"Bow and Pray".
We can stand, inclining the head humbly before Christ. It should be as if all our being were bowed: “The prayers of the meek and humble have always pleased you” (Jdt. 9, 16). “I am not worthy to have you come into my house” (Mat. 8,8). Saint Dominic taught this to the friars, when they passed before the crucifix, so that Christ, humiliated unto death, should see us also humble.
Topic: to put order in my life
The life of each person has its itinerary: “The Itinerary of man towards God”. This has to be achieved step by step, with mistakes, difficulties.
The Exercises are a method, a therapy to put order. It is good to do it simply: “If your eye is healthy, all your body will be in light”; illuminated in order to distinguish, to discern.
Many times I have to ask myself: ¿Where am I going? ¿Towards what? What are my PRIORITIES?
The practice of oriental ZEN insists: TO DO WHAT I AM DOING, TO BE WHERE I AM.
Man and woman have been created to praise God.
For instance, There is an accident in a “jet”. 400 dead. There was a malfunction with the “artificial horizon”: the pilot compares the angle of the wings against the horizon. It didn’t show the position and the balance was lost. The horizon is ORDER. Any malfunction = disorder, lack of order. And there are things disordered in each one of us.
The attachments, tendencies, experiences may be evident, I know them perfectly well. There are also others that hare hidden, I don’t realize they are there. And it is here that there is damage. The worst of the disorders is the HALF MEASURE: the comfortable, the usual. I discover my “disorders”, but they stay with me anyway because I am only using half measures; “one candle to God and another to the devil”.
For Saint Paul it was clear: it was always a YES (II Cor. 1, 15-21).
The right choice is clear, defined, and concrete. With half measures it cannot be right.
Sometimes we are surprised: things are not going well. Our life is sterile, there is confusion. The cause: living with half measures, half a life, a life without meaning…
To quote Bonhoffer: “How difficult it is to be a disciple”. “¿Is there any part of your life that you refuse to hand over to God, a low passion, an enmity, a desire or ambition, or your own desire to be always right? If that is the case, do not be surprised that you haven’t received the Holy Spirit, that you are finding prayer difficult. Come – he says – reject that sin and then you will recover your faith.
¿How can I hope to enter into communion with Him if in some aspect of my life I am moving apart from Him?
Faith is difficult if there is a part of my life where I am putting up resistance. If water doesn’t reach a certain temperature, it doesn’t boil. ¿Rigid rules? No, it is just the way it is and it cannot be any other way. There can be no half measures: “No-one can be my disciple is he doesn’t give up all he possesses”. The key word is ALL. If you hang on to something, you skimp, you falter.
This “small amount” isn’t just a passing thing; a weakness, a mistake, a blunder. We are all full of these things: it is limitation, the human condition… No, what causes HARM is the permanent fondness or dependency: a twisted will, a rooted vice.
To trip up from time to time does not stop us from walking the road.
TO GO OFF the road DOES: it stops us from arriving to our goal: as a person, as a group, as an institution. AND ¡¡What an effort is costs us to straighten up!!
In this first meditation, on this first day, it would be good to discover what there is in myself that is twisted. Sometimes, the people around me see it. The danger is my resistance, to not want to see.
For a little we may loose a lot.
Note: It is good to write a few notes.
Pray with a Hail Mary when you finish your reflection.