Lenten Post 2: The Way – A Spiritual Journey

Christianity was originally called a ‘Way’, or rather, ‘The Way’. In other words, it is a journey, an expedition, a great adventure. And it is more exciting, thrilling, engrossing, and ultimately more rewarding than any other conceivable journey. Furthermore, this journey is open to all because it involves falling in love. The more lowly, the more humble a person is, then the greater the possibility that they will succeed. Ultimately, the journey involves falling in love, not with anything nor with any other human being, but with the One who created the world in the first place. St Augustine puts it this way: ‘To fall in Love with God is the greatest romance; to seek Him, the greatest adventure; to find Him, the greatest human achievement’. All of us are called to this journey, and the journey begins here and now for those who are prepared to become more than mere nominal Catholics and plunge themselves without delay into the love of God.

God is Love

God is love. So, when he created us in his own image and likeness, his love dwelt deep down within us. It dwells there not just as the very foundation of our being but as the very centre of our being. Here, it can be experienced in the heart that never ceases to yearn for God despite the sludge of sin and selfishness that tries to stifle it. That is why St Augustine said that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. The more selfless our endeavour, the more our hearts can be open to receive in return, evermore fully, something of the infinite love that can support and sustain it as it yearns to be united with the divine.

All forms of prayer to which we turn—from the very beginning to the heights of mystical union—have one thing in common. They are to help us do one thing: support, strengthen, and sustain the God-given yearning he has placed within us so that it can continually rise to act as a spiritual lightning conductor. This supernatural lightning conductor directs the love of God into the very heart of our being. Here, it suffuses, surcharges, and sustains the only love that can rise to make us one with the One who dwells in love without measure, which is our final destiny. This ongoing and ever-deepening prayer can rise to God only because it takes place within our Risen Lord, where it gradually fuses with his loving of God. The more deeply our prayer is united with Christ’s prayer, the faster we journey on, in, with, and through ‘The Way’, as his love propels us onward in the only journey that really matters.

Making Preparations

Anyone setting out on a journey of any magnitude must first make preparations so they will be sustained when alone and bereft of the support they felt at the beginning when initial fervour or enthusiasm inspired them. When we are feeling most lost, vulnerable, and insecure, we can turn to those prayers that we were taught from the beginning. I am referring to prayers like the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Glory Be, and other prayers, along with hymns, canticles, and psalms we have inherited through hallowed tradition.

However, when we choose to respond to the Holy Spirit, who is always calling us onward into Christ and in him to the Father, Catholic tradition has, from the beginning, taught the way forward for someone prepared to take the next step on the way to loving God the Father. When, at the Last Supper, St Philip asked Christ to show them the Father, Christ asked, ‘Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me?’ (John 14:10). Now, we can see that in order to begin loving God in himself, we must begin by loving Him as he is present in the human being of his Son, Jesus Christ. This is how the first Apostles began their search for God and how they, in their turn, taught the members of the infant Church to do the same.

Learn to Meditate This Lent

With Christianity, a totally new form of preparation for prayer was born, called meditation. However, unlike previous or contemporary forms of meditation, it was not centred on themselves. Instead, it was centred on God and on his love as it was first embodied in Jesus Christ and in all he said and did. The love generated there will enable us to enter into Christ as he is now in his Risen glory. So, as we have seen, love of its very nature yearns for union. As St Augustine insists, the deep yearning in all of us will be satisfied and consummated only when it rests in God.

The love generated from coming to know and love Jesus Christ then, as he once was, through daily meditation, is the only love that can enable us to come to know and love him as he is now. By this, I mean as he is now in his Mystical Body. Then, from being drawn up into his mystical human being, we are taken up into his mystical human action. That means into his mystical loving of his Father. As we participate with him in his sublime contemplation of his Father, we receive the fruits of contemplation in return. These fruits are the infused virtues, the fruits and gifts of the Holy Spirit that can not only change us but, through us, can change the world in which we live.

How Love is Purified

For centuries, the Mystical Theology teaching how this love is purified so we unite ourselves with Christ has been forgotten and even derided by those who should know better. G.K. Chesterton said, ‘The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and so left untried’. St Paul said that he preached Christ and him crucified, and anyone who is not prepared to take up their daily cross as this journey progresses will never be able to rise with Christ to be united with the One for whom they have been thirsting from the beginning.

Please continue to follow my free course on Prayer during this Lent on essentialistpress.com