"Prayer of prostration".
“Prayer of prostration”: face down on the ground. “Have compassion on this sinner”. Remember the beginning of Psalm 50: “I have sinned and behaved innocuously”. “My soul has been humiliated down to the dust, and my body lies prostrate upon the earth” Psalm 43, 26.
Topic: to pur order in my life (II)
Saint John of the Cross, in “The Ascent of Mount Carmel”, has 13 chapters dedicated to this theme. En Chapter 11 “Any habit, dependency is HARMFUL to GROWTH: the bird doesn’t fly although it is tied with a thread. It is easy to break the thread, but ¡¡it has to be broken!!
He also speaks of a “sucker fish”; a fish that sticks on and impedes the movement of a ship. Even though a small fish it doesn’t allow the ship to reach port… And he speaks of Joshua: As thanksgiving he asks for the observance of an “anathema”: all that was conquered belongs to God. Jericho falls… but: they kept something. And they were not pleasing before God.
To enter into divine union, one must die: each one has a personal list (things that should die in me): we have our hidden weaknesses, things we hold on to: favorites that we won’t let go. ¿Why is my life not functioning? Just one DEPENDANCY can spoil a whole life. It is question of MEDIOCRITY.
No, it isn’t an exaggeration, it isn’t a whim. It is the very nature of things. Sincerity and truth, not half measures. The cheating that we do in life is not possible in the life of the Spirit (Malachi 1, 6-14).
Saint John of the Cross, at the end of the 13 chapters, resumes them with a simple but profound contrast of words:
Any “something” deprives us of “everything”
"When thy mind dwells upon anything,
Thou art ceasing to cast thyself upon the All.
For, in order to pass from the all to the All,
Thou hast to deny thyself wholly
And, when thou comest to possess it wholly,
Thou must possess it without desiring anything.
For, if thou wilt have anything in having all
Thou hast not thy treasure purely in God".
No-one can serve two lords. We have to “row out to sea”.
To quote John Paul II, speaking of Machado: “The spinners of the threads of the human being: dreams, are hope and fear”
Human life is an wager to see which spins most, the hope or the fear.
The “inner self” is attacked and disturbed by:
1. A multitude of information that deforms the truth, that make if RELATIVE.
2. With the resulting confusion: skepticism, cynicism = lies.
3. We don’t appraise the information we receive. We don’t make the distinction between good and bad.
4. Full of trivial things, only the useful is of interest.
Conclusion:
Listen: to God, to my conscience. Stop: we are going too fast. Evaluate: take the pulse.
Can I improve all my human and Christian potential? It would be good for my life good of those around me, for our world.
Write something down.
Pray with a “Hail Mary” in gratitude.