Feeling at home in Adoration

“Jesus himself never gave any big meditation techniques.  He said, “This is how you pray,” and he gave us the Lord’s Prayer.  He didn't say you have to keep your back ramrod straight.  He didn't say you had to learn to observe your breathing.  Prayer was one area of my life that I instinctively and resolutely refrained from trying to make into a project, which is perhaps one reason the “guided meditations” in which I'd occasionally taken part over the years had left me fairly cold.

            I much preferred Adoration - sitting before the Blessed Sacrament in prayerful silence – at, say, Immaculate Heart of Mary, a relatively poor, largely Filipino parish in East Hollywood.  Here, folks would be snuffling, sneezing, hacking; some kneeling, some sitting.  Sweaters hung askew off shoulders, rosaries dangled from arthritic fingers.  Some eyes were closed, some were open, staring, stricken; people were doubled over, head in hands; people were crying.

            This seemed to me just the atmosphere in which the Son of Man would have felt at home.  I know I did. Here, I could imagine myself the “prodigal daughter” with my head buried in the Father’s breast.  Here I could imagine myself to be Job, saying, My God, though thou slayest me, yet will I put my trust in Thee.  Here I could hear my heart crying, Bind up my gaping, hemorrhaging wounds.  Tell me what I'm to do next, Father, where I belong.  Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Excerpt from Shirt of Flame –

A Year with Saint Therese of Lisieux (2011)

by Heather King (Pg 83-84)