Dec 25: Prayer in the Silence of the Moment

Hugo van der Goes: The Portinari Triptych (detail)
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, 1476-79

Mass of the Nativity of our Lord at Dawn

Gospel: Lk 2:15-20

But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart (NRSV, Lk 2:19).

Lord God, your evangelist Luke tells us that Mary listened to the wonderful message that the shepherds had heard from the angel, that a savior had been born who was Messiah and Lord. Then after they left, she kept these words and reflected upon them.

Father, we, have first met you in the womb when you called us into existence, and every moment after that as you summon us always to grow in your life. In each moment you speak to us your one, eternal Word. A Word, however, that is not spoken in the language of this world. Most of us have first heard stories about you at our mother’s knee. The stories have been repeated by others, by priests and teachers. The stories are all around us, repeated over and over, with this emphasis or that, never quite the same. How do we make sense of it all for our lives? We come to understand and we grow in that understanding, Lord, like Mary, by pondering it in our hearts.

Every person who has ever claimed to know you, Lord, has turned to you in prayer. There are different ways of praying. We sing hymns. We recite alone or together certain texts that have earned special respect over the years. We sometimes pray using words that come to us spontaneously.

In Jesus we have learned that it was never necessary for a designated one to go apart to plead for us, perhaps offering gifts, and then to return with your favor for us. No, in Jesus we have learned that all of us have direct access to you through him, the Word, as he shares your life with us. It is thus that the followers of Jesus gather together in prayer to listen to the spoken Word and to celebrate your immediate presence among us under tangible signs. These signs, Lord, not only speak of your one, saving act but they are that saving act made visible.

Father, thus it is that our encounter with you in prayer has many forms. It makes use of externals, words, singing, ceremonial rituals, but prayer is only prayer when it is held together by a rich, interior conversation with you, Lord, a conversation that can go beyond language and reasoning. That is because both language and reasoning are of this world and conversation with you, Lord, is a conversation carried out in your Holy Spirit.

In the old idea of priest, before many of us recognized Jesus as the new high priest, it seemed necessary for one of us to go apart. In Jesus we have learned that there is never any going apart because even interior prayer, and especially interior prayer, brings us to you, Lord, and to your life which you share with all who will accept it from you. When I turn inward to listen to your eternal Word, spoken once and for all, I am there with all of my sisters and brothers who hear that same one Word and share the same one life, all of us, one with the other, in the Spirit. I am never closer to you, Lord, and to all of my sisters and brothers who share your life than when I turn inward in prayer.

Mary pondered the words she had heard in her heart. Help us, Lord, also not always to be so busy even in our praying but to pause and listen and reflect on all that you are calling us to do in our love for one another as we “yes” once more to you in the silence of the moment.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.