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Our
physical heart is the source of the flow of the life-sustaining
blood stream. It is the physical center of our biological life.
Corresponding to the physical heart, there is within us a
spiritual heart. It is the source of our choices, loves and
hates. It is the "organ" of our freedom. It is the
center of our consciousness, the place where awareness
originates. Prayer is an act of free choice. It takes place in
the spiritual heart where love and awareness are born. A prayer
that would be said only in the body, only with the lips, would
be no prayer at all. All true prayer, as free loving awareness
of God, takes place in the heart...is prayer of the heart. That
is why we are told to go down into our hearts in order to pray
purely.
Yes,
we must make an inward journey into our own depths if we are to
pray sincerely. We have attended to the proper external place,
time and posture for prayer. All that was only necessary
preparation for the journey into our hearts. There we will meet
Jesus. In order to carry this instruction further, I will have
to select an exemplary prayer formula. You may use any words you
wish. I will use the Blessed Name of Jesus. For me, this Name
implicitly contains all the revealed Truth of God and it is the
sum total of all the petitions that could be addressed to God.
With the prayer formula, Jesus, we will go down into the center
of our consciousness, down into our spiritual heart.
In
order to make this descent, we may use the beating of our
physical heart as a medium. The very act of directing our
attention to our physical heart withdraws our attention from
everything outside us. We will use our physical heart to assist
us in entering our spiritual heart by learning how to say our
chosen prayer by heart. I must first gain your agreement
that a person's heart can say "Jesus," or any prayer,
just as well as a person's voice. What is a word? It is a bodily
motion joined to a mental intention. When you say
"yes," you are making a physical, bodily motion,
forcing air through the voice box with special movements of
tongue and mouth. At the same time you intend that motion to
signify your assent or agreement. When you say
"Jesus," you mentally mean the Reality which you
intend to signify by the physical motion in your throat and
mouth. It is quite possible to intend to signify the same meant
Reality of Jesus by the physical motion of your heart beat. It
is simply a matter of learning to "mean" Jesus by your
heart beat as you once learned to "mean" Him by
producing the oral sound of His name.
At
first, put your hand on your chest and explore there until you
have a clear feeling of the rhythmic "beat-rest"
motion of the heart. After a while, you will develop a
sensitivity to your heart beat so that you will be able to
attend to it at will, with no help needed from the hand. To
begin with, say the Blessed Name, Je - sus quietly under your
breath in association with the "beat-rest" rhythm of
your heart. After some practice, you will be able to drop the
under-breath repetition of the Name, and then you will just
listen to your heart say Jesus with its every stroke.
Once
you have accomplished these mechanics of the prayer of the heart
and become comfortable with it, something disconcerting will
happen. You will find that your heart says the prayer Jesus too
fast for you. After "hearing" your heart say Jesus a
few times, you will be taken up into a very concentrated and
loving attention to Him. This amounts to passing from your
physical heart down into your spiritual heart. But while you try
to abide, gazing with love upon Him, your heart will continue
pumping out its rhythmic Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. At this point, it
would be a distraction to you to pay attention to the prayer
uttered by your physical heart. Now you are in your Spiritual
Heart. Stay there, held by your awareness of Jesus. Forget your
physical heart beat for the time being. Do not hold yourself
bound to listen to its prayer with every beat. The prayer of the
physical heart has done its work; it has served its purpose. It
is no longer useful. Leave it alone to beat and pray on its own.
You are busy now with a higher activity: attending to Jesus in a
single impulse of love in your spiritual heart.
It
will not be more than seconds or minutes at most, before you
lose your concentrated love and attention to Jesus. You will
suddenly find yourself outside your heart. You will discover
yourself engaged in thinking or remembering. You will be lost
somewhere in your mind. Now you must leave your mind with its
endless thoughts, feelings and memories. You must return to your
heart, there to meet Jesus. Immediately you turn your attention
to your physical heart. You listen again to its beating out the
Blessed Name: Jesus. Again, perhaps, your attention will become
strongly fixed on Jesus. You then let your attention to your
physical heart beat fade away. Because now again you are in your
spiritual heart invoking Jesus in a single unbroken stream of
loving desire and consciousness.
To
sum up. Use the prayer of your physical heart as a passage to
the prayer of your spiritual heart. It is not necessary nor
desirable to listen to your heart say Jesus with every single
beat. It is sufficient to return to the heart and listen to it
utter the Blessed Name Jesus whenever we are not in our own
center of consciousness, the spiritual heart.
Whether
we invoke the Name of Jesus with our lips, minds or heart, let
us put our whole heart and soul and mind and strength into our
prayer. These observations apply as well to any formula of short
prayer. In addition to a special daily period devoted
exclusively to prayer in the heart, we should try to say it
frequently during the day. But not too often! Never more than we
are inspired by God. Never more than we can fill with meaning
and sincerity.
URL: www.osb.org/E:\Prayer\Prayer%20-%20general\Prayer%20of%20the%20Heart.htm
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