Do onto others as God would have us do

Resolve: Let’s do for one another what we would have God do for us.

This is known as God-like activity. We are here to continue the work that God has begun and to work with the Creator to make this world a better place to live for all peoples.

Another quality is humility.

As Sister Joan says, “The greatest obstacle to the spiritual life is the temptation to make ourselves our own God. It is one thing to know my own gifts and to nurture them but it is entirely another to presume that I have them all.” Humility does not mean we think less of ourselves, or put ourselves down. It’s being who we are before God.

Abandonment is another key element of prayer. Thomas Merton once said, “Pure love and prayer are learned in the hour when prayer has become impossible and your heart has turned to stone.” We often start off in the spiritual life with a wonderful feeling of the closeness of God. This is good but this is a feeling. God is still present when we don’t feel anything. When our prayer life is dry, that is when we are making true progress in the spiritual life.

Trust is another quality of prayer. Sr. Joan says, “The purpose of prayer is the process of falling into God. As the mystics say, we are beginning to learn that God alone is enough. The truth is that none of us really knows where we are going and must never take it for granted that we do. We can plan our lives but we cannot guarantee them.” We must learn to live our lives trusting that God has a plan for each one of us.

The last chapter is Attention. St. Benedict says, “Prayer should be short and pure, unless it is prolonged under the inspiration of divine grace.” Sr. Joan adds, “In prayer we melt into the presence of God within. The Silence of God becomes the central, major focus of our lives, the anchor of our hearts, the stabilizer that carries us through all the moments of life – with all the emotional upheavals that implies – on a straight and steady course directly to the heart of God.”