Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message
Struggles in Prayer
We read on Sunday about Jesus fasting in the
wilderness: it was a scene a
struggle. It is important to
remember in our Lenten prayers and efforts to approach God that it is love that lies behind and drives
the struggles we encounter in the wilderness:
“There are many conflicts on the way into the experience of divine love. Sinfulness originates in a deep wound to our humanity which hinders us all from accepting love. As the Spirit exposes it to Christ’s healing touch in prayer we shall often have to struggle with our reluctance to be loved so deeply by God. Christ himself will strive with us, as the angel strove with Jacob, to disable our self-reliant pride and make us depend on grace. Our love must be purified and tested by many times of darkness, loss, and waiting. The nearer we draw to God, the more we will sense our vulnerability to the ‘cosmic powers of this present darkness’ [Eph. 6:12], that seek to isolate us from God and from one another. So there are sufferings to be expected in our prayer but through them we come to the peace Christ promised. ‘After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen [1 Peter 5:10]’”. (The Rule of the Society of St. John the Evangelist—North American Congregation; Cowley Publications: Cambridge MASS, 1997; p. 43)
Grace and Peace,
Fr.
Tony+
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