Just Breathe

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16th Sunday of the Year B

On Wednesday morning I was standing in the queue in the bank it was only a few people in it but from behind me I heard when the customer assistant was talking to the customer “Don’t you realise we have busy lives to lead.” She was getting very inpatient in waiting more than 5 minutes. It stuck a cord with me because I was feeling in a rush trying to get everything I need to do in the morning. My reaction of rushing and the lady behind me in the queue means that we in different ways are caught up in modern culture: that of being too busy.
We can live too much in the world and be affected by it that we cannot see what actually is going on.

Imagine then how challenged I became when reading the Gospel. When I read the words of Jesus “You must come away to some lonely place all by yourselves and rest for a while.”  This is not a request but a command. And what is our response “I will do it tomorrow today I am too busy.”

We all need time to stop and relax and switch off. But, I do not think that we should only wait for our holidays to do this. We also need to do this every day. We need to withdraw to a lonely a quiet place to pray and reconnect with the divine.

Prayer is very important. It is our time of the day when we can withdraw to the lonely place to be with the one who loves us. And this is sometimes the problem. For many people they find that silence is oppressive. For when we are silent then we have so many distractions or we find it impossible to be quiet and silent: so we fill our lives with noise and being busy. For me the silence in prayer at the beginning of the day helps me in my service to the Church. I as it were have that moment with the boss. As it were its like a little holiday where I relax and get myself ready for the day.
So silent prayer is important and it really helps us through the day.
So how do we do it?

Whenever we do any exercise it is important to start slowly and build yourself up. For example if you are going to run the Marathon we do not decide to do it and not train ourselves. The same is with prayer and especially silent prayer. We have to train ourselves to be silent in prayer.

This is a way that I got back into silent prayer and may help you. I find the most comfortable place in my house usually my favourite chair and make myself  a nice cup of tea, and while drinking the tea just sit in silence with the Lord. What you may find after a while is that the silent prayer gradually moves out longer.  
Prayer and especially silent prayer helps us to slow the day down, it helps to open our hearts to hear the needs of others and get to know who we are better. It helps us be more dependent on God not on ourselves and helps us be more patient in queues in the bank.

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