I also tended to be a people pleaser and later my view altered to ask myself whether or not I was "doing enough" to please God and make it to heaven. If I had raised these issues with my parents, I'm sure they would have corrected me, but I never did. And so, it wasn't until I moved on into early adulthood, that my false images began to disappear, replaced by the reality that God is love, the Sacred Heart, bleeding, wounded, and on fire for love of me. I'm His daughter, the apple of His eye, whom He loved so much He stretched out His arms on the cross and died.
Watching the second lecture of David Torkington's 15 session series on prayer and contemplation, I was amused by his description of an event in his own childhood. Friends came over to his home. He was about four years old and they were not familiar with the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. They asked about it and an awkward pause ensued. Who is that man with the exposed heart in flames? The awkwardness melted into laughter when the little boy piped up, "That's Mr. Loving."
Many people have the image of God like I did as the policeman ready to turn on His siren or blow His whistle to catch the miscreant in action or the big boss with the pink slips. But as Torkington says, "God is endlessly loving us." What must we do to receive that love? Peter answered that question when he told the crowds on the first Pentecost. You must repent and be baptized.
It's that simple. Repentance is an act of humility. Jesus told us, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." Very often we don't, do we? Humbling ourselves before God, admitting that He's right and we're wrong prepares us and opens us to receive His love. You can't give a gift to a person who turns his back on you and runs in the opposite direction. Repentance is turning to God with our arms out to receive all that He wants to give us.
Indeed...we must continually repent to receive the love of God. Remember the acronum ACTS? I learned it as a child. Pray is fourfold: Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. In prayer we learn all the sins and faults that prevent our union with God. As we grow closer to Him, God begins the purification process which is painful. St. John of the Cross says 90% of people who reach this point in meditation and contemplation, the point of purification, run away. They want the consolation, but not the desolation. We are purified and refined by the fire of the Holy Spirit. But fire burns and is painful.
As a beekeeper, I occasionally purify the wax taken from the hives while harvesting the honey. It's full of impurities: dead bees and small hive beetles, pollen, propolis (the glue the bees make), etc. It takes many water baths and straining to get a perfect slab of pure wax.
Our souls require a similar purification. God wants to make us pure so we can be completely united to His Sacred Heart. But if you've ever splashed yourself with boiling water, you know it hurts. We have to be willing to experience the pain of the cross.
Torkington's second lecture is on the Morning Offering which is completely in line with Catholic spirituality. I remember a home schooling mom saying she had her children put their shoes a long arm's reach under the bed every night so they had to kneel down in the morning to get them. That was their reminder to kneel in prayer and say the Morning Offering to make the whole day become a prayer, to offer everything for the Glory of God! And, as Torkington says we can pray the Morning Offering all day long which reminds me of Chesterton's essay on grace:
You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”
Let us offer every moment throughout the day to God. See a beautiful sunrise? Thank you, Jesus! Find a nestful of eggs in the hens' laying box? Thank you, Father! Have an idea for a poem or a blog post? Thank you, Holy Spirit! Get an F on an exam? Thank you, Jesus, I'll study harder next time. Be in the hospital with a tick born disease? Thank you, Lord! What an opportunity to practice trust in You.
"EVERYTHING RECEIVED WITH GRATITUDE!"
I liked the session on the Morning Offering, and I'm also reading Torkington's book, How to Pray. One caution though. He mentioned Josef Jungmann briefly at the end of this talk. Jungmann was a Jesuit and "expert" liturgist who helped pave the way for Bugnini's Mass. Torkington calls him "perhaps the greatest liturgist of them all." That's a problem. Tradition in Action has several articles about Jungmann's influence:
The Role of Josef Jungmann in the Liturgical Reform
Denying the Sacrificial Character of the Mass
This raises a big caution flag about David Torkington for me, but I'll continue with the next session and see where he goes from here.
Your last comment there about Torkington shows why it's important to read with a discerning mind and to read widely.
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