Sacred Space

August 5, 2006

http://www.sacredspace.ie

Sacred Space is a prayer site run by the Irish Jesuits. It can be read in any of 21 languages. They invite you to spend about ten minutes each day praying at your computer by following their site. The prayers change each day. I do not believe that Christianity is the only “true” religion, as if any human construct could be “true.” As soon as you create an organization, you have begun limiting its scope, and the Divine is without limit. But I have found this site to be a gentle guide to prayer when “free-form” prayer or those proscribed by one’s Book of Common Prayer (Episcopalians) or other official prayer books do not suffice. Some days are just like that.

So here’s Sacred Space:

First, those Irish monks present you with something to meditate on all week long. Here is this week’s meditation:

Something to think and pray about this week:

To prepare for prayer, clean the heart and the senses. If the weather permits, go outside and look at the sky; and stay looking. Gaze at its colours, its changes, the forms and movement of clouds, the effects of the wind, the particular pattern of the horizons all round you. There is so much to watch, not with the eye of a meteorologist or physicist who seeks to analyse, but with the eye of a beholder, seeing and marvelling rather than thinking. With your energy focussed on watching, your mind calms down and your heart settles. On other occasions ring the changes with the other senses: focus for a while on what you hear, or what you feel, or what you taste, or on breathing in and breathing out. This is not strictly prayer, but a preparation for prayer; it can have unexpected effects.

The first prayer is called “The Presence of God.” Here’s a typical prayer:

The Presence of God

What is present to me is what has a hold on my becoming.
I reflect on the presence of God always there in love,
amidst the many things that have a hold on me.
I pause and pray that I may let God
affect my becoming in this precise moment.

Then comes a meditation on “Freedom.” Here is today’s:

Freedom

There are very few people who realise what God would make of them if they abandoned themselves into his hands, and let themselves be formed by his grace. (St Ignatius) I ask for the grace to trust myself totally to God's love.

Then “Consciousness”:

Consciousness

I exist in a web of relationships - links to nature, people, God.
I trace out these links, giving thanks for the life that flows through them.
Some links are twisted or broken: I may feel regret, anger, disappointment.

I pray for the gift of acceptance and forgiveness.

At each step there is a “Prayer Guide” if you should want to read it. Here is the Prayer Guide for “Consciousness”:

What is a Review of Consciousness?

If it is true that God is at work in every detail of our lives, how do we begin to recognise his action and our reaction?

At the end of the day, especially before going to sleep, the mind, without any conscious effort on our part, tends to play back some of the events of the day so vividly that if the day has been particularly eventful we can find it difficult to get to sleep. We may find ourselves re-enacting a quarrel, thinking of the clever and cutting things we might have said if we had been more quick-witted, and so on.

The Review of Consciousness is based on this natural tendency of the mind. It can help us to be more aware of God's presence and action in our daily lives, and to be more sensitive to where we are cooperating with God's grace and where we are refusing it.

“How to Do a Review of Consciousness” is key to Ignatian prayer:

How to do a Review of Consciousness

Let your mind drift over the last 24 hours, refraining from any self-judgement, whether of approval or disapproval, attending to and relishing only those moments of the day for which you are grateful. Even the most harrowing day includes some good moments, if only we take the trouble to look - it might be the sight of a raindrop falling, or the fact that I can see at all. When people attempt this exercise, they are usually surprised at the number and variety of good moments in the day which otherwise would have been quickly forgotten - obscured, perhaps, by any painful experience in the day. Having remembered the events for which you are grateful, thank and praise God for them.

After thanksgiving, the next step is to recall your inner moods and feelings, noting, if you can, what led to them, but again refraining from any self-judgement. Be with Christ as you look at these moods and beg him to show you the attitudes which underlie them. The important thing is not to analyse our experience, but to contemplate it in Christ's presence and let him show us where we have let him be in us and where we have refused to let him be. Thank him for the times we have 'let his glory through' and ask forgiveness for the times we have refused him entry. He never refuses forgiveness. He knows our weakness far better than we do. All we have to do is show it to him and he can transform our weakness into strength. We can conclude with a short prayer, that also looks forward to the day to come, and asks for God's help.

That “Short Prayer”:

Lord, you know me better than I know myself.
Your Spirit pervades every moment of my life.
Thank you for the grace and love you shower on me.
Thank you for your constant, gentle invitation to let you into my life.
Forgive me for the times I have refused that invitation,
and closed myself off from you.

Help me in the day to come, to recognise your presence in my life,
to open myself to you, to let you work in me, to your greater glory. Amen.

Then comes a reading from scripture (Old or New Testament, or the Psalms):

The Word

God speaks to each one of us individually. I need to listen
to hear what he is saying to me. Read the text a few times, then listen.

Psalm 68(69):15-16, 29-30

Do not let the flood sweep over me,
or the deep swallow me up,
or the Pit close its mouth over me.
Answer me, O LORD, for your steadfast love is good;
according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.
But I am lowly and in pain;
let your salvation, O God, protect me.
I will praise the name of God with a song;
I will magnify him with thanksgiving

What are you saying to me, Lord?

Then comes “Conversation”

Conversation

Jesus, You always welcomed little children when
you walked on this earth.
Teach me to have a childlike trust in you.
To live in the knowledge that You will never abandon me.

Then to end:

Conclusion

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.

Amen.