Recollection Material – April 2023 TOGETHER IN PRAYER

Mt. 18:18-20.

An essential element in the life of every Augustinian Recollect is PRAYER.

Imitating St. Augustine and the first Recollects, we acknowledge that “Just as our target is the love of God, so our principal care must be all that will light our way more clearly to it” (FV 1, 1), and the long time that the first Recollects dedicated to prayer, as can be seen in the Forma de Vivir, are nothing else but a corroboration of the necessity that the Augustinian Recollect must have for the encounter with God. Prayer thus becomes the essential fountain of love, in order to prevent that the flame of God may be extinguished in the midst of the activities and the daily uproar. We pray together every day. We assemble to pray together the Liturgy of the Hours, but also to pray to God together in silence, opening our hearts before the unfathomable mystery of God like beggars, to receive the graces and the gifts we need for our own life every day. For all this we will dedicate the recollection of this month on our community prayer.

Return to yourself.

          We want to begin this day of Recollection placing ourselves in the presence of God. It is necessary to ask for the help of God and his enlightenment, and of his Spirit to lift us up to God, be moved by God and be inflamed with his love (s. 128, 4).

          We thank you, Lord, because you could not have given us a better gift than to put  your Word as our head, by whom you created all things, and that we become members of his Body, Christ being Son of God and son of man, with you as One only God our Father, and only one man with us men. In such a way that when we speak to God in petition, we must not separate the Son from the prayer, and when the body of the Son prays, it does not separate its own head, being himself the only Savior of his own body, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who prays for us, who prays in us, and who is prayed to by us. He prays for us as our Priest, prays in us as our Head, and we pray to him as our God. Let us recognize in him our voice and let us learn to recognize his voice in us (en. Ps. 85, 1).

Your voice is my joy.

          God speaks to us through his word that is living and effective. I invite you to let this word appeal to you and let it enter your heart so that you may discover what God wants to communicate to you at this moment of encounter with the Lord.

          “I assure you that everything you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and that everything you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

          19“Amen,I say to you if two of you agree on earth to ask something, whatever it may be, you will obtain it from my Father who is in heaven. 20 Because where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.”

The firmament of the Scriptures.

Biblical Keys.

          The Lord Jesus says these words after having spoken about fraternal correction (Mt. 18:1-17). After the text that concerns us today, the Lord speaks about forgiving the brothers (Mt. 18:21ff). Thus it is not strange that in the moment of conflict the Master speaks of the necessity of prayer. The community must pray to prevent that there be any conflict in it, and if there be any, to be able to resolve them according to God’s ways.

          To bind and to loose, on earth as well as in heaven (v.18). This brings to mind the tradition of the Primacy of Peter (Mt. 16:19). In this case reference is made to the community. She it is that binds and looses: who pardons or does not pardon whoever has sinned. This is in consonance with what has been said about fraternal correction. The community corrects, forgives and accepts; on the contrary, it condemns and expels.

          To agree on earth about something to ask, and the heavenly Father will grant it (v. 19). To agree means to have resolved the difficulties and to be in peace. To be in peace is a requirement of Jesus. Ask the Father in heaven and he will grant what is being asked. There is no doubt that God hears the prayers of his servants. Jesus insists on the power of the prayer of petition: ask and you shall receive (Mt. 7:7-11). In this case, the communion among the disciples is what obtains the positive answer from God.

          ‘Where two or three are gathered together in my name’  (v.20). Jesus transfers to the moment of preaching a reality that will become real in the future (the glorification of the Son). Jesus continues to be present among his own (at the moment when he preaches), but affirms that when two or more believers gather together he will be present in their midst (which will be explained after the resurrection).

          Jesus and the heavenly Father become the center of prayer. When the disciples agree with each other and pray asking something from the Father, he listens. When two or three gather together in the name of Jesus, the Savior is in the midst of them. Jesus himself reminds us that he is in their midst as one who serves (as intercessor cf. Lk.22:27). We know that his presence is healing and above all a sign of pardon. In John these two ideas appear together: And all that you ask of the Father in my name, he will do it, that the name of the Father may be glorified in the Son (Jn. 14:13; cf. Jn. 16:23b).

          The community is called to be a place of prayer. Jesus urges his disciples to pray with the heart and in communion of hearts. Before ascending to heaven, Christ asks his disciples to persevere in communion and in prayer, asking the presence of the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn. 14:13-29). The Pentecost is the verification of this task: the apostles and disciples assembled awaiting the presence of Jesus are transfigured by the anointing of the Consoler, who make them missionaries (cf. Acts 2:1-7, 22-24, 29-33, 37-42).

          The community of Jerusalem manifests this reality: they were praying and held everything in common, directing their heart towards God and were of one soul (cf. Acts 2:42-47; 3). The words of Jesus are made real in these disciples: ask the Father (we recall how Peter was freed: Acts 12:5. 12;  see also Acts 3:6-10), and in coming together in the name of the Lord (the election of Paul and Barnabas as missionaries: Acts 13:1-3).

Augustinian Keys.

1. Introduction

          For St. Augustine prayer is an essential element of Christian life, and therefore, of a life consecrated to God. Prayer is like the oxygen that we need to live, since the spiritual space in which the believer lives is God (en. Ps. 26, 2, 18). St. Augustine had already presented this reality in the Soliloquies. In reality, one can be firm and live, only when one remains in God (sol. 1, 1, 3).

          On the other hand, the Augustinian anthropology reminds us that the human being is nothing but a beggar of God (s. 61, 6). The human being by itself possesses nothing, he can do nothing if he does not receive help from God. This is an essential element in prayer. To pray one needs humility to acknowledge that without the help of the grace of God we can do nothing (Jn. 15:4). Human capabilities are vain when he tries to approach God, since prayer is above all a gift and a grace that needs to be petitioned from the humility of heart, of a beggar who knocks at the door of God, so that it be the Lord himself who opens the door of encounter and of prayer.

          Therefore, when we assemble to pray in community, we need to reflect if we have a beggar’s heart who comes before God with humility, or if we have a Pharisee’s heart full of pride, who makes of prayer the moment of self- grandiloquence, of thinking about our successes and in what we have achieved, of ignoring God, or to think of him simply as the receiver of our monologues of self-sufficiency (s. 115, 2).

          To pray implies humility. St. Augustine reminded us of this in his catechesis on prayer directed to the competentes, i.e., to those preparing to receive baptism on the Easter Vigil during which was the so called traditio orationis dominicae, the handing on of the Our Father. This was the Augustinian invitation:

When you say: Give us this day our daily bread, you declare yourself beggar of God. But do not blush; however rich one may be on earth, he is a beggar of God (s. 56, 9).

          And together with humility, one needs the help and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Because of this, every time that we assemble to pray in community, we invoke the Holy Spirit.

          In this Spirit and moved by the love of God is how the believer able to pray. Whoever wants to pray, speak to God without counting on the power and impulse of the Holy Spirit will only make a vain attempt, or will simply remain in an intellectual reflection, or a moment of relaxation, but will not be able to pray. To be able to speak to God, it is necessary that his own Spirit, his grace, put his words in our lips to be able to dialogue with God. Prayer will always be a gift, grace, a favor from God.

          St. Augustine points out the Holy Spirit in this way, emphasizing some of the effects of the Holy Spirit. This Spirit is he who must put the movement of God in our interior, enlighten the eyes of our heart, raise us up toward God, it is he who must make us ablaze in the fire of the love of God, four effects that are beautifully expressed by St. Augustine himself:

Then, in order that you may love God, it is necessary that God dwells in you, that his love may come from him to you and go back from you to him; or that you receive his motion, put his fire in you, illumine you and raise you up to his love (s. 128, 4).

          In this way, the first effect is that the Holy Spirit put his motions of God in our heart. We pray in community so that the life we live be illumined and that it be the Holy Spirit himself who speaks in our hearts. Prayer will then be, in the first place, to listen, to have the ears of the heart open to receive the voice of God who speaks through the Holy Spirit, who puts into my heart motions, i.e., desires to do good,  projects of how to go on accomplishing the purpose of my life, inspirations that I must later discern. Therefore, at the first moment, to pray is not only to speak, but to learn to live in silence and in listening.

          In second place, as St. Augustine points out, is the moment in which God puts, through the Holy Spirit, his flame in us. It is the moment of allowing God, who is a consuming fire, to burn in our life and in our hearts everything worldly and negative that may be in them, and on the other hand, make them burn with his love. St. Augustine points this out when he comments on the text of Dt. 4:2, which says that God is a consuming fire (Deus est ignis edax):

God is a consuming fire. Divine love consumes the old life and renews the man in such a way that God, as a consuming fire, makes us love him, and as

a jealous God, he loves us. Be not afraid, since the fire is God; fear rather the fire that he has prepared for the heretics (Adim. 3).

          To understand this reality, St. Augustine reminds us that the human heart is like a stone, and to be heated, it needs one of these two things: either put it under the sun, or definitively put it into the fire. Only thus can the stone absorb the heat. It is the same with our heart. If it is far from God it will transmit fatigue and routine. Only from God can we be contaminated with his love.

A stone by itself does not become hot, only if it is put under the sun or is put into the fire; if it stays away from it, it cools down. Thus we see that its heat does not come from itself, but it is given by the sun or it is put near the fire. The same happens to you also: if you stay away from God, you become cold, and if you come near to him, the heat reaches you, as the Apostle says: In the Spirit keep yourselves fervent (en. Ps. 91, 6).

          The third effect of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer during prayer is being illumined to see the things as God sees them, far beyond the human perspectives, to be able to see our life, that of our communities, as the classics said it, sub specie aeternitatis, under the light of eternal life. Only under such splendor does everything acquire its meaning and we become conscious of the order of God within the apparent “chaos” of our life. Thus St. Augustine uses the metaphor of the mosaic to speak of our life, and of how prayer helps us to see our life, moved by the Holy Spirit, from the perspective of God and of eternal life. In this way, as when we see only one part of the mosaic, this part may seem deformed for us or without meaning, once we are able to contemplate the totality, we become aware that what seemed without meaning, in fact has it, since it is in relation with the whole. The same thing happens with our life. All of it has meaning, but it is necessary to allow that the light of the Holy Spirit in prayer help us to see things as God sees them (ord. 1, 1, 2).

          A fourth effect of the Holy Spirit is that it elevates us to the love of God. St. Augustine is conscious that there is an enormous distance between God and man. There is such an abyss that man by himself cannot overcome, and he needs the help of God to be able to cross this great separation. As St. Augustine himself points out in the Confessions, man finds himself in a region of dissimilarity (conf. 7, 15), and in that region far distant from God, by himself is incapacitated to come near to God. It must be God himself who must come near to man to be able to elevate him. It is true that God has come close to man in Christ, who has “descended” towards men to bring them to God, and through the Holy Spirit, each time that the human being prays, he is elevated to a loving encounter  and familiar

dialogue with God in his own interior. For this reason St. Augustine continually  invites his hearers to raise the heart. In fact he uses the liturgical dialogue of the preface to make a reflection on the spiritual movement essential to the believer, and this is to raise the heart, because, as St. Augustine points out, God is our goal, and we cannot lose sight of this place towards which we direct our steps:

“Lift up your hearts!” Let us lift up the heart toward heaven that it may not be corrupted on earth, since what the angels are doing there are pleasing to us (en. Ps. 148, 5).

          Let us pray in community to encourage ourselves, as pilgrims of the City of God, to arrive together at our final goal.

Five urgent texts of the Constitutions: TOGETHER IN PRAYER.

          1. “The community ought to be organized in such a way that apostolic activities and daily tasks allow the brothers sufficient time to spend in prayer and in the study of Sacred Scriptures” (no. 27).

          2. “They are to be assiduous in prayer, to frequent the sacraments of the Eucharist and of Reconciliation; to have recourse to the immaculate Virgin Mary (…)” (no. 44).

          3. “The more sincerely and intensely the community cultivates the spirit and the practice of prayer, the more it deserves to be called a praying and worshipping community, and the more effectively it expresses the presence of Christ in the world” (no. 64c).

          4. “Contemplation, or amor castus, has a unifying force and is in itself communitarian. It brings together the brothers –living temples of God- into a community of prayer and worship within the mystical Body of Christ” (no. 64a).

          5. “The religious community like the original Christian community, nourished by God’s word, by the sacred liturgy, and especially by the Eucharist, perseveres in prayer and in communion with the one and same spirit. Jesus’ conversation with the Father is the model for the conversation of the religious with God” (no. 64b).

From Word to Action.

          How is your prayer in community? Have you experienced at a certain  moment the motions and inspirations of the Spirit? Have you learnt to discern such moments?

          St. Augustine said that the heart of man is like a stone and that it needs to be put into the fire in order to be heated. How do you find your heart in these moments? What can you do so that your prayer in community may have more life and may really be a moment of being on fire with God? What elements are obstacles in your life of prayer? What elements help you to pray and what important thing can you empower in your personal prayer and in the prayer of your community?

          Why is prayer important in your life?

Final Prayer.

          Thus, while we are here below, let us make this petition to God: that our supplication may not depart from us, nor his mercy; that is, that we may persevere in prayer, and he may persevere in having mercy on us, through Jesus Christ our Lord (en. Ps. 65, 24).+