EP 4 - Daily Prayer
00:00 No, no, peace, domine, domine. No, no, peace, domine. Se domine, se domine, grua da roina.
00:23 Tro McLean over the years, I've met many young girdels, old girdels, and even he haven't played very old girdels who can still remember the talks I gave at Walsinger House.
00:41 that's the name of the retreat center that I ran from 1969 to 1981. They remember particularly the blueprint that I gave them for prayer, because they not only used it themselves, but they used it for their children.
00:59 That's why I've been using it on this course. So far we've spoken about the first word of the art father as the first reminder for morning prayer.
01:11 The letter O reminding us to make our morning offering. The letter U to remind us that at all times we are in Christ, in union with him, with his prayer.
01:23 And the letter R to remind us that the forthcoming day must be offered to God, for his honor and glory, and not for our honor and glory.
01:35 Now, I want to move on to speak about prayer during the day, 10 min at the most. We stop for a cup of coffee, we stop for a cup of tea, we stop for lunch.
01:50 We must find some time also to stop for prayer. Without physical nourishment, we find we are flagging by the end of the day.
01:58 We will be spiritually flagging without a pause, just for a little prayer during the day and to promise for ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― � i us de other day God has loved us God is loving us and he will continue to love us and that isn't the problem the problem is
02:50 what are we doing to receive him this is a question that I was putting to myself at the end of my school days in the last retreat and I found an answer not from the Bible but from Shakespeare.
03:06 Let me tell you a story ―The bishop twisted his uncle. Therefore, he couldn't take the pilgrimage to Rome, couldn't lead the pilgrimage to Rome.
03:18 ―So he said, I'll come for your speech, Dian instead, and oh, the school was in absolute panic stations, why? ―Because it was normal if he was coming for us to put on some sort of production.
03:31 en de quai, en de singe, en de playe, en de mini opera, en de guil, en de solivae, no time.
03:38 So, what was decided was that we'd put on a Shakespearean anthology, five scenes from Shakespeare, three serious, two comic, the grave diggers scene, From a backbeth, the comic scene, the grave side in Hamlet, and then three serious scenes, and I was in one of the serious scenes.
04:05 The question is, who is going to take the part at Henry V in that famous scene at Hall Flur with the great speech once more into the breach dear friends?
04:16 We drew lots, and a lot fell upon me. So I, of course, I was thrilled, went in front of my mother's full-length mirror in Her bedroom and I practiced all the gestures that I thought should accommodate the words.
04:35 When it came to The Dresch rehearsal, nobody said a word! Nobody commented! I did see a few, fourth-formers, the back, a laughing but I thought the dramatic tension o i seguidaiaorko gu Although said he told him that he was dead.
05:16 Wauhecki rebuk awisig An filmed at the criminal teams. Mei borer brain a la vie.
05:49 Djenge u Pas na velete Forget e va la fea E va ll fin A CO t Despite the great newest warrior king potentially history, somehow Mr.
06:12 Parkinson had managed to animate me with the same spirit that had animated Henry V. Now I began to see if only someone could animate me in the same way with the same spirit that animated Jesus Christ, then I'd be able to say we're sent Paul.
06:35 I live no, it is no 150kmv in 152. God叫 Jill Park He said, yeah, he said, yes, there's some truth in it, but you must remember that what Mr.
07:10 Parkinson did, he ignited your emotions. At 15 minutes, it was you were led by your emotions, it was your emotions that transformed you into the man in whose name you performed on that stage.
07:32 …but look at you now, you're back to normal." So yes, you need to be changed by the Holy Spirit, into a Christ-like person, and it is only the Holy Spirit who can do that by reanimating you, but from deep down within he has to change not just your feelings, not just your emotions.
07:59 ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― � ― ― ― ― ― Poestant Revivalis, catalic Revivalis have thought that they could transform themselves in their church by these passions, by reigniting their emotions, their feelings, their passions, but they fail, the bubble
08:50 bursts eventually. He said, it must be far deeper than that. He said, I believe in everything from instant coffee 7 Chmj leirna munea Asa munea muneaped andna muneaped andna muneaped Asa muneaped One baby Two- trochę But installed through that Inverted Now she put ,and that is a gradual process.
09:36 It's been the same with secular religions, like Nazism, Fascism, Communism, ,they're able to play on people's emotions, build them up and change them for a time, ,according to their own image and lightness, but it never lasts.
09:56 I remember Sister Margarita, with whom I worked at Walsingham House for those 12 years, she was a German Dominican nun older than me, so she remembered the rise of Nazism in Germany, and she said everybody supported and believed in Hitler at the end of the 1930s.
10:51 I said, well, how do I begin? He said, there's only one way you can begin, and that is by totally abandoning yourself totally to the love of God so that the love of God can transform you into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ our Lord.
11:08 But it doesn't happen overnight. It is a gradual, it is an ongoing process. And he gave me a copy of a book from his little library.
11:19 It was called Labandon by Jean-Pierre Cossard. It was a book that he said he read when he was my age, and it had a deep influence on him.
11:31 It was very much in the Vogue in the 1930s. Wow, that's a long time ago. But nevertheless, I found great help from that book.
11:41 If we're really going to progress and deepen our spiritual life, it comes not from us or not from our emotions, …and it comes from the Holy Spirit.
11:50 …and we must radically expose ourselves to the Holy Spirit. …Yes, abandon ourselves as Jean-Pierre Grosard put it, abandon ourselves to the Holy Spirit.
12:06 …Now, if you think, well, I've been with you so far, but you know, let's face it, …you're going over the top a bit now, aren't you, abandon yourself.
12:14 por el citrus, como a pensado, como as said? wa Life To Live, iMA■I, clás d iMA■I is a bannedish, rund yourself totally.
12:23 If that's what you're thinking, then the problem is not with the Holis but the problem is with you. The problem is that you are only been living a purely nominal catalysis superficial catalysis.
12:37 If you take really, really, …actually believed that Jesus Christ our Lord rose on what first day. …that he's alive now,… …alaive and loving now, and his love is pouring out every single day of our lives.
12:54 Then, you would realise, that it is not totally unrealistic. In fact, it's the only thing you really want to do to give yourself toe-to-de Butizarly to Him to abandon you self to Him.
13:10 —And so I began to read Labando, by Jean-Pierre Grosard. —And he began to develop a very interesting idea called what he called the sacrament of the present moment.
13:30 In other words, you can only totally abandon yourself to God here and now in the present moment. a when you go into prayer, you go into the present moment, which is the only moment that opens onto eternity.
13:46 That's why it is called a sacrament. Now you don't hear much of that today except in the sporting world, not maybe in the spiritual life but in sporting life you do, because every good coach worth his salt aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft,
14:22 aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, aft, a utal atension to what you are doing.
14:36 One moment thinking of raising the trophy. One moment of considering, putting on the gold medal or thinking, what you are going to say when you are given the cup.
14:51 One moment thinking of the future, you finished, one moment thinking of the past, you finish. You must enter into the present moment.
14:58 When you pray, enter into the present moment, the zone. a' this is what you must try to do when you stop in the middle of the day try to enter into the zone, try to put aside all those thoughts and distractions that are coming from the world that you've just left, or from the world to which you are shortly
15:18 to return, to fix yourself in your attention totally on God. And the moment your attention is deflected from him, then to turn back …and to turn back again.
15:32 This is what Saint Peter meant on the 1st Pentecost day when he said, you must repent and you must repent continually.
15:40 So whatever form of prayer you are practicing, whenever you go into the present moment, into the zone, to send your attention on God, be a moment your attention is drawn away.
15:53 You must turn back and back and back again and again and again and again. This is repentance, which is speeded up in prayer, where you try to turn to God and open your heart and mind to receive His love.
16:09 This is what you must do. Whenever you go to prayer, most particularly now, in the middle of the day when you pause for a short break, practice entering into the zone, practicing, enter into Lamomo practicing, senti pràctis, going into the present moment where alone you can encounter God and experience
16:34 His love. Now, when you consider all that God has done is doing now for us, that He's literally moving heaven on earth for us, literally, in all that we may share in the ecstatic bliss Of his glory, for eternity, all that he has done is doing now to bring this about.
17:02 Then really this only one thing we can't do. That brings us to the next letter, and that is the letter T to remind us to thank God.
17:16 I was working at Walsingham House, next door was the Dominican Convent. They always invited me a Christmas to a Christmas party.
17:29 And out the Christmas party, we didn't have ordinary Christmas Crackers, we had Christian crackers. In other words, inside, if you were so lucky as to win, you would get not a paper hat, but a paper halo.
17:48 And then, you would get not a spitting joke to share with your friends, but you would get a Christian aphorism to inspire you.
18:04 And the one I got didn't inspire me because I didn't get it, didn't understand it. It said this, it says, see if you manage better than I do, he said, God is not fully thanked if you only thank him for what he gives you.
18:26 Oh, and it was by a certain e-smith, Chirca 1745. That was all the information I got. So what e-smith or Chirca 1745 was meaning or what he was trying to say, I didn't get it.
18:49 That is until ―I remembered hearing Mother Pyras, ―Thanke, thanking the retreat master. ―No, the retreat master that year was Archbishop Antony Blum ―and it's the best retreat I've ever had.
19:09 ―It was really out of this world. ―One of the holiest men I've ever met. ―No, she said to him, ― ― ― ― ― ― ― d'I want to thank you for the wonderful retreat you have given us.
19:29 But then, she went on to say using what was at the time a contemporary religious cliché, but she said, I want to thank you more than anything else for being you.
19:44 Now, she'd said, she'd read from mother and said that to me a few days earlier when I'd unplugged the drains.
19:51 She said, I would like to thank you for what you've done, but I would also like to thank you for doing you.
19:58 Well, I mean, I really didn't know what she was talking about. But when she said it to Archbishop Anthony Bloom, I knew exactly what she was talking about.
20:08 It was not so much what he had given them, but what he was. And this came over so powerfully on that retreat, the best retreat I have ever attended.
20:20 Now I saw what is meant, it's not just thanking God for what is given us, but thanking God for being God, for being beauty, truth and goodness, for being infinite loving.
20:37 Thank God in Himself for being God. I decided to go back to the early church to see what thank you for thanking men for them.
20:50 Now the Aramaic Hebrew language, both of them, they are primitive languages. They don't have the sort of vocabulary that we've got or you find in the Greek language, for instance, it's a far more sparse so that a single word has to contain and express many meaning all in one meaning and this was true
21:15 of thank you and of thanking God and the word they use was Beracá which didn't just mean thank you God for what you've given us and are giving us but thank you for what you are in yourself so when they pray they said ―we are not only thank you for what we've received, ―but we praise you, we worship you
21:42 , we glorify you, ―we adore you, we love you! ―And all that is contained in the simple word or single word, ―better car!
21:52 ―It sums up everything, that is the real meaning of the praise ―that we need to give to God. Now, if you practice a fat form of thanking God, slowly and prayerfully, to thank God for what is done for you, yes, but in the same breath as it were to, Phrase him to worship him, give him honour and glory
22:32 to adore him, and to love him. That's what real-thanking means. That's what the Aramaic word Beracá means. Try that.
22:48 —And then when you've prayed your Christian Beracar, —Because you are making this prayer in with and through Christ, —Then be still.
23:00 —Be still. —Be still and know that I am your God. —And for a very short time you will experience what it means to contemplate.
23:17 as it were a brief experience in advance of authentic contemplation to which all prayer is orientated.
23:28 All prayer begins with many words but in the end they become not one word but just …and ongoing and enduring stillness and silence in the face of the glory of God to be still, be still and know that I am your God.
23:53 When you pray this prayer of thanksgiving in its fullness, remain still therefore to be aware of God loving you now.
24:06 But this is where all prayer leads into silence, into stillness before God into a profound sublime, contemplative stillness.
24:23 It is the same in a sense in human loving, is it not? Do you remember the poem by John Dunn, the metaphysical poet, when he, it's called the ecstasy, that's right, I was trying to think of the night of the poem, in his poem, the ecstasy, when he writes describing two lovers close to each other, reclining
24:53 on a bank, on a lovely summer's day …and he said, there they lay, there, like the political statues they lay, all the day." And they said, nothing, all the day, nothing more needed to be said, they were at one.
25:22 In his book, women in love, D. H. Lawrence said this. He said speech travels between the separate parts, but in the perfect one there is a perfect silence of the bliss.
25:52 We love to go to weddings, to marriages. We love to be there, because somehow love is there. In the two young people, giving themselves one to another.
26:06 In the ceremony in which human loving is sacrificed, ‒iĴuu steamed to doin tantuna. ‒ioit bet значит unsafe da jangle doch om.
26:22 ‒iĴu stan kenkau ‒iĴu ndeig treero mupe' dithing št umtag mist i noga. ‒i This was the love in marriage, that became the foundation of the early church.
26:47 Marriage, marriages became the building blocks, the living, breathing, loving, breathing blocks of the church. And so when outsiders, as it were, looked in and saw the church, ultimately discussed that God was there, with 이런 apparent insights and build some doors.
27:11 As this blah blah, she began a czasie, which lay to elevate the the creations and bring into the depths of The EM by-yah The last prayer he made before leaving for Gethsemane.
27:45 Father, that they may be one. As I am one in you, …damn me in them …… …and they in me … …, so that the world will realise that it is you who sent me.
28:25 Let me end, yet again with the prayer of Saint Teresa of Avila … …… …there is only one way to perfection, ordan owing to God and there is only one way to union with Christ here and now.
28:43 And that is to pray. If anyone points in another direction, then believe me, …they are misleading you … …and they are on their own.