of God’s love and mercy. By his baptism, Paul became a new creation in Jesus. Learning Christ, and living his new identity in Christ as an adopted son of God, led Paul to discover true freedom. No longer driven by fear or possessions, Paul belonged to Christ and trusted that nothing could separate him from God’s love and mercy. The extravagance eloquence of this passage demonstrates Paul’s amazement and gratitude to Jesus for his saving Passion, Death, and Resurrection.

Each of us who have been baptized can share in that journey from fear to trust and freedom discovered by Paul: we too are loved, redeemed, and sanctified.

As you re-read this passage, let yourself become aware that you are a son or daughter of God, that your very being is God’s awesome gift to you. Different translations of verse 10 into English range from the prosaic, “We are what he has made us” to “God’s handiwork,” “God’s masterpiece,” or “God’s work of art.”  Have you ever thought of yourself as God’s “work of art”? Do you believe that you are an heir of God, who will share everything with Christ as his brother or sister?

Contemplatio

Which phrase from this passage of Ephesians best describes how you see yourself? As you allow this phrase to “sink in,” how does it change your understanding of how God might see you? In your own words, how would you describe your relationship with God?

Oratio

The Work of Your Love – by Blessed James Alberione

My Lord, I am entirely the work of your all powerful love. I adore you, my God, one in nature and triune in Persons. I thank you, because you have made me for the happiness which lies in you and for your eternal glory. Save me with your love and your mercy!

Actio

Choose one way to act on your belief in God’s powerful love for you today.

God Wants a Relationship with Us

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / Leave a comment

To understand God’s call for us, we need to also understand how God sees us; we have to understand our “backstory” (to put it in storytelling terms) or where we come from.

How does God see us? Most simply put, we have been loved into being:

There is one truth for believers that, no matter how much our wounded nature might try, cannot be twisted. This truth is that God chose to create each of us. There is something so unique and wonderful about us that God wants to share his life with us. God wants us in the world.  – See Yourself Through God’s Eyes

Not only is this true, but it has an amazing corollary: in creating us, God is expressing a desire to have a relationship with us. Because of Jesus, we know that this relationship with the God is adoption as God’s child, and our relationship with Jesus is friend.

Image 7How precious is the worth and dignity of every person on earth! The core of our identity is that we are created in the image of God, invited to become a child of God through Baptism so that we can share in Jesus’ divine Sonship. Created in God’s image, we have the ability to know and to love. Unfortunately, the freedom that gives us the ability to love also gives us the ability to choose to turn away from love.

When we choose not to love, we aren’t living according to the greatness of our identity. Although we are beloved, we are also flawed and sinful. Yet, even God’s response to our sinfulness proves his love for us! God sends his Son Jesus to save us from ourselves, from the power of sin, from the power of evil. Every time that we repent of our sins and ask forgiveness, we are invited to return to the depth and beauty of greater communion with God.

Our “backstory” helps us as begin or deepen our attitude of discernment, because God’s call to us is congruous with this reality that we are precious in God’s eyes. Since our very identity is founded on our relationship with God, it makes sense then that God is the Co-Protagonist in our life. God wants to partner with us, to draw us always closer to himself (in deeper communion with him) throughout our lives.

To Pray With

Psalm 139 is wonderful to pray with and ponder our identity in God’s eyes—God’s beloved ones. Pray with it over the next few days, and allow the awe and gratitude of this psalm to fill you.

Dancing with God

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In a book or film, the protagonist is the central character in the story—the story is the protagonist’s story. Without the protagonist, there is no story, just a set of circumstances. This is also true of the story of our lives. We are the protagonists of our own lives. It is our story. But it’s also God’s story. God brought us into being, provides for us, and guides us as closely as we’ll allow. So God, too, is the protagonist of our story or rather, God and I are the co-protagonists of our story, which is the story of my life.

385px-Ballroom.svgIf we truly believe this—that the Holy Spirit is our Co-Author and Co-Protagonist—then how do we describe our role as the human co-protagonist? We know we aren’t simply passive spectators to our own lives. The Church unequivocally reminds us that we each have free will and the dignity of exercising that freedom. The question is how do we exercise our freedom, to make a choice, to step forward in faith, while letting God lead?

Letting God take the lead and our making a free choice are not mutually exclusive; in fact, just the opposite is true because ideally, they happen together! God invites, and we respond with faith and loving action. Our full, wholehearted response is absolutely essential to fulfilling our purpose, vocation, and mission in life.

For me, perhaps the best image of discernment as a way of life—even better than the image of co-authoring!—is that of a couple dancing together. Certainly one dancer usually takes the lead, but the other partner must choose to dance, take each of her own steps, occasionally choose her steps more independently when they are not hand in hand, and follow her partner’s lead when they are moving together. True dancing partners—even when across the room from each other—are always aware of each other, always seeking to harmonize or synchronize their movements. If not, there’s no dancing.

Growing in our relationship with God means that our partnership, this “dance” of our lives, enables us to understand always more the intentions and desires of God. Just like partners who have danced together for years can anticipate their partner’s next move, so when we live in communion with God, we start to understand God’s invitations and we can respond more easily and quickly—almost before God extends his hand in invitation.

Each step we take—whether we are intentionally following God’s lead or simply moving forward with our lives by doing the best we can—is a step we take freely. God respects our free will, works with our missteps, and wants us to grow in freedom. Just as partners who have danced together for years feel greater freedom—they trust so much in their partner’s support that they can take riskier moves—so the greater our spirit of discernment and union with God, the greater our freedom in living our deepest identity.

Discernment in Images: Entrusting Self to God

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Discernment quote 4This is one of my very favorite insights into discernment: we trust God because God–in Christ–first trusts us! Discernment: a relationship of love, trust, and freedom.

 

Blessed Easter! I have taken this week away from this blog to catch up on another project for our centenary year (yes, 2015 is the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Daughters of Saint Paul!), but I’ll be back next week. Thanks for your patience.

In the meantime, Sr. Margaret Michael Gillis, vocation director for the Daughters of Saint Paul in the USA and Canada, offers a two-minute audio reflection about discerning religious life here.

 

Discernment in Images: Understanding How God Saves Me

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Discernment quote 3

Wonderful App for the Examen

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / 2 Comments

GoodFriBlessings for Holy Week! You will all be in my prayers even though I’m taking a bit of a break from posting the book this week.

In the meantime I wanted to share with you an app that teaches and reminds us how to do the examen, a wonderful discernment tool and spiritual practice. The examen is a wonderful way to listen to God’s invitations in our life, helping us to look over our day and to be aware of how God is acting in our life, and how we’ve responded. The examen comes to us from the famous expert on discernment, St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, who has influenced the Church greatly with his spirituality that focuses on discerning the will of God. One of the tools for discernment are his Spiritual Exercises–an in-depth retreat where the retreatant seeks to discover God’s will. A practical tool that everyone can use in everyday life is the examen of consciousness. 

The examen is a bit like the examination of conscience–examining our thoughts, words, actions, and omissions at the end of every day, or before we go to confession. But the examen is a bit different. Rather than  focusing on what we’ve done or haven’t done, the examen helps us to look over the day and focus on how God has invited us and worked in our lives during the day.

At http://www.theprodigalfather.org/ Father Michael Denk hosts the Examen App for iPhones, android phones, and tablets that can guide you through the examen–with written steps on the screen and videos. The app is free and contains a full explanation of how to pray the examen. It even has reminders that you can set so that you remember to take the time to pray the examen! If you have a moment, just visit his site now and download the app!

For those of you who don’t have a device with which to use the app, I’ll briefly share the steps of the examen below. Later, I’ll do a whole blog post on this powerful prayer and tool for discernment.

Steps for the Examen: 

1. Gratitude
Note the gifts of love God has given this day; give thanks

2. Petition
Ask God for insight and an open heart; ask God to show you what God wants of you this day

3. Review
With God, look over your day; pay attention to the stirrings of your heart; review your choices and responses

4. Forgiveness
Accept the love and forgiveness God gives you

5. Renewal
With God plan concretely how to live in accord with God’s desire for you

Journaling with the steps of the examen is very helpful, and Father Michael’s Examen app encourages you to do just that. For more explanations of the examen prayer, visit: http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-examen/

 

God’s Will Is Love

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Discernment quote 6

A fitting quote from Father Rupnik as we enter into Holy Week on Sunday! May we discover the Father’s love for us in a renewed and deeper way as we contemplate Jesus’ great love for us on the Cross. (Quotation from Discernment: Acquiring the Heart of God by Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, SJ.)

Mary at the Annunciation: Model of Discernment

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The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1897

The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1897

Mary, God’s Mother and mine,
you joyfully and fully responded to God’s call in your life.
Help me to respond to God’s plan for me with all my being,
as you did.
                                                                                                               – prayer taken from Discern It! app 

Happy Feast of the Annunciation! I was so deeply into the spirit of Lent and preparing for Holy Week that it was a bit of a shock this morning to pray the Gloria at Mass this morning…but how fitting to pray this canticle of praise on the feast of the Incarnation, the feast of Mary’s “yes” to becoming the Mother of God!

This is one of my favorite images of the Annunciation because it seems to capture Mary at a very ordinary, prosaic moment in her life, while at the same time emphasizing the mystery of the announcement–the angel Gabriel is brilliant but we cannot even distinguish the shape of his figure. At some point, I hope to offer here a guided meditation on discernment in the light of Luke 1:26-38 with this painting of the Annunciation. But for today as I seek to live in a spirit of discernment, I will carry in my heart Mary’s attentive gaze, her hands clasped in prayer, and her head tilted in wonder as she begins to grasp the radiance of God’s love for her and for all humanity.

Begin Where We Are

/ Sr. Marie Paul Curley / 1 Comment

Happy little girlAt any point in our journey—especially when we begin or deepen our discernment, it’s important to begin where we are, because God is always “here” with us (wherever “here” is). This is true for two reasons:

1) First, God is faithful and would never abandon us, and

2) Because wherever we find ourselves, God wills or allows us to be here and is at work in our life at this precise time and place. The present moment is where we can find God and do God’s will. “Now is the day of salvation!” Saint Paul reminds us (2 Cor. 6:2)

Beginning where we are can be hard for us if we’re not happy or struggling. It’s easy to recognize God’s presence in the good things in our lives, when we’re happy. It’s harder for some of us to discover God’s presence when we’re struggling, because we think the struggle is an obstacle to God. We may want our “new beginning” to be an escape from the struggles in our life, but it’s more likely that beginning anew will help us to see our challenges in a new way, so that the struggle can become the very thing that helps us draw closer to God. Our worst struggle can actuallyl become a steppingstone to God.

Several years ago, a friend of mine started suffering from a respiratory illness. She repeatedly caught the flu, which lasted for two months and agitated her usually dormant asthma. Used to walking twelve miles a week, she now struggled to walk up one flight of stairs. Some days, breathing took so much effort that she stayed in bed.

For two years, she suffered this illness off and on. At first, the restrictions of her activity agitated and frustrated her. Although she was forced to slow down physically, she continually focused on all of the things she couldn’t do, or had to give up doing. And she’d push herself to get up sooner, to be more active, and then end up sicker than before.

But during the second year, she finally accepted her condition. And when she did, she started seeing possibilities. Being forced to slow down gave her an opportunity to pray, read, and reflect more. She became more present to her family because she wasn’t always rushing off. She started to realize that, whether she was well or ill, she didn’t want to rush around as much as she had been doing. Accomplishing more was not what was most important to her. She had the time to think about what was most important in her life, and to set those as her priorities for both when she was sick and when she got well.

Accepting her illness didn’t just enable my friend to take care of herself and recover, but it also became a gift, an opportunity for her to reset her priorities in life. Her illness became a steppingstone towards discerning a more serene lifestyle.

Pen_Uncapped

To journal with:

What do I have trouble accepting in my life right now?
How might God be inviting me or challenging me to grow through this struggle?

Discernment: the art of how to contemplate

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