Fr. John Keep: Thoughts on Spiritual Reading

The Garden of the Soul
(continued from a June 4, 1972 conference)

Let us make, or let us renew our firm intention to be men and women of prayer. Nothing can stop us if we really want to be, above all else, dedicated to glorifying God, drawing down blessings on the world, and purifying ourselves by prayer. Perhaps the biggest step to take is that of making a really effective resolution to give a definite minimum amount of time to prayer, and to nothing else. This resolution should be so firm that even if we feel completely unable to pray or concentrate or do anything prayerful, we will still keep that period of time empty of anything else. Neither anxiety nor boredom nor restlessness nor anything else must make us violate that time set aside for God. One can adore God by keeping at prayer even if it is a prayer of boredom or anxiety or restlessness. If you do keep it up, the time comes when boredom gives way to peace, and anxiety becomes dissolved in an unexpected experience of trust and confidence, and restlessness changes into regret that you cannot go on praying forever.

Giving God the time and one’s undivided attention is, then, the most important effort we should make in becoming really absorbed by the desire to pray. When God responds to our persistence, we shall no longer have any difficulty in praying a great deal, but shall regret that we cannot be at it a great deal more.

Having fixed the external framework for progress in prayer and in peace and in finding God more intimately by making resolutions about the quantity of time for prayer, we then try to learn how to improve the quality of our prayer, to spend the time at better prayer. The whole of one’s daily life is the background to prayer, and a fussy, noisy life, full of gossip and curiosity is not a good remote preparation for quiet and loving, undistracted prayer with God. In fact, as one’s use of prayer time is improved, so the distinction between prayer time and the rest of the day becomes less. There grows a quietness of spirit and a kind of calmness and warmth through all one’s daily activities. One ceases to be over-involved in the temporal affairs of life, although they are still looked after as conscientiously as ever. One begins almost unconsciously to see everything in God; one sees everything under the eyes of eternity. A really prayerful life will give us not only an immense reverence for the lovely majesty of God, but a reverence for all created things too, for they the works of His hands, and He made them lovingly and with a wonderful purpose. By persevering prayer we come to give glory to God for all creation and to find a harmony between all things. The peace of God, which does pass all understanding, brings with it as well a kind of peace we can understand, a harmony with all that is. All creation was made for prayer. . . .

If only we could realize what it is to be in the presence of our loving Father, paying attention to Him alone. If we realized what He does to us at such moments, whether we feel it or not, we should at least double our times of prayer and regard the loss of them as a greater loss than almost anything else. “Awake, north wind, come, wind of the south! Breathe over my garden to spread its fragrance around. Let my Beloved come into his garden; let him taste its rarest fruits.” Let us cultivate the garden of our soul; let us keep its rarest fruits for Him.

I have told you often, and I repeat it today with tears, there are many who are behaving as enemies of the cross of Christ. (Philippians 3:18)

One of the things much more noticeable now than in the past among some who call themselves Christians is the separation of the life they call Christian from the Cross of Christ. This is, I suppose, to be expected when people lose their sense of sin and substitute a merely social Gospel for the true one. Our Lord died, not to make us or the world prosperous and rich and comfortable, as some people think. He came and died to save us and the world from sin, sin against God.

The Church in its members carries on this work of Christ, which is to save men from sin and lead them to repentance. So while it is quite right to stress the Christians’ duty to do all they can out of charity to improve man’s material condition and remove as much suffering as possible, yet we must never forget that Our Lord came to save us not from poverty or suffering, but from the guilt of sin. He came to make us holy. He came to make even our suffering holy.

No one goes through life without some suffering. There is a cross or crosses for everyone to bear. The difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is that the Christian has a different attitude to suffering from that of the unbeliever. We see, or ought to see, suffering as redemptive, as a remedy for sin. We see it as something to be united with the sufferings of Christ, as something leading to glory, as something that makes us holy. It is something we can offer to God as a pleasing sacrifice and a proof of love for Him.

When suffering or distress of mind or body comes to us, and when we cannot reasonably get rid of it, then we must show that we are not enemies of the Cross of Christ in which we have been given a small share. Everyone has his share in the Cross, and the important thing is to recognize and accept it. We must not separate our cross from the Cross of Christ. . .

Among the words of Jesus that we must listen to are those to all His followers, telling us to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow Him.

It is not the uncomfortable or painful things in this life which are the real tragedy of human life. It is sin that is the real tragedy and which causes all tragedies. And we are surrounded by sin in this world. It is displayed before us in our newspapers and periodicals, on radio and television. From these sources you might easily conclude that the world not only does not recognize sin, but actually glories in it as a manifestation of freedom and maturity.

All the sin around us should make us very sad and give us a determination to be near to Christ Our Lord and to be very faithful in taking up our own cross and following Him. In this way we can do Jesus’ work in the Church, which is to save men from sin, to redeem the world through suffering, to purify it.

Whenever we celebrate Holy Mass and receive Communion, we are sharing in the Passion and Death and Resurrection of Christ. If we are unwilling throughout the day and our lives to share in what we share in at Mass, both our life and our offering at Mass are worthless. It is our life that we offer together with Christ’s life at Mass. And just as we receive from God the life of Christ in Communion, so must we accept the providential events of life throughout the day from God; they too are a kind of communion with Christ. . .

We must never be enemies of the Cross of Christ whether we look at it in the distance or feel its actual weight. We must be glad to make small or great offerings of our sufferings as gifts to God in union with those of His Only Son. A large number of small offerings to God are as sanctifying as fewer great ones, and God will not ask more than we can give. If we are faithful in small things, He will take care of the large things for us.