Filled with Spirit

The great treasure exposed by prayer is our god-like self, the image of God, Christ in us.  It is a pure gift from God.

An old man visited a village church everyday, but he seemed to do nothing.  He fingered no rosary, thumbed no prayerbook, mumbled no prayers.  One day his parish priest asked, "Old man, what do you do when you come to my church every day?  I don't see you pray.  I don't see you kneel.  I don't see you light any candles.  What are you doing?"   The old man replied that indeed he was praying.   "How," asked the priest.  "Well," the old man replied,  "I sit here and look at Him, and He looks back at me.   That's all."

Such is the life of prayer, to bask in the consciousness of Abba's continual gaze.  Prayer is not actively searching for God.  It is discovering that I have already been found by God.  It is becoming aware of the fact that at every moment of my existence Abba is already contemplating me. 

Albert Haase

In prayer, we discover what we already have.  You start where you are and you deepen what you already have, and you realize that you are already there.   We already have everything, but we don't know it and we don't experience it.   Everything has been given to us in Christ.  All we need is to experience what we already possess.

The presence of God is like walking out of a door into the fresh air.  You don't concentrate on the fresh air.  You BREATHE it.  And you don't concentrate on the sunlight.   You just enjoy it.  it's all around you.

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and illusion. a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God.......which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us.  It is, so to speak, his name written in us......it is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven.  It is in everybody.

Thomas Merton