Live 4 The LORD

INTIMACY WITH GOD 

O Lord you have not called us servants, but friends (Jn 15: 15) 1. 

Every form of prayer is an encounter between man and God, and as prayer becomes deeper, the encounter becomes more intimate, a true communion “with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 Jn 1: 3). 

St. Teresa of Jesus looked at prayer in this perspective: “Mental prayer is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us” (Life 8: 5). 

Prayer is not a solitary meditation in which we are alone with our thoughts, it is a sharing; the soul has a companion in its solitude: God, and treating intimately with him, reflects, prays, believes, and loves. 

It will normally be necessary to take some pious consideration as a starting point to support meditation and to reanimate our awareness of God’s love, so that the soul recollects itself and the will feels drawn to love. 

Having thus reached the center of prayer, the soul remains “heart to heart” with God. According to the impulse of grace and the state of the soul, it will pour itself out in intimate spontaneous conversation, expressing its gratitude and its desire to return the divine love; or perhaps it will expose its troubles and needs to the Lord, asking forgiveness, confiding its sorrows, invoking his help and offering its resolutions. Every so often it leaves off its conversation to listen: to perceive any inspirations or movements of grace through which God may be speaking to the soul, making it understand his mysteries, drawing it to himself, and urging it on to good. 

But when we notice our thoughts are beginning to wander and our will is cooling off, we return to considerations for as long as is necessary to arouse our love and awaken devotion. Thus, by alternating the dialogue with pauses of silence, with moments of meditation, or even of vocal prayers recited slowly and devoutly, we learn how “to be alone” with God and “to reach that special friendship with him” that is prayer. 

St. Ter. of Jesus, Life 8: 6