Francis de Sales - Prayer (7)

This is the second of the two “notes” I want to make on the “fourth way” to prepare for prayer; the first note was on “imagination"; this one concerns the “Blessed Sacrament”.  Francis de Sales writes:

“The fourth way is simply to exercise your ordinary imagination, picturing the Saviour to yourself in His Sacred Humanity as if He were beside you just as we are wont to think of our friends, and fancy that we see or hear them at our side. But when the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar is there, then this Presence is no longer imaginary, but most real; and the sacred species are but as a veil from behind which the Present Saviour beholds and considers us, although we cannot see Him as He is.”

I was recently reading a book on prayer which recommended some Roman Catholic writers, with cautions. That is, after recommending the writers the author of the book wrote, in effect, “Now remember, Catholics believe such and such about this and that and we don’t believe those things.”

It seems to me that if we are going to mature as men and women in Christ and His Body, that at some point we ought to become secure enough, and knowledgeable enough, to dialogue with traditions within the Body that don’t see and understand things the way we do - without us feeling threatened. Why cannot we learn to understand others and to learn from others? There may be other traditions that have enriching Biblical perspectives. I admit, to my shame, that I have made the grave error of taking the word of others about what other movements and traditions believe within the Church, without actually reading original material from those traditions, or talking to others within those traditions. I have also made the error of thinking that traditions are monolithic, that everyone within a given tradition, even Roman Catholicism, sees things the same way – this of course is foolish. Perhaps we could argue that the more monolithic and uniform a tradition is, that the less thoughtful the people in that tradition are? (I write this within the context of Mere Christianity and the historic ancient creeds).

When Francis de Sales writes of the Blessed Sacrament, and of what I previously termed Presence with an upper case “P” – I hope it will give us all pause to consider our understanding of Communion, the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, the Lord’s Table, the Love Feast; whatever we are prone to call the breaking of the Bread and the sharing of the Cup.

It seems to me that the Scriptures portray Communion as a many-faceted diamond, the height and depth, and length and breath of which we can spend all of our lives exploring and beholding.

Matthew draws our attention to, “Take, eat; this is my body…Drink from it [the cup], all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant” (Matthew 26:26 – 30).

Mark shows us, “Take it, this is my body…This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (Mark 14:22 – 26).

Then Luke, “This is my body which is given for you…This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:14 – 23).

Where do we have warrant to make anything of the Bread and the Cup which our Lord does not make? Why do we sometimes insist on pulling down to our natural understanding that which is a Divine mystery?

In Luke 22:19 and 1 Corinthians 11:24 we have the concept of celebrating Communion in “remembrance” – and yet the Greek word [anamnesis] translated as such means more than simply “remember”; quoting the entry in Kittel, there is an “active sense” which carries with it “that they actively fulfil the anamnesis’’ [the remembrance] when the Eucharist is celebrated.

While the Gospel of John does not contain an explicit account of the Last Supper, let’s recall that John has the washing of feet in the Upper Room which the Synoptics do not record, and let’s ponder John Chapter 6, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:56). If this was a “hard saying” then, let’s not be surprised that it is a hard saying now. Through all of this we are encountering dimensions which are above and beyond our comprehension, but which, nevertheless, we are called to participate in, to taste, to enjoy, and to live by. Let us not forget that we are called to be “partakers of the Divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

We see in 1 Corinthians 10:16 – 17, “Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing [koinonia] in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing [koinonia] in the body of Christ? Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”

Here we have the mystery of John Chapter 6 and of 1 Corinthians Chapter 12:12, “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.” As Augustine says, “As is the Head, so is the Body.”

When we partake of the Loaf and the Cup, we partake of Christ and, in Christ, we partake of one another. We are one Bread in Jesus Christ. When we participate in the Lord’s Table we ought to be careful lest we “be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord…not discerning the body rightly” (1 Cor. 11:27 – 32). Yes, I may not rightly discern the Head of the Body; but I also may not discern the members of the Body – I cannot rightly do one if I do not the other; any more than I can say “I love God” if I hate my brother.

Francis de Sales shows a respect and reverence for the “Blessed Sacrament” that we seem to have lost – no matter our tradition. Francis lived sacramentally, seeing all of life as a many – faceted sacrament; perhaps it isn’t too much to suggest that his sacramental understanding was anchored in the Presence (with an upper case “P”) of the Blessed Sacrament.

Saint Francis de Sales Prayer (6)

There are two “notes” I want to make on the “fourth way” to prepare for prayer; one concerns “imagination" and the other the “Blessed Sacrament”.  Francis de Sales writes:

“The fourth way is simply to exercise your ordinary imagination, picturing the Saviour to yourself in His Sacred Humanity as if He were beside you just as we are wont to think of our friends, and fancy that we see or hear them at our side. But when the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar is there, then this Presence is no longer imaginary, but most real; and the sacred species are but as a veil from behind which the Present Saviour beholds and considers us, although we cannot see Him as He is.”

The word “imagination” is a word, like so many words, that can mean different things to different people, and mean different things in varying contexts. It is like the world “myth” in the sense that while most people use the word “myth” to mean something that isn’t real, that has no foundation in reality; others may use it to specifically refer to stories of ancient gods, like Greek, Roman, or Norse; while still others may use it to refer to stories with ancient roots that reach backward into a collective consciousness of primal truth that has been refracted in various ways through the ages. In this latter sense what is contained in “myth” may be true to one degree or another, it may have its foundation in truth, even though much of that truth has been clouded by layers of extraneous additions to the “true” story or the “true” myth.

While the latter sense of the word “myth” is seldom used by most people, God used this sense of the word to draw C.S. Lewis to Himself as Lewis engaged in discussion with J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson during a watershed night in Oxford, England. The more we use the word “myth” in this context the easier it is to see what it means and the more comfortable we become using it – otherwise using “myth” to refer to a narrative that can be true to a lesser or greater degree can seem strange and uncomfortable.

When Francis writes, “…then this Presence is no longer imaginary, but most real…”, what does he mean? I do not think that Francis means that Jesus’ presence is not real in the four ways that he suggests we prepare for prayer, but rather that Francis is saying that in the Blessed Sacrament that Jesus is “most real” or “especially Present” – perhaps we can call it Presence with a capital “P”. Such an understanding is consistent with Francis’s view of life and living in communion with God and others – Francis saw life as holistically sacramental, in much the same way that Brother Lawrence “practiced the presence of God” throughout the day. Indeed, we can find this view of our life in Christ in Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant men and women through the ages, as well as in the Fathers – its roots are in Scripture.

Therefore, when Francis uses the word “imagination” he is not suggesting that we engage in something that isn’t real and substantive, but rather that we use our God-given ability to picture images, to see and sense things beyond what our natural eyes see, in order to affirm that Christ is with us. In fact, the very basis of using our imaginations in this manner is based on God’s Word! “Lord, your Word says that you are here, help me to see you.”

In Ephesians 1:18 Paul prays “that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know…” In the Prophets we read statements such as, “The words of Amos…which he saw concerning Israel” (Amos 1:1). In Hebrews 11:27 we are told that Moses endured “as seeing Him who is unseen.” And of course we have a verse which I cite frequently, “…while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). Was Elisha falsely imagining horses and chariots of fire (2 Kings 5:15 – 17)?

I don’t pretend to understand what the imagination is, any more than I really understand the interplay of the heart, mind, soul, will, spirit, and body. I find it more prudent to often think and write in terms of our “inner man” or “inner woman” – to use integrated holistic terms and images. I trust God’s Word to do its marvelous work within us (Hebrews 4:12). What I know is that we are new creations in Christ Jesus and that we are being recreated and renewed is His Image (Ephesians 4:24; 2 Cor. 5:14 – 17; Romans 12:1 – 2).  

As with our hearts and minds, if our imaginations are not bathed and grounded in Jesus Christ and His Word we will misuse them. However, to fear the misuse of the imagination more than to fear the misuse of the mind seems to me to be more a question of “taste” and “preference” than of Biblical thinking (my apologies to those who will disagree, I mean no offense). After all, our minds are in darkness without Christ, and when we come to Christ our minds often still hold us in bondage – refusing to accept the fact that we are the children of God, children of freedom in Jesus Christ; or refusing to accept the fact that the work of Christ in the Atonement is perfect and that we cannot add to it – only Christ makes us righteous. As I write this, it occurs to me that our minds guide our imaginations – what I set my thoughts on I imagine – so sanctified thoughts and hearts ought to lead us to sanctified images.

The Bible is a book of images and narratives, along with what we term didactic teaching – but I think it is fair to say that the images from Genesis to Revelation which permeate the Bible form the context for the teachings – not in any sense to make one primary and the other secondary, for again we want to see things holistically, and to see all things in Jesus Christ.  Is not Jesus Christ the image of the invisible God? Are not all things to be wrapped up in Jesus Christ? Is not our calling to behold Jesus Christ? How can I behold Him if I do not see Him?

As with much of life, we need grace when we ponder these things – we don’t all hear the same way and we don’t all see the same way. There have been times when parishioners have come to me with an idea, with a vision, and I haven’t “seen” it, but I’ve trusted Christ’s working in His people and have encouraged them to pursue God’s gift in them – there have been some wonderful results to the glory of God. If we keep Christ central we have great freedom to learn and grow in Him and with one another – that freedom also includes the freedom to learn by making mistakes.

In business I learned that I needed to trust others who “saw” things that I couldn’t see, I had to trust their vision. This doesn’t mean that there wasn’t give and take as they helped me see what they saw and as I helped them clarify their vision. I worked for a man who could look at a run-down apartment community and see its potential if it was purchased and rehabilitated – he had a passion for providing affordable housing, for providing nice places for people to live. Whereas I could only see the current condition of the buildings and the challenges and problems – he could “see” the end result. I’ve had interior designers who saw a vision I couldn’t see, and it amazed me how they could bring their vision to life. While my vision for some of these things improved over time, it could never come close to equaling what those “saw” who are naturally gifted in such areas.

When we read a text, or view a movie, we hear and see differently. When we ponder memories – we can think about the past differently, we can see it differently, we can feel it differently. For some of us the past can be present, for others the past is past. Reading a text can be information for some folks, while for others it can be a visual experience.

This is one reason why it is important to respect one another, to listen to one another, to try to understand each other, and why we should not discount others who see and hear things differently than we do. This is one reason why we ought to remember that, as Christians, we are members of the Body of Christ.

It is also why it is critical that we are anchored in Christ and His Cross and His Word – Christ and His Cross and His Word must always be our measure, must always be our North Star, must always be our life and breath and, to use a natural image, our filter. Our love is to abound more and more in all discernment, wisdom, and knowledge – so that we will approve things that are excellent. In love, we are to hold one another accountable in Christ for what we see, hear, think, and feel – we need one another to keep us centered in Christ and His Word. The Christian life is personal, but it is not private – we are called to live in koinonia with the Trinity and with one another. Of course it has private elements, but I must not attempt to privatize my life in Christ any more than Christ has a life that He can privatize in God the Trinity – such a thing is incomprehensible, words fail me here, I can’t pursue this thought any further.

Well, it looks as if I’ll have to consider Francis’s words concerning the “Blessed Sacrament” in my next post in this series.  

Let us pray that our hearts, minds, wills, bodies, souls, spirits, and imaginations be sanctified completely in our Lord Jesus Christ, submitted to His Word, indwelt by, and joined to, the Holy Spirit.

Preparing for Prayer with St. Francis de Sales (5)

Now we come to the fourth way that St. Francis de Sales counsels us to prepare for prayer:

The fourth way is simply to exercise your ordinary imagination, picturing the Saviour to yourself in His Sacred Humanity as if He were beside you just as we are wont to think of our friends, and fancy that we see or hear them at our side. But when the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar is there, then this Presence is no longer imaginary, but most real; and the sacred species are but as a veil from behind which the Present Saviour beholds and considers us, although we cannot see Him as He is.[i]

In the third way in preparing for prayer, Francis directs our thoughts to the ascended Christ, at the right hand of the Father; in this fourth way Francis wants us to think upon Jesus “as if He were beside you”. This is, I think, a bit more involved than we might initially see, so please bear with me.

We use our imaginations all the time but don’t think much about it. When we listen to someone on the radio describe an event our imaginations are at work. If a spouse or friend tells us about how his or her day was, we use our imaginations as we visualize the experiences that are shared. When we speak to someone on the telephone, we visualize the person we are speaking with – if we’ve never met the person then somehow, someway, we nevertheless form an image.

When we read passages in the Bible about mountains melting or hills skipping or the Red Sea splitting, we are using our imaginations as we visualize what we read. Do we not visualize Jesus standing outside the tomb of Lazarus and calling, “Lazarus, come out”?  Do we not “see” Lazarus coming forth, bound in graveclothes?

Francis coaches us to picture our Lord Jesus “as if He were beside you just as we are wont to think of our friends”. I think there is a difference between picturing Jesus beside us and picturing our friends beside us – Jesus Christ is omnipresent and our friends are not; Jesus Christ is everywhere at every time and our friends are not. Jesus Christ not only can speak to us wherever we are, He will speak to us wherever we are – our friends cannot do this. Did not Jesus say, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age”?

Our imaginations, just as our hearts and minds, just as our souls; need to be rooted and anchored in God’s Word, recreated in God’s image in Jesus Christ, purified and made holy. That which is within us, who we are, and how who we live as a human being, a living soul, the interplay of heart, mind, soul, spirit, imagination, the body, the will – we simply do not have a comprehensive understanding of all of this – thus we need God’s Word and the Holy Spirit to do a Divine work within us, a work that we may have fleeting glimpses of, but a work which is beyond our total comprehension (Hebrews 4:12 – 13; James 1:21; 1 Peter 1:22 – 25; 2 Peter 1:2 – 4; 1 Corinthians 1:18 – 2:16). All of this to say that just as we can trust our Lord Jesus to purify our hearts and minds and bodies, so we can trust Him to purify and guide our imaginations; as the image of Jesus Christ is formed in us, so our imaginations are formed in Him.

I suggest that among our daily readings, ought always to be a portion of the Gospel – our Lord Jesus in His Incarnation ought always to be before us. We can use our daily portion of the Gospel to learn to “see” our Lord Jesus with us as we enter into prayer. We can take that image with us throughout the day. We can visualize the portion of the Gospel we are reading, we can see Jesus in what we are reading and pondering, we can see ourselves with Jesus in those verses, and we can move from the Gospel and Jesus to Jesus in our living room, our bedroom, our back porch, the path or street we are walking on – wherever we are in prayer, we can be assured that Jesus is there with us.

Another way to begin this practice of seeing Jesus with us is to select a particular passage of Scripture to use on a continuing basis – this could be a psalm, such as Psalm 23, or a portion of Gospel. I often use a section of John chapters 13 – 17, I see Christ Jesus and his disciples in the Upper Room, I see myself with them in the Upper Room; from there it is natural to see my Lord Jesus with me in the room where I have my morning time of prayer and reflection. The more we exercise ourselves in prayer and devotion and communion, the more natural it becomes. Christ wants us to know that He is with us, always; always and forever and always forever – He wants us to know this not as a piece of abstract information, but to experience it – after all, we are called into friendship with Him!

We need not be afraid of the wonderful capacities that our Father has placed within us when those capacities have been presented to Jesus Christ (Romans 12:1 – 2) as an act of worship, devotion, and surrender. Yes, we should indeed fear when any capacity within us deviates from the Cross, the Word, the Way of Christ (Psalm 1). Whether we speak of the mind, the heart, the soul, the spirit, the body, the will, or the imagination – all that we are has been redeemed and made new by and in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:14 – 21). We should no more fear to use our imaginations than we should fear to use our minds, any more than we should fear to use our hearts, any more than we should fear to experience the love and joy and peace and communion of the Trinity within us and around us. Our Lord Jesus called us to freedom and not fear and slavery! (Romans 8:14 - 39; 2 Corinthians 3:17 – 18; 2 Timothy 1:7; 1 John 4:18).

How are we seeing our Lord Jesus today?

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[i] In the next section I will explore how Francis’s perspective on the “Blessed Sacrament” can help us all – no matter what “tradition” we might find ourselves in.

St. Francis de Sales on Prayer (4)

As we continue with St. Francis de Sales, we come to the third way that we can prepare for prayer, by meditating on Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father, Francis counsels:

The third way is to dwell upon the thought of our Lord, Who in His Ascended Humanity looks down upon all men, but most particularly on all Christians, because they are His children; above all, on those who pray, over whose doings He keeps watch. Nor is this any mere imagination, it is very truth, and although we see Him not, He is looking down upon us. It was given to St. Stephen in the hour of martyrdom thus to behold Him, and we may well say with the Bride of the Canticles, “He looketh forth at the windows, shewing Himself through the lattice.”

Once again Francis points us to the Bible, first to Acts 7:54 – 56 and the martyrdom of Stephen; “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the quick, and they began gnashing their teeth at him. But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”’

Francis wants us to think of Christ in heaven, even though we don’t see Him with our natural eyes, He is there. This is not “mere imagination, it is very truth”. Stephen saw him as he was drawing his final breaths on earth, John saw Him on the island of Patmos (Revelation Chapter 5). Here again we have the mystery of Christ’s nearness and His transcendence, Christ is here, Christ is there, Christ is everywhere – but He is expressed in varying ways.

Paul writes that we should “…keeping seeking the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1). There is also a sense in which we are with Christ not only here on earth, but in the heavens as well, for we have been “…raised up with Him, and [have been] seated with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6).

Francis also points us to the Song of Songs 2:9, “My beloved…Behold, he is standing behind our wall, he is looking through the windows, he is peering through the lattice.” Christ reveals Himself here, there, and then over there. Sometimes we glimpse one facet of our Lord, at another time another facet. Sometimes our vision is overwhelming, sometimes it is fleeting. Sometimes His light is focused, sometimes refracted in many colors. Christ shows Himself to us as we are able to receive Him and see Him, and He continually draws us ever deeper into Himself by His grace and mercy. He gives us a desire for Him, He fills that desire, which in turn leads to more desire – we are satisfied with Him and yet we still hunger for more of Him; our satisfaction creates hunger – for His beauty is infinite, His glory is infinite, His depth and height and breath and width are infinite.

The author of Hebrews writes, “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:14 – 16).

Can we visualize our great high priest? Can we see the throne of grace? What do we sense and feel and see about the holy place that we are called to enter (Hebrews 10:19)?

What does the Lamb of Revelation look like to you? How many facets of Him to you see? Do you see the Lamb slain in Rev. 5:6? Do you see the Lamb breaking the seals in Revelation Chapter 6? What does the Lamb look like in Rev. 14:1? What about the Lamb of Rev. 21:22?

And then there is the risen Christ that John sees in Revelation Chapter 1 and our conquering Lord of Rev. 19:11 – 16; how is Christ appearing to you in these passages?

We have these images, and many more, to which we can direct our thoughts and imaginations and meditations as we draw close to Christ in prayer – and we can expect that our Lord Jesus will reveal Himself to us as we look to Him, the Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).

Perhaps you could select one of the above passages for a time of prayer and think upon that passage and image throughout the day. Christ passionately desires for us to see Him, to adore Him, to love Him – to learn to live in deep relationship with Him.

We can trust our Lord Jesus to guide our thoughts and hearts, we can trust Him with our desires, emotions, and imaginations. The Bible is a treasure house of word pictures, images, and imagination; it is a schoolroom that teaches us to see beyond the visible into the unseen (2 Cor. 4:18). Let us learn to “see” our Lord Jesus Christ, ascended to the right hand of the Father; let us learn to “see” the Holy Lamb of God.

St. Francis de Sales on Prayer (3)

Praying with St. Francis

“The second way of placing yourself in this Sacred Presence is to call to mind that God is not only present in the place where you are, but that He is very specially present in your heart and mind, which He kindles and inspires with His Holy Presence, abiding there as Heart of your heart, Spirit of your spirit. Just as the soul animates the whole body, and every member thereof, but abides especially in the heart, so God, while present everywhere, yet makes His special abode with our spirit. Therefore David calls Him “the Strength of my heart;” and St. Paul said that in Him “we live and move and have our being.” Dwell upon this thought until you have kindled a great reverence within your heart for God Who is so closely present to you.”

In this second way in which we can prepare for prayer, St. Francis moves us from considering that God is everywhere all the time, to realizing that, for the follower of Jesus Christ, that God lives deep within us. Francis points us to Scripture, first to David and then to Paul.

In Psalm 73:26 David says, “My flesh [body] and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” In Acts 17:28 Paul says, when speaking to the Athenians, “for in Him [God] we live and move and have our being…”[i]

In John 14:17 Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit will live in us, and then in John 14:23 Jesus says that He and the Father will come and live within us. In John Chapter 17 we see that through Jesus Christ we come into fellowship, union, with the Trinity. Again and again throughout the New Testament we see that God in Christ lives within us as individuals and as His People – this is an essential element of the Gospel – we are called to live in this awareness, in this union with God in Christ. This is, indeed, a great mystery, one that we cannot understand – anymore than we can understand the nature of the Trinity or the Incarnation (indeed, this speaks to us of a continuing Incarnation – Christ in His People, His Body, His Bride, His Church); but it is most certainly a mystery that we should experience as a way of life in Christ. As God lives and breathes His Presence in us, we learn to live and breath God’s Presence as a way of life in Christ.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:17 that “the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him [the Lord]”. As St. Francis writes, God is abiding in us “as Heart of your heart, Spirit of your spirit.”

We can prepare for prayer then, by pondering and directing our thoughts and dispositions to God’s Presence within us, deep in our heart of hearts, deep within our innermost beings – perhaps we can picture the Tabernacle of Moses or the Temple of Solomon with its Outer Court, Holy Place, and Most Holy Place (or Holy of Holies). God is in the Outer Court, He is in the Holy Place, but in the Holy of Holies He lives in a special way.

God’s Word works within us (Hebrews 4:12) to cleanse His Temple and draw us deep into Himself. The deeper God draws us to Himself, the deeper He lives within us, and out of us to our brothers and sisters and the world around us. While we may receive glimpses of the deep workings of God within us, we cannot understand them fully, for this is the work and life of the Trinity – the mystery of being “partakers of the Divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4) is beyond our full comprehension, but we know He has given us His Word, His “precious and magnificent promises” so that we can live in constant loving and gracious koinonia with Him.

What better place to meet our Father and Lord Jesus in prayer? To speak the words, “Abba Father” (Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6)? To recognize that we and Jesus Christ have one Father and that we are His brothers and sisters – that Jesus Christ is “not ashamed to call us brethren” (Hebrews 2:9 – 13; Romans 8:29; John 20:17).

O dear Christian, can you not visualize that your Father desires His sons and daughters to be at His Table? Can you not “see” that if you are missing at the Table of daily communion and koinonia with Him that there is a gaping space at that Table?

The Prodigal Son sought entrance back into his father’s house as a servant – but the father would have none of that – his father ran to him and brought him back as his son…and your Father runs to you! You are not a servant but a son, or a daughter, of the Living God. He lives within you in Christ and you live within Him in Christ.

Is this acknowledgment and realization not a good place to begin prayer?

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[i] St. Francis fails to consider the context of Acts 17:28 and the point that Paul was making. Paul was speaking to people who were not in a relationship with Christ, in fact, Paul was quoting a Greek philosopher in order to get his audience to consider that God is the Creator and Sustainer of life so that they might come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. In other words, Acts 17:28 is not about God living within us in relationship and communion – St. Francis misses Paul’s point. However, I’ve missed the context of a verse or passage more than once, and you probably have too. Let us be thankful that Francis continues to point us to the Bible.

St. Francis de Sales on Prayer (2)

St. Francis de Sales writes regarding the first consideration when praying:

“First, a lively earnest realisation that His Presence is universal; that is to say, that He is everywhere, and in all, and that there is no place, nothing in the world, devoid of His Most Holy Presence, so that, even as birds on the wing meet the air continually, we, let us go where we will, meet with that Presence always and everywhere. It is a truth which all are ready to grant, but all are not equally alive to its importance.”

God is here, He is there, He is everywhere, and He is particularly in His People. St. Francis begins with the first three of these – God is here, He is there, He is everywhere. The fancy word for this is “omnipresent” or “omnipresence”. “Omni” comes from a Latin word that means “all” – God is all-present, His presence is everywhere, it is universal.

Wherever birds fly they fly in air – that’s pretty basic; it is also basic that God is everywhere – even in the most hellish conditions, as we’ll see below. God’s presence is everywhere spatially, but it is also everywhere in terms of the conditions within and without us – and coupled with His presence is His knowledge of where we are inside ourselves, of what is going on within us and around us – God is all-knowing, the fancy word for this is “omniscience”. This is, of course, one of the many mysteries surrounding God our Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

Consider that two people may be in the same place spatially but in different places emotionally, psychologically, spiritually – God is in all of those places, He knows all, He understands all. He is our Creator and He knows His creation; in another sense He is the Father from whom every family of heaven and earth derives its name (Ephesians 3:14 – 15); and in yet another sense He is particularly the Father of those who are in Jesus Christ (John Chapter 17).

“A blind man when in the presence of his prince will preserve a reverential demeanor if told that the king is there, although unable to see him; but practically, what men do not see they easily forget, and so readily lapse into carelessness and irreverence. Just so, my child, we do not see our God, and although faith warns us that He is present, not beholding Him with our mortal eyes, we are too apt to forget Him, and act as though He were afar: for, while knowing perfectly that He is everywhere, if we do not think about it, it is much as though we knew it not.”

Francis says, “…if we do not think about it, it is much as though we knew it not.” At first, living in the awareness that God is always with us, that He is everywhere at all times, may seem an impossibility, it may seem beyond our reach. While it is beyond our reach, it is not an impossibility.

Christ came to us to bring to us that which is beyond our reach. Because we could not reach up to God, God reached down to us. Jesus Christ lived in unbroken communion with His Father, and He calls us to live in that very same communion, that very same relationship.

Paul and his friends cultivated a life in Christ that caused Paul to write, “…we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18); “we walk by faith not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7).

Consider that a dimension of faith is spiritual sight, spiritual vision, the ability in Christ to see the unseen (Hebrews 11:1 – 3), just as Moses “saw Him who is unseen” (Hebrews 11:27).

This way of living is to be the norm in the Christian life, in fact it is part and parcel of the Christian life – it is not to be the exception but rather the rule as we “keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” and as we set our minds “on things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:1 – 4).

Does not Jesus say, “I am with you always”? (Matthew 28:20).

“And therefore, before beginning to pray, it is needful always to rouse the soul to a steadfast remembrance and thought of the Presence of God. This is what David meant when he exclaimed, “If I climb up to Heaven, Thou art there, and if I go down to hell, Thou art there also!” And in like manner Jacob, who, beholding the ladder which went up to Heaven, cried out, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not” meaning thereby that he had not thought of it; for assuredly he could not fail to know that God was everywhere and in all things. Therefore, when you make ready to pray, you must say with your whole heart, “God is indeed here.”

Francis, in this concluding paragraph, points us to two passages of Scripture,[i] Psalm 139 and Genesis 28:10 – 22. Psalm 139 speaks to us of God’s intimate knowledge of us and His presence surrounding us wherever we go – including “if I go down to hell, you are there also.” There are many hells in this life, perhaps some of us experience more of them than others – some are of our own making and some are not. There is no shortage of hell on earth, and there is no shortage of hell within the hearts and minds and souls of people. However we may view this passage, however we may experience it – whether when we consider ourselves or in thinking of others – God is there.

In Genesis 28:10 – 22 we see Jacob traveling from his family’s home in Beersheba to his uncle Laban’s home in Padden-aram. That night Jacob took a stone and used it as a pillow or headrest; as he slept he had a dream in which he saw a ladder reaching from heaven to earth with angels ascending and descending on it; Yahweh, the True and Living God, spoke to Jacob and renewed and extended the covenant which He had made with Abraham and Isaac (Jacob’s grandfather and father).

Upon awaking Jacob exclaims, “Surely Yahweh is in this place, and I did not know it! How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

Jesus evokes this image when He says to Nathaniel, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” (John 1:51).

Life in the Son of God is a life of open heavens – whether we perceive this or not is another matter. We may, by God’s grace, cultivate our eye of faith, training our eye to be single (Matthew 6:22 – 23) and presenting ourselves as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1 – 2) – or we may live as “mere men” and women (1 Corinthians 3:1 – 3), living according to the “natural” as opposed to living in the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians Chapter 2, Romans 8:12 - 17).

As Esau, we may despise and not honor our birthright; or as Jacob, with all of his faults, we may passionately seek Christ and His Kingdom. Jacob was in the House of God and he didn’t realize it – it was no accident that Jacob used a rock, a stone, to rest his head – when we rest upon our Rock, the Stone cut without hands, that anointed Stone – we will see things via the eye of faith that we would otherwise not perceive.

As we follow on to know Christ, we will often look back and say, “Christ was in that place and I knew it not. Christ was in that situation and I didn’t realize it.” However, the more we follow on to know our Lord, as we learn to take up our cross and follow Him, denying ourselves; the more we will also say, “Christ is in this place, right now, with me…He calls me to relationship with Him, right now, in these conditions, in these circumstances, in this very place.”

As we learn to “rouse our souls”  we say with Paul, “Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13 – 14).

Wherever we are today, God is with us. Is not His name Immanuel?

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[i] I recently read a comment on brothers and sisters in the Roman Catholic “mystical” tradition, such as St. Francis de Sales, to the effect that they aren’t grounded in Scripture – the person who wrote this should have known better. This is a good example of the fact that you shouldn’t comment on the furniture in a house unless you’ve been in the house and used the furniture.

Francis de Sales on Prayer (1)

Saint Francis de Sales can teach us much about life lived in communion with God. Below is an excerpt from his Introduction to the Devout Life, in this section (Part 2 Section 2 of this work) he counsels a friend on placing ourselves in the Presence of God as we pray. How does this passage speak to you? Have you thought about what Francis is saying before reading this, or is some of this new to you? How might you incorporate these principles into your life of prayer? The Lord willing, I’ll circle back on this in a future post(s).

In order to place yourself in the Presence of God, I will suggest four chief considerations which you can use at first.

First, a lively earnest realisation that His Presence is universal; that is to say, that He is everywhere, and in all, and that there is no place, nothing in the world, devoid of His Most Holy Presence, so that, even as birds on the wing meet the air continually, we, let us go where we will, meet with that Presence always and everywhere. It is a truth which all are ready to grant, but all are not equally alive to its importance.

A blind man when in the presence of his prince will preserve a reverential demeanor if told that the king is there, although unable to see him; but practically, what men do not see they easily forget, and so readily lapse into carelessness and irreverence. Just so, my child, we do not see our God, and although faith warns us that He is present, not beholding Him with our mortal eyes, we are too apt to forget Him, and act as though He were afar: for, while knowing perfectly that He is everywhere, if we do not think about it, it is much as though we knew it not.

And therefore, before beginning to pray, it is needful always to rouse the soul to a steadfast remembrance and thought of the Presence of God. This is what David meant when he exclaimed, “If I climb up to Heaven, Thou art there, and if I go down to hell, Thou art there also!” And in like manner Jacob, who, beholding the ladder which went up to Heaven, cried out, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not” meaning thereby that he had not thought of it; for assuredly he could not fail to know that God was everywhere and in all things. Therefore, when you make ready to pray, you must say with your whole heart, “God is indeed here.”

The second way of placing yourself in this Sacred Presence is to call to mind that God is not only present in the place where you are, but that He is very specially present in your heart and mind, which He kindles and inspires with His Holy Presence, abiding there as Heart of your heart, Spirit of your spirit. Just as the soul animates the whole body, and every member thereof, but abides especially in the heart, so God, while present everywhere, yet makes His special abode with our spirit. Therefore David calls Him “the Strength of my heart;” and St. Paul said that in Him “we live and move and have our being.” Dwell upon this thought until you have kindled a great reverence within your heart for God Who is so closely present to you.

The third way is to dwell upon the thought of our Lord, Who in His Ascended Humanity looks down upon all men, but most particularly on all Christians, because they are His children; above all, on those who pray, over whose doings He keeps watch. Nor is this any mere imagination, it is very truth, and although we see Him not, He is looking down upon us. It was given to St. Stephen in the hour of martyrdom thus to behold Him, and we may well say with the Bride of the Canticles, “He looketh forth at the windows, shewing Himself through the lattice.”

The fourth way is simply to exercise your ordinary imagination, picturing the Saviour to yourself in His Sacred Humanity as if He were beside you just as we are wont to think of our friends, and fancy that we see or hear them at our side. But when the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar is there, then this Presence is no longer imaginary, but most real; and the sacred species are but as a veil from behind which the Present Saviour beholds and considers us, although we cannot see Him as He is.

Make use of one or other of these methods for placing yourself in the Presence of God before you begin to pray;—do not try to use them all at once, but take one at a time, and that briefly and simply.