A Prayer On Becoming a Contemplative - By Thomas Merton

  Justify my soul, O God, but also from Your fountains fill my will with fire.  Shine in my mind, although perhaps this means "be darkness to my experience," but occupy my heart with Your tremendous Life.  Let my eyes see nothing in the world but Your glory, and let my hands touch nothing that is not for Your service.  Let my tongue taste no bread that does not strengthen me to praise Your great mercy.  I will hear Your voice and I will hear all the harmonies You have created, singing Your hymns.  Sheep's wool and cotton from the field shall warm me enough that I may live in Your service; I will give the rest to Your poor.  Let me use all things for one sole reason:  to find my joy in giving You glory.

  Therefore keep me, above all things, from sin.  Keep me from the death of deadly sin which puts hell in my soul.  Keep me from the murder of lust that blinds  and poisons my heart.  Keep me from the sins that eat a man's flesh with irresistible fire until he is devoured.  Keep me from loving money in which is hatred, from avarice and ambition that suffocate my life.  Keep me from the dead works of vanity and the thankless labour in which artists destroy themselves for pride and money and reputation, and saints are smothered under the avalanche of their own importunate zeal.  Stanch in me the rank wound of covetousness and the hungers that exhaust my nature with their bleeding.  Stamp out the serpent envy that stings love with poison and kills all joy.

  Untie my hands and deliver my heart from sloth.  Set me free from the laziness that goes about disguised as activity when activity is not required of me, and from the cowardice that does what is not demanded, in order to escape sacrifice.

  But give me the strength that waits upon You in silence and peace.  Give me humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride which the heaviest of burdens. And possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love.  Occupy my whole life with the one thought and the one desire of love that I may love, not for the sake of merit, not for the sake of perfection, not for the sake of virtue, not for the sake of sanctity, but for You alone.

  For there is only one thing that can satisfy love and reward it, and that is You alone.  (Amen.)

Personal Comment and Reflection - By Bobby Sagra

..."But give me strength that waits upon You in silence and peace.  Give me humility in which alone is rest,...possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love...."

  If Thomas Merton is alive and has a Facebook account, I will be among the first to like and be a fan of him.  I was still very young then, when I first read a written book of Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.  I don't have anymore a copy of that book because I only borrowed it from the library, but it left a very deep impression on me about the vision and spirituality of the author.  I have also read other classic works of Thomas Merton like the Seven Storey Mountain and the Vow of Conversation.  Now I am reading Seeds of Contemplation from where I got the the prayer above.  Indeed, contemplation is a personal call from God to discover Him in a new way in one's own spiritual journey of faith, love and hope.  God is all knowing and is present in all of His creation, especially in all of us members of the human family. To begin to contemplate is to make God the One to whom our hearts desire, the One to whom our minds seek to grasp and understand, the One to whom our restless soul can find true and lasting rest.

  Hence, the source, reason and goal of contemplation is God.  The process of contemplation is seeking God 24/7 in every nook and corner of His creation, in every moment and experience of life, in His revelation of Himself in silence, in the marketplace of unending sounds and voices of people, in the byways of society, in emptiness and fullness, in poverty and sickness and even death. To be a contemplative is to make a decision to make seeking God a way of everyday life, so that at the end of each day, when sunset comes, our eyes can glance to the western horizon and say a prayer of gratitude for the gift of having that experience of the divine and the love of God in the hours of the day that etched a portrait of God in our souls, hearts and minds.

  The beauty of God's creation is that He created our minds to know Him, our hearts to love Him and our souls to find rest in Him.  When our minds are cluttered by the avalanche of digital communications, our hearts confused and broken by the hurts and pains and cajoled by the joy and celebrations in the satellite of our human relationships, God comes to us in silence and prayer and assures our souls that whatever happens He loves us still and will show us the way to peace, to wholeness and to mend our broken hearts.

   If not tended daily by the love of God, our souls are like a flower I found in the balcony of an elderly which was dying and without flowers.  I put the pot in the sun to receive the healing rays and I water it every morning and evening.  To my amazement after a while, the flower came back to life, and now is giving joy to those who come to get amazed at her beauty in the midst of God's creation.

  Let us therefore become the beloved that God dreamed us to be, the sons and daughters that our Father in heaven wants us to behave and the followers of the holy footsteps of Him who said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life."