Lectio
“We pray within our chamber, when removing our hearts inwardly from the din of all thoughts and anxieties, we disclose our prayers in secret and in closest intercourse to the Lord. We pray with closed doors when with closed lips and complete silence we pray to the searcher not of words but of hearts.”
— John Cassian, Conferences
Meditatio
Every act of prayer is an act of faith. It is an admission that we are not in charge, that we need God’s help, and that we trust Him to take care of us according to His loving will for us. Yet even our desire to pray is a gift of His grace working in us, a response to His call toward His inexhaustible horizon.
In the same way that God’s grace draws us outward toward the Cross of Christ, it also draws us inward to a secret chamber where His Spirit frees our hearts from the din of our thoughts and anxieties. Beneath even the consolation of meditation on His word and His love, He beckons us to surrender to the depths of His eternal presence, closing the door to our fears and our grasping, and closing our lips to the anxious, short-sighted demands we are tempted to make on Him.
In this chamber, contemplation is revealed to us like a light in the darkness or an oasis in a lifeless desert. Here we are called to meet God alone, to be alone with Him, without even Scripture or the words of our own prayers to comfort or distract us, good and necessary as those are. As His Spirit quiets our cares, God gives us what we need, which is Himself. The prayer of contemplation is an act of mutual giving — God to us and we to God — a divine communion, Spirit to spirit and back again, a foretaste of Heaven and a drawing near to the threshold of marital union between the bride and the Bridegroom.
Oratio
Quieting Presence
You carry Your beloved
across the threshold
of Your secret chamber
into loving communion
into You
where nought else is needed
but Your presence
Your silent presence
the quieting of the din
of world and mind
stillness
solace
surrender
into You
Contemplatio
For these few moments, set down even the good things, the Scripture you love and the prayers you know by heart. He is not asking you to abandon them, only to let them do their work in you while He gives you what you need, which is Himself. Be still, say nothing, and let Him draw you where He will.
Related Scripture
“For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.”
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like True Solitude is a Home: Merton and the Difference Between Isolation and Communion (Lectio Divina), which meets the same hidden chamber from another angle: where this post follows grace drawing us inward to be alone with God, that one finds solitude to be not isolation but the home where communion begins.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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