Eugene’s retreat notes continue with many resolutions on his prayer life, Eucharistic devotion, praying the breviary etc. Realizing how his busy-ness can disturb his moments formally dedicated to prayer, he expresses an attitude of fundamental importance:
Since I am so regularly disturbed and it is very often impossible for me, with the best will in the world, to do certain exercises at the prescribed times, and I am even sometimes obliged, to my great regret, to excuse myself, it is indispensable that I find a way to make up for it and obviate this drawback.
The only way, I believe, is to act always in a perfect dependence on God’s will, in perfect liberty of spirit, in union with God by an interior movement of adhesion to what it pleases him to ordain at that moment, in the persuasion that that is what he wants me to do, and absolutely nothing else.
I find this a marvelous summary of oblation, and the spirit in which to live it. It is to be in the attitude of being totally given to God, in a spirit of freedom from self so as to be there for what is outside of myself, and to be totally in union with God. He explains further:
If I act in this sense, the very action that frustrates me, that is at odds with me, will be more meritorious than what I would have preferred.
Essential rule: lift up one’s heart to God before, during and after an action, act always in a spirit of faith.
Retreat Notes, July-August 1816, O.W. XV n 139
More and more I seem to find myself in a state of quiet wonder and awe. The sheer immensity of God’s love is unfathomable and can almost be fearful in that immensity. The very things that I ponder, and worry and fret about, God responds to somehow, in ways that I cannot miss if I but open my heart.
Although I “know” better I still find myself looking at God and fretting because my own prayer life has not been what “I want it to be” (because I want it to be perfect and good and holy and worthy, etc, etc). And as I have stated before – I need my prayer life to be full and strong because without that nothing seems to work. And time and time again I find myself standing before God and admitting to what is already known, that my prayers are not perfect, they are not always given my full attention and self, they are not disciplined – so many “nots”. I end up telling God that I am giving my all, knowing it is puny indeed and certainly not my “all” by any measurements. (and God being God does not seem ever to measure.)
I have come to the conclusion (yet again) that on my own I can do nothing. So it is better to let him do all of the doing – perhaps through me. It requires great love and even greater trust, for truly who am I that God would do that? I can only go on what I have been given in my heart, the surety that if nothing else in and around me is real, God’s love is.
Eugene’s “Essential rule: lift up one’s heart to God before, during and after an action, act always in a spirit of faith.” and Frank’s reflection of “….a marvelous summary of oblation, and the spirit in which to live it. It is to be in the attitude of being totally given to God, in a spirit of freedom from self so as to be there for what is outside of myself, and to be totally in union with God.” The key to it all – this is what I want Lord. It seems to be the very heart of me and yet like Eugene it seems to be “very often impossible for me, with the best will in the world”. Richard Rohr said “God does not love us if we change, God loves us so that we can change”. It would seem that the more You love me, the more I realise that I need, and want to change. So this morning I am awed at the love that I am given, and fearful (in a healthy way) that I will not live up to it. I shall consciously try Eugene’s essential rule – today – in all that I do. Remind me God, remind me.
“It is to be in the attitude of being totally given to God, in a spirit of freedom from self so as to be there for what is outside of myself…”
I wonder at times if I might not often be treating this as an action that takes place only in a moment of prayer or time of retreat, as a one-time event or action. As if ‘coming down from the mountain’ means that to live and be in this manner is no longer possible given all that life demands of us. As if this way of being is reserved only for relgious or clerics rather than being somnething for us all.
But, if we believe that God has given us this desire to make a gift of our lives to God then we/I will strive to “bear witness before the world that Jesus lives in our midst and unites us in order to send us out to proclaim God’s reign” (C37), that this what we are called to be and from that to do, “according to our state of life, and to live it in ways that vary according to milieu and cultures” (R37a).
“…we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” (Isaiah 64:8) It moves from being about me to being about us, and becomes an ongoing flow, something that we return to over and over again as God continues to hone our spirits and heal us; and that we allow this to happen within us, to become a part of us, as much as our breathing in and breathing out.
Then we will be able to take on the mantle of lifting up “one’s heart to God before, during and after [any] action, acting always in a spirit of faith.” This with an aim of becoming “totally in union with God”. This with a view of allowing our ‘busy-ness’ to becoming a part of our wholeness…