Praying for Priests: A Mission for the New Evangelization by Kathleen Beckman

Author:Kathleen Beckman [Beckman, Kathleen]
Language: ara
Format: epub
Tags: 978-1-622822-12-6
Publisher: Sophia Institute Press
Published: 2014-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

Encounter with Jesus: personal experience in silence / contemplation;

Conversion of heart: movement toward God and away from what is not of God;

Engagement with Jesus in a relationship of love that leads to service.

Here, I am reminded of the famous words of Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta:

The fruit of silence is prayer.

The fruit of prayer is faith.

The fruit of faith is love.

The fruit of love is service.

The fruit of service is peace.129

An encounter with divine love is a meeting with Jesus, who laid down His life to save you and me — it must become personal! It is personal to Christ, who hung from the Cross and desires souls to satisfy His perpetual thirst. Jesus is always present for us on the altars of His Church, in the tabernacles of the world. He awaits us there, but He also initiates an encounter with us. What’s more, He also goes out after us — He pursues us to the ends of the earth, seeking after the human family like the Good Shepherd who left the ninety-nine sheep to search for the one lost lamb. No matter where we may run or hide, He is there — inviting us to an encounter of love. This is the most touching thing to me. It is not that we have loved Him but that He has loved us first (cf. 1 John 4:10).

Francis Thompson’s famous poem “The Hound of Heaven” is published in the Liturgy of the Hours.130 It portrays a God who persistently pursues each person, hoping for a saving encounter. It begins with the story of flight from God, proceeds to tell how God pursues, and ends with the longed-for encounter of truth and love.

The first stanza tells of his flight from God:

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.131

The second-to-last stanza tells of God’s embrace and their encounter:

“Strange, piteous, futile thing!

Wherefore should any set thee love apart?

Seeing none but I makes much of naught” (He said),

“And human love needs human meriting:

How hast thou merited —

Of all man’s clotted clay the dingiest clot?

Alack, thou knowest not

How little worthy of any love thou art!

Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,

Save Me, save only Me?

All which I took from thee I did but take,

Not for thy harms,

But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.

All which thy child’s mistake

Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:

Rise, clasp My hand, and come!”132

Jesus is the stupendous Divine Lover who always does amazing things in pursuit of His people. During my daily Holy Hour, I often gaze at the hidden God in the Sacred Host in awe of the humility of Jesus, who condescends to become so little and vulnerable to His creatures. I beg my Lord to make me humble, to crucify my pride, which hides itself in so many clever ways unknown to me.

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