Prayer and Action

Today the universal church remembers the great mystic, St. Teresa of Jesus, AKA St. Teresa of Avila. Usually when we see the word, "mystic" we think of ecstacies or extraordinary supernatural experiences, and therefore, not for us. We forget that St. Teresa was also a very pragmatic woman, busily engaged in the founding of 16 monasteries in her lifetime, as well as a person whose experience in prayer lifted her to sainthood and has been a guided generations who yearn for closer union with God. St. Marcellin, also, by his life and example, shows that the two, action and contemplation are compatible and necessary for spiritual growth. The theologian, Father Karl Rahner after Vatican II insisted that "the devout Christian of the future will either be a 'mystic'...or cease to be anything at all." Wow! Here's where St. Marcellin's call to be aware of the presence of God often during the day, even by the simple reverent repitition of the name Jesus, while we are busy at work, gives us "loving knowledge and even radical fidelity to the demands of daily life," and helps us grow in faith, ope and love in self-surrender to God and our deepest longings to be united with him. In Psalm 130, we pray:

"I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my souls waits for the Lord,
more than those who watch for the morning." Psalm 130:5-6

Reflecing on these words of St. Teresa might help us blend this yearning with our daily activity.
"Christ has no body now on earth, but yours,
No hands but yours,
No feet by yours.

Yours are the eye through which the compassion of Christ
must look out on the world.

Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good.
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless his people."

Peace,
Bro. Rene