“The Gospel,” as the saying goes, has an uncanny way of
“comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.” Given the time to
reflect over the last year I have been comforted, without a doubt. God’s
presence was abundantly clear to me in 2014. Yet I am afflicted by the
uncomfortable truth that my comfort, simply stated, has gotten in the way of
Jesus.
And it all came down to one thing. Prayer.
The lightening rod for this challenging, dare I say afflicting truth came from a reflection
that I came across years ago, a collection of spiritual wisdom that I recently
resurrected for a staff meeting. I will share here but I offer this warning. Be
careful. You, too, might get burned.
The Fire of Prayer
To pray is more dangerous
than throwing a torch into a dry woodland.
In a burning forest you can
run for cover, but if you begin to pray there is no escape, no place you can
hide from the raging fire of God.
At least that’s what
happened to the saints when they prayed. All of them will testify that
their encounter with God was like gold being tested in a furnace, seven times
refined.
St. Teresa of Avila
warns: “authentic prayer changes us – unmasks us – strips us.”
What she means is that
sitting in the presence of a passionate God purges away all the dross, all the
impurities of selfishness, pride, falsehood, hypocrisy, meanness until only
pure gold remains.
It’s no wonder, then, that
many kneel just outside the furnace door – close enough to keep warm, far
enough to keep from getting consumed – and call it prayer. Certainly this
is a comforting and consoling exercise, but it is not prayer.
The ancient desert elders
said it this way: “Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said, ‘Abba, as
much as I am able I practice a small rule, all the little fasts, some prayer
and meditation, remain quiet, and as much as possible I keep my thoughts
clean. What else should I do?’ Then the old man stood up and
stretched out his hands toward heaven, and his fingers became like torches of
flame. And he said, ‘if you wish, you can be turned into fire.’”
And there’s the crux:
Do you wish? Do you wish to be turned into fire?
By praying this prayer, you
have already stepped into the furnace. But to melt into pure gold you
must hold fast as the temperature inside continues to rise.
To be turned into fire, you
must believe that if you knock, God will answer.
To be turned into fire, you
must move toward a forgiving heart, working through any legitimate anger
against those who have hurt or harmed you.
To be turned into fire, you
must be patient and persistent, knowing that God will give you what God knows
you need in God’s good time.
To be turned into fire, you
must pray for daily bread.
To be turned into fire, you
must spend time with God, getting to know and love what God fashioned in your
mother’s womb
To be turned into fire, you
must give without counting the cost “good measure, pressed down and running
over.”
To be turned into fire, you
must act on what you pray, your life must be consistent with the word of
God. You cannot, in other words, pray for your enemies and support war;
pray to be forgiven and harbor resentment; pray so that God’s reign may come on
earth and not do all in your power to eradicate poverty, to stand against
injustice, to protect human dignity
How do you know if you’re
becoming fire? How do you know if you’re melting into pure gold?
Blessed are the pure ones,
Jesus said, for they shall see God. And saint Mechtild of Magdenburg
said, “The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw all things in God
and God in all things.”
Being turned into fire,
being melted into pure gold, then, has something to do with seeing God in every
man and woman, in all created things and being transformed into a person so
transparent that others see the flame of God shining through you.
Picture the three young men
from the Book of Daniel, dancing and praising God, unharmed, in the midst of
the blazing furnace. What the onlookers see when they look in is “a young
man with the face of God.”
The hope of this prayer is
that it may help each of us dance in the flames of love until we become burning
love itself.[1]
It was one stanza that really burned me. Perhaps it afflicted you as well:
It’s no wonder, then, that
many kneel just outside the furnace door – close enough to keep warm, far
enough to keep from getting consumed – and call it prayer. Certainly this
is a comforting and consoling exercise, but it is not prayer.
That’s me. Kneeling just outside the furnace door – keeping
warm but not getting too close – and calling it prayer. I have been saying prayers,
but how often am I really praying? The question becomes, “Do you wish? Do you
wish to be turned into fire?”
“I
have come to set the world on fire,” Jesus said. “And I wish it were already
burning” (Lk 12:49). Call it a resolution, a conviction, a discernment,
whatever, but this year I want to be set on fire. I want to burn with the
all-consuming love of Jesus. I want to hold nothing back. I want to jump in
with both feet and not be afraid of the fire. I want to give Jesus the
permission to change me, to form me, and to lead me where I may not want to go.
I want to do the most dangerous thing on earth. I want to really pray.
