Transcription
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
This is what I pray in kneeling before the Father from whom every family, whether spiritual or natural, takes its name. Out of his infinite glory, may he give you the power through his Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith. And then, planted in love and built on love, you will, with all the saints, have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth, until knowing the love of Christ which is beyond all knowledge, you are filled with the fullness of God. Glory be to him whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory be to him from generation to generation in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This evening, I'm talking about prayer. And Brother Bill knows very well that this bishop doesn't know how to pray. And so, I will not try to teach you how to pray because if I tried to teach you how to pray, I'd be talking rubbish. I have no idea how to pray. I only hope that I pray. Do I know whether I pray? I have no idea. And before we move on, I'll begin by telling you what prayer is not. It's not saying five rosaries. It's not saying so many chaplets. It's not saying so many Our Fathers because the measure of prayer must be love, and the saying of many words is no guarantee that there is any love. As Jesus himself says in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 6, from about verse 6 onwards: "Do not think like the pagans that by babbling many words you will be heard." He makes very clear prayer is not about saying many words, but as St. Teresa says in *The Story of the Soul*, "Prayer is what does she say? It's a movement of the heart. It's turning towards God, and it's a cry of love in the midst of joy or sadness." Because Teresa, like all the great Carmelite saints, had no idea how to pray. So do not come to one of us and say, "Teach me how to pray," because I have no idea how to pray, nor do I know whether I'm praying. But I know very powerfully that I want to pray. I know very powerfully within myself I have a great desire for God. And Teresa of Avila would say to me, "I know. Then you must ask God that that desire becomes greater." Quite simply, as we will see next week when we have supposed to look at detachment, if your desire for God is great, it will drive every desire from your heart because you can't. Well, those of you who are greatly in love with your spouse, there's no room in your heart for anybody else. That's why no one has fallen in love with me because they've got someone else that their heart is given to.
So, let's turn to prayer, and I want to just share with you some thoughts as to what prayer is on the basis of what St. Teresa says. I will begin by saying prayer is a space. It's not something that I do. My prayer is the space that I live in. I go to that space when I want to be with God, and I long that that space might fill the rest of my life. So, the prayer is not something that I choose to do. Prayer is the place where I live. As soon as that's said, the first challenge in prayer is, well, if prayer is the space where you live, what else is in that space? That's for next week. We must somehow live in the space which is God. Why is that important? Because, as St. Teresa says in the definition I began with, it's about looking towards God. It's a movement of the heart to God. It's a desire. It's a reaching towards God, which means standing in the presence of God. It's a space within myself where I live with God. It's not defined by what I do or what I don't do, but it's about your prayer is about who you are. And who you are is somehow defined by not simply the way you live, but the way you are within. Because the way that I am within determines how I live. As St. Teresa says elsewhere, and so does St. John of the Cross, as you become more a man or woman of prayer, your life will necessarily become more simple. And as you live in the place of prayer, your prayer will also become more simple. Prayer cannot be complicated. When two people meet each other and want to get married, a bit like Daniel and Christa, their relationship is very complicated. You have to be doing things for each other. You have to spend time with each other. You're concerned about what the other one is doing, and all these things. The early exchanges of love are very complicated because it's not yet love. It's something which will evolve into love. And it's the same with prayer. As we begin to pray, our prayer is marked with complication. We try to do things because our prayer is our space in the direction of God. And therefore, we try to do things to please God. Ah, one of my talks last year was "Can I do up God's sandals?" Wasn't it? That was the third talk.
>> Your talk last year is the year of hope.
>> The year of hope. Oh, there we go. See, someone's got a good memory. None of you can remember what I said except Father Bing, sitting down the back, in all humility, remembers. Good man. So, the last talk I gave last year, I remember the name. Well, I didn't give it a name, but it was given that name, which is, "You can't do up God's sandals." Because we spend our life wanting to do things for God, but there's nothing that God wants me to do. God simply wants love and wants me to live in his presence. And so, prayer is entering into that space where God is. But that's not hard because prayer is the most natural, the most simple, the easiest thing to do because we were made to pray. We were not made to drive cars. We were not made to write notes. We were not made to make funny jokes. We were not made to do any of these things. The primary thing that we were made for, St. Teresa of Avila says, "You were made to pray." And she says, "What a fool you are if you don't pray." But why is prayer so simple? Why is standing in the presence of God or entering the space where God is so simple? Because God dwells in your heart. That's why everyone is made with the capacity to pray. And to pray, we must find the way to enter into ourselves, to be in the place where this God is. And the place where God is is where we find love within our hearts. It has to be one of the, well, for me, it has to be one of the simplest things to do. And if you don't find love within your heart, then for St. Teresa, she would say, "Well, then find some gratitude in your heart." Gratitude is one of the gifts that goes hand in hand with what prayer is. I look within myself and I see things to be grateful for. Gratitude leads me to the place within myself where God dwells. And if I follow the path of gratitude, I will find myself within myself with the living God. That's why St. Teresa says the simplest thing to do, once we find the way, we will keep coming back to God through prayer. And it's simply the possibility that God gives because we were made for that. It needs to be the most natural thing, and it's not made up of things you have to say. It's recognizing God within you. I think gratitude is probably the easiest thing because, regardless of what your life to this moment has been, you can find, if you look hard enough, something to be grateful for. If you were beaten up as a kid, someone that came and consoled you. If you were hungry as a kid, that someone gave you something to eat. If you look, you will always find within yourself something to be grateful for. And as you find it, the next move is to the presence of God within. The reason that that's so important, why prayer is so powerful, is you will never know yourself except through prayer. If you know yourself in terms of what's gone wrong in life, in terms of what you wanted to have but didn't have, you're defining yourself by something outside yourself. But prayer is that by which I define myself by who I am from within. And as I enter the place of prayer and stand there, I will begin to see two things. That's why prayer is such an extraordinary thing. I will begin to see myself, good and bad. I'll begin to see myself in gratitude. And as I begin to see and experience myself, I will begin to see God because God is at one with this experience. God's not something outside. God's not, you know, something like a gigantic cosmic amoeba that you want to look towards. A single-cell amoeba at the edge of the universe. What a bizarre thing to think of when to think of God like that. But many people do. God is so close that God is within. God is so close that I cannot be apart from God. God is so close that I cannot be without God. God is so close that I cannot know myself except through knowing God. And this is what prayer is. Prayer for St. Teresa must lead to self-knowledge. As St. Teresa says, in particular in *The Way of Perfection*, but even more powerfully in *The Interior Castles*, "The one thing necessary in prayer at all times is humility." Not humbleness. Humility is the growing capacity to see myself as I'm loved by God. There, then, prayer becomes the place of vision, the place of clarity, the place of peace, the place of love. And once we begin to see prayer that way, it is the place that you want to go to. Um, which is why people say the bishop wants to go away and be alone because I spent 30-something years entering the place of the alone as a Carmelite. And then I was ripped out of it and dropped into Lismore. And this is not the same as a friar's cell where he meets God. I have to come out of my cell and meet all of you, which I think is a good thing for me. But it's not without it being a struggle because my natural place is in the place of the alone. I'd spent almost 40 years learning to live in the place of the alone until the place of the alone became my natural place to be. But we all need to find our own place of alone because if we have that, prayer becomes the stabilizing content of our life. Prayer is not only what gives stability, but it's what holds us in place because prayer is my life, then, with God, and God holds my life in place. God holds everything in place. And so, as I said earlier, prayer will lead to simplicity. Prayer will lead to the moving away from things. Now, you will all move away from things in your own particular way. There are some of you who need to be active and doing things, like a Marist brother. They're meant to be out there doing things all the time. That's their charism. But within the midst of what you do, prayer has its place. You need to find a small place of solitude, a small place of sanity, a small place where you know that you are alive. Alive, not bouncing off things, but alive alone with God. Because prayer, then, is that place where you are yourself. And who I am is not determined by who you are. Who I am is not determined by the things that I want or wish that I had. Who I am is not determined by Donald Trump doing things so far away. Who I am is not determined by what's happening in Lismore. And yet, what happens in the diocese of Lismore, God has asked that that be part of my life. I can be your bishop because I'm able to be who I am. Two weeks ago, I was giving courses to eight new bishops in Australia. And one of the things I said to them, "Do not try to be like anyone else. Do not try to be a bishop." God didn't choose you on account of what a bishop is. God chose you on account of who you are. And I said, "If you want to be a bishop, you must be yourself. Otherwise, why did God choose you?" And prayer is a place where we can be ourselves. Prayer is a place, in fact, in many ways, it's also the place where we're judged.
So, that's almost 25 minutes nonstop. I'll see if you've got any questions. Always leave a spot for questions because I don't want to go more than half an hour because Father Bing's there nodding and saying, "I need to go away and have some rice." I can see it on his face. Any questions? Did that make any sense?
This is a good question, but it's a thank you. And, um, and you were talking about last year, but I loved that when you started today with that beautiful letter of Paul to the Ephesians, the prayer, his prayer for the Ephesians. It took me straight back to the 9th of April, 2019. It was your last Lenten talk for that year. And I remember you used that as the opening at that talk, and it's been an important part, a very important thing for me, learning about learning to live with myself, really. So, thank you.
>> And knowing the love of God, which is what that part of Ephesians is about, is about not about the knowledge of the love of God. You only know something is true by living it. And so, the knowledge which is spoken of in Ephesians must go hand in hand with the life lived. Because this God is a God that is beyond understanding. So, to speak of knowledge of the love of God is not an understanding of the love of God, but it's a knowledge born of life. Which is why it's such a powerful quotation, and a quotation that I don't yet understand, but every time I read it, I get excited. I'm a very excitable guy. I get excited by little parts of the word of God, but it's a very important moment.
>> What do you think is one of the main lessons we can take from this season of Lent?
>> Lent traditionally proposes to us prayer, penance, and almsgiving. They are very important. But the early focus is penance. And penance can only be born of self-knowledge. Only an animal or a fool will do penance for the sake of it. You must recognize in yourself where your failings, where your vulnerabilities are, where you could be better. And penance always serves the possibility of growth and being better. Once you can see that, then the first thing is about penance, but penance is not simply about yourself. And so, penance must devolve in Lent into care of others. Whether that's almsgiving or not, I don't know. But it means care of others because as you see your failings and move to penance, you will see the needs of others, and the need that you see is the one that you should meet. Okay. I mean, we all see different needs, and the Project Compassion box doesn't help any need. You see the need in someone who was sad, in need of help or care. Your penance then motivates you to love, which is what almsgiving is. And all of this is held together because you stand in the presence of God. And that's what prayer is. So, the three traditional things in the ancient teachings about Lent are those. And for everyone, it's going to be different. I can't tell you what it will be for me. When I was a Carmelite, I used to go to my room and close the door and think, "I hope nobody knocks on it." So, for me, Lent was, I must, every time something knocks, every time there's something in it, I have to leave my room and go there. There'll be some come that's like Father Ransom, isn't it? Ransom. So, for Lent, you need to tell him he needs to leave his, leave his room and help somebody. There are others who, in fact, need to go to their room. It depends upon the person. Um, one year, after I had had a serious operation, one of the friars said to me, "I'm going to fast in Lent. Your penance will be, go and eat." So, I was thinner after that operation than I am now. And so, Father Jared told me, "Your penance must be to eat."
>> Yes. They all must hold together. You can't hold them as distinct from each other. In the ancient writers, in the early church, spoke of the three as all being part of what we do in Lent. Um, and you know, for each one, almsgiving is different. If Robert's difficult, your almsgiving can be being kind to him. But I can't imagine him being difficult. It's different for everyone. Anyone else?
Good. I'm going to run away only because Brother Bill has invited me for dinner, and dinner is 6:30, and I don't want to get him into trouble. So, we'll see you next week. Next week is detachment, isn't it? And the last week, I've written down, is union. And union is what prayer is about. And union is what the quotation from Ephesians is about. It's about being at one with the God who dwells within us. It's what Christian life is about. It's not about preaching. It's not about mission. It's that I could be one with God in such a way that everything I did was the work of God. In which case, everything I did would be mission, but unconsciously so. But we'll get to union afterwards. John writes about union in *The Living Flame of Love*, especially chapters one and two. But we've got Father Ransom here. Do you want to come and talk next week? He's a very famous retreat giver in Varville. Do you want to come up and talk? He didn't wear his habit, so no one would know who he was, except Sister D told me. So, we'll see you next week. Thank you.