What are humans that you are mindful of them, mere mortals, that you care for them?
—Psalm 8:
Have you ever stopped to contemplate these words? It seems almost too-good-to-be-true that an infinite Creator would place us on such a pedestal. Yet, just in the reading before, God’s Wisdom, who is such a delight for God, finds her delight in the human race. Wisdom, always portrayed as feminine in the Old Testament, is with God from the beginning, before creation. She participates in creation foreshadowing the divine intent to pour out God’s own loving being upon humanity. Both of today’s New Testamenteadings speak of divine life shared so that humankind can also find delight in God. This is how life is supposed to be!
The contemplative prayer practiced by the desert mothers and fathers of many centuries ago, and known today as centering prayer, is once again being practiced. In the book, Christian Spirituality: Themes from the Tradition (Paulist, 1996), the authors, Lawrence S. Cunningham and Keith J. Egan, write: “Ever since Gregory the Great, monks of the west claimed that the goal of their way of life was to see God. . .Teresa of Avila wrote in the sixteenth century, ‘I was dying to see God.’”
This kind of prayer involves moving beyond traditional spoken prayers to achieve a deeper communion with God through silence (God’s first language), stillness, and surrender. Often, the person praying picks a sacred word as their focus. The source of centering prayer is the Trinity dwelling in uswith the Holy Spirit calling us to consent to God’s presence and action within. Contemplative prayer is like a rendezvous with the One you love the most.
On this day of the Most Holy Trinity, the gift of God’s own being through Christ, remaining with us in the Spirit, intends the complete transformation of human persons. A deepening union with Christ, the center of love, leads to love of others. When you realize how much you are loved, how can you not love others? What transformation is God drawing you toward? Perhaps, it may be one of the many ways [that your parish or faith group] serves with joy the least among us, those who also bear the image of our loving God.
Barbara Molinari Quinby, MPS, Director
Office of Human Life, Dignity, and Justice Ministries
Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral Raleigh, NC