Hajja Salesjana July-September 2022

time together. It is enough to be together as often as they can! Unfortunately, we have not reached this point because our love for God is weak. We fail to engage our heart.” 7 It is for this reason that St Francis counsels us, in our preparation for prayer, to place ourselves in the presence of God: • Our Lord is not distant but very near to us . 8 • God is not only near to us, but he is dwelling within us . 9 • God is dwelling in our heart. “Just as God created this world to be our paradise, so too, has he created your heart to be his paradise .” 10 • We do not contain God, we are dwelling within God . 11 3. St Francis counsels us to meditate on Scripture , above all, because we are not simply thinking about ideas but encountering God in his Word. He writes: “In Holy Scripture the word meditation is ordinarily applied to the attention we pay to the things of God in order to arouse ourselves to love them… When we think upon the things of God, not to learn but rather to acquire affection for them, the act is called meditating and the exercise is mediation. Meditation is simply attentive thought voluntarily repeated or entertained in the mind in order to arouse the will to holy and salutary affections and resolutions.” 12 Choose a passage from Scripture, select a scene from the Gospel, a mystery of the Faith, or a passage from some spiritual reading. If the subject matter lends itself to it, imagine yourself in the same place as the action or event that is happening. For example, picture yourself in the midst of the scene near Jesus or with the disciples. Some people find using the imagination very helpful in prayer whereas others, even at the very beginning, have problems with discursive meditation. St Teresa of Avila complained that “God did not give her talent for discursive thought” or “profitable use of the imagination.” 13 Her way of prayer was to recollect herself and be attentive to Christ’s presence whom she knew by faith dwelt within her. Just like “a blind person in a room who know that someone is present but cannot see them with their eyes.” 14 If our mind begins to wander, we gently bring it back through a passage from Scripture, a picture, or an act of faith and love in the presence of Jesus within us. For St Francis we must not become preoccupied with distractions, but begin again, each time we start again is pleasing to the Lord. 4. Meditation for St Francis is not so much for study or to gain knowledge but to increase our love for God and enter more fully into discipleship . Again, like St Teresa, prayer is not about thinking much, but loving much, Photo by Ben White - www.unsplash.com 12 Lulju - Settembru 2022 hajja