GENUINE PRAYER

GENUINE PRAYER

– SR. RUTH BURROWS

Genuine prayer—how poor and unsatisfactory it can seem!—never inflates the ego but always induces humility, revealing as it does our spiritual helplessness and dependence on grace. Patience, meekness, a lowly opinion of self and deep respect for others must always characterize the people God has chosen for his own. The Gospel of John shows us the inner reality of the Father’s perfect child. “The Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees his Father doing” (5:19). Jesus joyfully accepts to be powerless so that his Father can be all in him, and thus he is the perfect human expression of the Father. Through Jesus’ surrender the Father can achieve his loving purpose for humankind: “I do always the things that please him” (8:29).

We see Jesus as pure receptivity for all that the Father would give or would ask. How splendidly, gloriously human he is in his perfect obedience! Jesus had a human will and knew conflict. We see him distraught, torn in the temptation to refuse the revolting, fearsome chalice held out to him. “My Father!” Yet my food, the only meaning of my life, is to do the will of my Father. I am not alone, my Father is with me, and so, “Your will be done.” Not only is he our exemplar; Jesus, through his own perfect obedience, is the source whence the Holy Spirit comes to us to enable us to do what is impossible: “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Mt 7:14). To glimpse something of the blessedness that is ours in the surrender of self is to cry out to God from the heart: “Take me from myself, wrest me away and take me to you.”

Extract from Article by Ruth Burrows (Sr. Rachel, OCD), titled  “Lose Yourself: Getting past ‘me’ to ‘thee’”, Published in America, Vol. 209 / No. 19 (2013).

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