Collaborator Meditation

I know I have mentioned the Collaborators several times, but have not really explained it. The Collaborators is a laity movement associated with a religious order based out of Italy. The religous order, known as the Apostles of the Interior life, consists of men and women who have consecrated their lives to Christ. Their apostolate/charism is evangelization and spiritual direction. The Apostles serve several priests, laity, and college students. The order now has a couple houses in the US, Kansas being one of them. These sisters have influenced my life, particularly in regards to my faith and spirituality. I receive spiritual direction from one of them and I have always felt a call to serve others in some form of direction.

Just recently the order decided to form a group of laity that want to carry out the same apostolate. So I decided to join in. I am currently on the path to take promises with this group. This means I will make a life commitment to daily prayer and to apostolate of caring for souls. Currently I carry out this apostolate through spiritual mentorship with a handful of college students and women. I can share more on this later.

This past month at our meeting, I gave a meditation on Meditation. I have posted it below. I wanted to recognize that it is difficult to make time for God in our hectic and worldly lives, but stressing its necessity. This is a prayer asking for an increased desire to better my daily devotion. If you are interested please read!

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A Prayer for an Increased Dedication to Meditation

“Spirit of Light, imprint upon [our] minds, in characters that can never be erased, this truth: that [our] apostolate will be successful only in the measure that [we, ourselves] live that supernatural inner life of which Thou art the sovereign Principle and Jesus Christ the SOURCE.”[1] You have called us each here to grow in your love, particularly through the means of meditation. Though you have intimately called us each to form an interior life, we struggle as a result of the Fall and the world of which we live. Father, please help us to recognize your presence in each moment of our lives. Grant us the courage to be intimate with you so that we may place our trust and entire lives into your hands; and furthermore so that we may care for the souls that you have entrusted to us.

Father many of us struggle to set time aside for you each day. We live busy and hectic lifestyles and though we may think we are doing good as Martha did, you would rather us follow the docility of Mary. Help us to see how we can change our daily routines, just in small measures, so that we can always rest in your presence.

Lord, we recognize that our ultimate goal is happiness and we can only seek this through a personal relationship with you. We also know that the foundation of this relationship must be built upon a rock of prayer...a time of meditation. Help us to change our ways, ultimately striving for a half hour a day. Help us heed the advice of a French bishop who said, “To all [our] occupations,…add a half hour of meditation every morning. Not only will you get through all of your business, but you will find time for still more.”[2] We know your desire for us to have time of meditative prayer, but please grant us the grace to truly deem it necessary. For if we do not have meditation, we shall ask little or nothing of You. Therefore, each day and several times in the day, we must ask You to give us the grace to love You with our whole heart.[3]

Help us to make small progressions towards constant awareness of your presence by helping us open our day with a morning offering, blessing our food, praying for our families and friends, offering sacrifices through the undesirable duties of the day, participating in the Sacraments, and closing our day with an examination of conscience. Lord, help us to make our meditation fruitful by inspiring us with resolutions that will help us grow in virtue. Help us to recognize You in the people we meet in our careers, vocations, and current states of life. Help us each to see that we are striving to set aside a time in our day where we will give you our undivided attention. Help us to remember, that if we are determined “to acquire an interior life, we must take for an ideal, unremitting domination of self and complete control over [our] environment, in order to act in all things solely for the glory of [You].[4]

Jesus, we are constantly reminded by your cross, just how much you love us. May we reciprocate this love through time of meditation. The Catechism teaches us that "Meditation engages thought, imagination, emotion, and desire. This mobilization of faculties is necessary in order to deepen our convictions of faith, prompt the converstion of our heart, and strengthen our will to follow [You]. [5]Thus, our Love for you is increased and we will more willingly permit ourselves to be loved by you.

Father, we come before you, each with a unique and personal spirituality. “No matter what [our] condition[s] may be, if [we are] only willing to pray and become faithful to grace, [You] offer [us] every means of returning to an inner life that will restore to [us our] intimacy with [You], and will enable [us] to develop [Your] life in [ourselves].”[6] My we set aside our spiritual wretchedness as we draw closer to you through a renewed dedication to meditation. For we only begin to thoroughly know and feel our own spiritual wretchedness, once we start to leave it behind.[7]

Lord you have granted us a simple means to holiness--simply the means of reflecting on scripture and spiritual writings. As we attempt to better our meditative prayer, may we bear in mind that “Prayer is not another part for us to act, another skill for us to master, another subject to study for an examination: [rather] it is a relationship with [You][8]. Increase our desire to converse with you through scripture and meditation. Help us to push through the dry droughts of prayer in order to always acknowledge your presence.

As we close this prayer this evening, may we call upon the intercession of the Holy Spirit and the saints who have inspired us to experience the fruit of daily and persistent meditation:

Come Holy Spirit, teach us to pray well.
St. Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us!
St. Teresa of Avila, pray for us!
St. John of the Cross, pray for us!
St. Alphonsus Ligouri, pray for us!

Finally, may we learn by heart the words of St. Margaret Mary: “I ever possess, and take with me everywhere, the God of my heart and the Heart of my God.”

Amen.

[1] Soul of the Apostolate, p.3
[2] Soul of the Apostolate, p.33
[3] St. Alphonsus Ligouri
[4] Soul of the Apostolate, p.28
[5] CCC 2708
[6] Soul of the Apostolate, p. 19
[7] Magnificat, September ’07, p. 134, Fr. Jean-Pierre Caussade
[8] Magnificat, November ’07, p.251, Fr. Simon Tugwell