Introduction	Exercise	Findings	Example	Result	Further Findings	Summary

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"How can I pray?"  That is the theme for the exercises in this chapter.  The more you try to include other people in your prayer or the more your prayer leads to others, the more you are faced with the task of finding ways by which you can give your entire self to this task.  If the heart of the Christian life is "living for others", than you cannot limit this "living" to times of prayer and meditation, but it should include all that goes on during the day.  Neither can "living" be limited to the words of prayer but it must also include deeds and suffering (i.e. the totality of your life).  You can reach others only at the level and in the place where you find yourself.

A visual image might help to introduce the concern of this chapter.  A radio is assembled from many individual parts.  These parts could exist only for themselves, but it is only when they are put together into one entity, a radio, that a "mysterious" device is created which can receive signals from ether waves and turn them into something the human ear can hear.  A radio expert sees the potential of each individual part becoming a radio, seeing, as it were, the possibility of the whole in the part.  But it is only since there were radios that this has become a possibility.

In a certain sense you might say that Jesus Christ in becoming human took upon himself the "individual parts" of human life binding them together in his own life into a whole so that through his humanness he could become an organ for receiving divine reality.  Since then human life in all its individual parts has the possibility in each of its parts - when combined properly - of being receptive to God.

In a "directed  meditation" (a meditation where materials are suggested by a leader or spiritual guide for one's personal reflection and meditation.[eds.])  let me show you how what we have thus far attained can become fruitful for meditative prayer.  In a group one member can slowly read the individual steps providing long pauses so the "soul can keep up", as someone said.  When you do the exercise alone you can read it phrase by phrase and pause long enough so that with you a process begins.

Out of the nearly limitless possibilities which the Bible offers, I wish to offer two verses from the 

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Exercise

Prepare yourself:  relaxation - depth - reception ...remain silent.

(Take about three minutes.)

1. Let the text with its visual symbols work on you:
 

“For your sake I will...break down all the bars... Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Is. 43:14,19)...
Reflect on the word, "bars", as the symbol of all which makes you unfree such as:
 
• the overwhelming number of tasks that shackle you and do not let you breathe. . .
• harsh external situations, needs, which hinders free development ...
• inner obstacles that leave everyone standing before unassailable heights blocking     every way out as is often the case during depression...
• - You can add your own possibilities here...
(Remain silent until something begins to resonate within you.)
 
• 2. Direct the symbolic words of this text like a search light on your life and let them illuminate the "bars" you have personally experienced.  From which ones have you suffered the most? ...

(remain in silence until something begins to resonate within)
 
• 3. Make an inner connection with a specific person close to you who has similar or even more difficult "bars" ...
• try to feel connected with all people have surrendered to such situations...
• be aware that in your own area of responsibility whatever you "do" will have a hidden effect on all other people sharing the "living behind bars"...
• when you conduct yourself according to the "measurement of Christ" others are effected in a mysterious way... . .
(Wait silently until something begins to resonate within.)
 
• 4. Look at Christ who is the "way"

 
• how did You (Jesus) deal with the over abundance of tasks that you could have undertaken?...
• how did You face the needs and the physical conditions which life behind bars brought you ?...
• how did You deal with your anxieties that brought sweat like drops of blood to your brow?...
(Remain in silence until something begins to resonate in you.)
 
• 5. Christ is the way. Travel that way:

 
"Behold, I am doing a new thing: now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? (Is. 43:19).
Christ lives in me really and truly (Gal. 2:20) and this life grows in me if I give Christ room and allow him to fill that space more and more:
 
• Lord, it was Your faith that broke down the prison bars of the harsh realities before which you stood and which enabled you to see through it the will of the Father so you could say, 'Yes, Father'"...
Let the "new" grow in me as I look at Your faith, Jesus, until it leaves its imprint on me... until there begins to grow in me that faith that sees everything is coming from the hand of the Father...
• "Lord, it was Your hope  that released you from the prison of impasse - in that you came through to a salutary "nevertheless" giving you joy so that the momentary need became but a transition... .
Let that "new " deepen in me as I look at Your hope, Jesus, until it is imprinted on me ... until there begins to grow in me the hope that joined with Christ's agony every trial has a "nevertheless", every cross a resurrection...
• "Lord, it was Your love  that broke bars of isolation from the community around You by revealing through your suffering for humankind what "for others" means and with love broke down the wall to the Father through Your 'Thy will be done'"...
Let that "new" deepen in me that in looking at Your love it leaves it imprint on me... until there begins to grow in me that same love for others and for God that reaches out...
(In silence as long as it goes well for you.)

I beseech You, Lord, through Your own imprisonment loosen the bounds that make me unfree.  May Your freedom flow into my life and through me to all with whom I am united in prayer until my prayer becomes action...

End your meditation slowly and calmly by relaxing as in previous exercises...

What we have done using the symbol of imprisonment behind bars can be done with every key symbol in the Bible.  Every such symbol shines like a search light on specific areas in the life of Jesus Christ.  We can apply all of the steps just taken to every element of his life because he became human just as we are.

From what you have discovered, what new ways of praying have opened up for you?
 

• 1. Whenever you look at specific situations in the life of Jesus a greater area for prayer opens up.  What Jesus experienced, did and suffered prepares a river bed for all who find themselves in the same situation.  Our prayers open the stream of such a way.

 
• 2. All of us have had the experience of feeling our prayers have gone into thin air.  We have brought a particular need to God and not the least bit seems to change, everything remains the same.  If you are not praying routinely or out of a sense of duty for someone but have taken on a person's needs as your own, then one day you face the question, "Can't I do something for this person?  It's not enough to pray only with my mouth!"  What can be said nowadays about Jesus' words on "praying and fasting"?  In the history of the church have not prayer and sacrifice always been mentioned together?  In this case it may mean that God expects some action from you requiring our total response?  Perhaps resolution to this question will come:

 
• when you are in a similar situation to that of Christ and open yourself to the hidden stream of healing flowing from him by connecting your response with his response and your suffering with his suffering -
• when Jesus Christ takes on himself aspects of our human life in order they may open a way to God (something we cannot do for ourselves) -
• when you as a member of the body of Christ and with his strength connect with this stream and let it flow through you...
then when it appears that someone has closed himself or herself off from direct contact with God you can insert yourself.  You can become the connection between Christ and the other person by being to some degree a "detour", by becoming as much like that person as possible, becoming yourself as much like Christ as possible.  When on the one hand you seek more and more to be like Jesus and on the other hand seek more and more to be "one" with another person (John 17:11) then the stream of Christ's healing flows through you to the other - and to many others.

Is this all an illusion?  I have asked myself that question and have come to the following conclusions:
 

• It is clear for all to see that God reaches people regularly through others rather than in a direct way.  The reverse is also true.  People find contact with God more often (some might say "always") through another person than through the direct experience of God.
• Looking at Jesus always provides the criteria for justifying our thoughts and deeds.  Jesus was truly God and also truly human, at the same time both God and human.  He restores the connection that had been broken between God and humankind by providing a "detour" in his own person.

 
• What we are seeking to express very carefully here is nothing other than following through with what it means to be a disciple of Christ - not somewhere on the periphery but specifically there where the heart finds its mission.

Let me give an example to make this more concrete.

I was asked once to pray at a home for mentally impaired children where additional staff was desperately needed.  In praying it became clear to me that the difficulties in keeping people from undertaking this work were low salaries, hard physical work, seeing the suffering, etc.  When looking at Christ, however, our human criteria is completely changed.  To be a disciple of Christ means in particular, doesn't it, to take on such difficulties oneself and to meet Christ there in such suffering?

"Praying the deed"means that you seek in your own life the place where in some corresponding way you take on similar tasks:

• tasks in which you experience little progress -
• tasks that are physically demanding -
• tasks involving human encounters that you would prefer to avoid ...
"Praying the deed" means to seek to do such things with love and joy! (cf. symbolic deeds the sixth set of exercises) - signs of embodied prayer).

I chose this example because here God gives us an answer rich with symbols that seem to justify this form of prayer.  After I tried doing this kind of praying over a period of time I experienced how a person for whom I was praying that God would show him the direction of his life, suddenly decided to start working with mentally impaired children.

From this example you can see the individual steps of such prayer:
 
• 1. Meditate on the needs of the people for whom you seek to pray ... .
• 2. Seek in your own life that which corresponds to these needs... .
• 3. Look at Jesus.  Where are the corresponding needs in his life - how did he deal with them... exhibit them?
• 4. Wait until it is revealed what you can do in your own life that corresponds to what the other needs to do in order to come into contact with Jesus...
• 5. Seek at least at one point in the day when you do what you have acknowledged needs to be done. It is precisely the doing that connects with Jesus as well as with the other person (the mystery of the incarnation, Jesus Christ becoming human).


Sometimes the deed becomes the prayer itself (e.g., when for the sake of what you are praying you do something you have never done before).  In most cases "praying the deed" involves doing with greater love and relevance the task that you should have done in any case based on the model of Christ's deeds.

To avoid any misunderstanding what is meant here is that you should not pray the deed, but the deed itself becomes prayer.  For that, however, you have to be fully present with heart and mind in the deed!

•  1. When out of concern for a loved one you do something meaningful, that often means a great inner liberation.  One frequently has the feeling that words alone are not sufficient.
• 2. When you begin to live this way you will experience fewer "grey days".  Each small deed conveys an act of ministry for God.
• 3. It is worthwhile to continue praying for someone especially in this way over a period of time maintaining, of course, the regular schedule of your daily prayers.
• 4. For those who suffer from long term illness this type of praying offers a significant calling.
• 5. Saying yes to an unpleasant task or to what is painful, a smile when you don't feel like it, or a friendly word to a person who treats you badly, can all be deeds prompted by such praying that puts your body into the service of prayer even when there was nothing else you could do!
• 6. Such praying is in any case no mere "cleaning fluid".  That has to be said most definitely in this connection.  When you pray in this step by step way as we have shown in the possibilities offered, then you need to know that your prayer is heard by God and is taken up by God's love.  That does not mean that we experience an answer to prayer in such an obvious way as happened in the example I used above.  Every "visible" answer to prayer is a gift of God who seeks in this way to encourage us to continue praying faithfully when we don't see any "results".  God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts and God's ways are higher than our ways!

 Our deeds are nothing more that a pale reflection of the deeds of Jesus.  As members of his body and with his strength we can do for others what Christ has already done for and to us (Cf. seventh set of exercises).Jesus took on our human nature and opened it to God.  When we allow the life situation of another person to enter into our life, when we join his/her experiences, joys, sorrows and tasks to what corresponds to circumstances in our own life and bring it all to Jesus, then we become in this act a disciple of Christ and our connection to Christ becomes deeper and deeper as does our connection to the person in need.

Jesus' life was a life "for you" not only in word but in deed and in every experience most especially apparent in his suffering.  To live as a Christian disciple means living "for another" not only in word but especially in deed, in experience and in suffering (II Cor. 1:6f., Col:1:24, Eph 3:13 all use the words "for you" for what Christians do voluntarily for each other) both on the surface of visible human relationships as well as in the hidden depths where we put others in contact with Christ and one another.  In this meditation we ventured a bit into this depth.  The ill for whom doing public acts is often denied it is important to know that the deeds in the depths contain all that happens on the surface.

A participant said quite spontaneously at the end of this group lesson, "If this is what Catholics mean by the veneration of the saints, that would solve a big problem for me".  Meditation breaks through even confessional barriers.  At the end of a recent ecumenical course on meditation for church staff a Protestant pastor said, "I believe during these days we Protestants have discovered that we are more Catholic than we thought and the Catholics have discovered that there is much that is "Protestant" in their own tradition".

All agreed to that.  Much of what separates us lies on the surface (e.g. different words meaning the same thing).  The deeper you probe the depths the closer you come to unity.

Now you have the opportunity to try yourself what you have learned...