Trickling Sand

As you may have read previously on my quest to waking up earlier, I’m glad to report that it has gone fairly well. Looking at my Fitbit data, in July, I had about 4 days when I woke up at 6am +/- 20 minutes. In September, that has increased to 18 days. The biggest change in my life is that I’ve been walking and praying more with the time I’ve gained in the mornings. Hardly goes a day without me walking around the block for about 30 minutes while saying the rosary. “That Gnawing Feeling“, the feeling of restlessness, has decreased as a result of daily prayer. In the past, I’ve frequently felt that something was wrong, and it turns out that it’s because I have let the busy-ness of life prevent me from spending time with the Lord. I would venture to guess that not many Christians would say, “I pray enough”, but rather, “I would like to pray more”. Praying first thing in the morning starts the day off right and practically speaking, you won’t have a dark cloud over your head for the rest of the day, feeling guilty that you haven’t prayed and probably won’t have time to pray that day.

Contemplative All of a Sudden

In the past 2.5 weeks, I have started thinking more about contemplative prayer. Why precisely 2.5 weeks and why contemplative prayer? It’s because Renee has been on a trip to Asia for that amount of time. It’s one of the longest periods where she hasn’t been around in a very long time. To say I miss her dearly is an understatement…but let’s not make this post cringey. But how is that related to contemplative prayer, you may ask? Let’s first talk about what contemplative prayer is.

There are 3 major forms of prayer: vocal, meditative, and contemplative. Vocal prayer is probably the most common form of prayer. It is when we are talking to God, either through recitation of the Lord’s prayer, the Hail Mary or any other prayer. It also includes prayer where we are freely speaking with God, praising him, thanking him, or asking for help. Meditative prayer is when we think and reflect on God’s mysteries, such as when we read and ponder on a Scriptural passage or the mysteries of the rosary. In its essence, it is thinking about God. Lastly, contemplative prayer is entering into communion with God and specifically, in silence. Yes, a bit difficult to understand what that is and instead of trying to explain myself, the following is a great post on the 3 forms of prayer if you’d like to read further. I’m also a fan of Father Mike Schmitz and he does a great job explaining as well below.

Father Schmitz says it well when he said that contemplative prayer is both “beholding” and “being held”. It is looking at God in all His glory and letting Him look at you. During contemplative prayer, there are no words being exchanged; there isn’t even thought. It is merely a “gazing” into each other. Being Catholic, we have the great gift of the Holy Eucharist, where Jesus is not merely an abstraction, but we can behold him in his flesh and blood. Eucharistic Adoration is probably the easiest way to enter into contemplation, because Jesus is physically there for us to behold. All we need to do is sit or kneel in the chapel and place our eyes on Him and take Him in. So, I’m making a commitment to visit the Eucharist regularly and to spend time in contemplation before the Lord.

Marital Love and the Love of God

This brings us back to Renee being gone. Thank goodness for technology, I can now see her on my phone screen multiple times a day. That is great consolation for me as we can catch up on what the other person was up to that day or just chatting about how the kids are doing and other simple things in life. There are also times where we reflect on the meaning of her trip, her seeing her grandmother who is turning 90 years old this year and is starting to have trouble with her memory, her visiting my uncle Patrick who had suffered a stroke a few years earlier, and her visiting the graves of our deceased grandparents. There is much pain in this life and that sometimes makes us sad. However, more often than not, I find ourselves simply looking at each other on the screen without speaking. It reminds me of our younger days when we began dating. We would sometimes sit there and just stare at each other, without saying anything, and that would be enough. Just being there alone with each other was all that I could ask for.

The Lord does not cease to teach me about His love for His bride, the Church, through the love I have for my bride. The more one falls in love romantically, the more one understands the love God has for us. The yearning we feel when our other half is not with us is the same yearning God has for us when we stray from Him. Pope Benedict said during his inauguration as Bishop of Rome, “Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed. Each of us is loved. Each of us is necessary.” Read that again, “each of us is necessary.” In the creation of this vast universe, God has made a point in creating each of us. We were in His plan. God is in love with us.

And here, I leave you with this song by Lauren Daigle, titled Thank God I Do. Knowing that she’s a Christian pop artist, you can easily interpret this song as a song to God, but at the same time, it can be a love song that a husband can dedicate to his wife on the opposite side of the world whom he misses dearly…