"Prayerful Reflection" by Peter Gathje
Why do we set aside time to reflect prayerfully? St. Benedict wrote in Chapter Nineteen of his Rule for Monasteries, ‘We believe that the divine presence is everywhere and that the eyes of the Lord are looking on the good and the evil in every place. But we should believe this especially without any doubt when we are assisting at the Work of God.’” In our prayerful reflection we are most deliberately reminded that the basis of our lives together is a power and purpose beyond ourselves. To rely upon our own power and to seek our own purposes in this life would be to guarantee failure.
We need to rest in God’s graciousness, to enjoy a time apart for praise, for joy, for being lifted out of the world as it is into the world as it can be as transformed by God. We need to cast in to God’s vast and liberating love our hopes and worries from our lives together in community and from the world in which live. We need to remember that the work is not ours, but rather is God’s, and thus we are freed from the slavery to efficiency and effectiveness and freed to be faithful to God’s loving way of transformation. We need time to hear from each other, to hear what is on our hearts, to hear what has happened in our lives, and to place these together before God. We need to be in a space where reflection upon our lives together is encouraged and supported.
Taken from the December 2005 issue of The Cross Examiner.