MY favorite time of the day is the early morning after I arise from bed and take a shower. Then, I would quietly go down to the kitchen to make coffee, take some deep breaths, and feel God’s presence. I would then proceed to the chapel to say Morning Prayer, the Office of Readings, and the Rosary and to meditate. I find this routine to be a calming experience as I begin the day.
I do this exercise not merely to experience peace but to create a space where God and I can enjoy each other’s company. I would imagine him sitting next to me or embracing me with tenderness and love. I also find this form of prayer to be a healing encounter with our merciful God.
I share this experience to keep in mind that God calls each of us to develop a profound friendship with him through prayer. Therefore, our daily lives should include intimate moments with him.
St. John Eudes, the priest who founded congregations dedicated to improving priestly formation, wrote on this intimacy with God in his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ:
“I ask you to consider that our Lord Jesus Christ is your true head and that you are a member of his body. He belongs to you as the head belongs to the body. All that is his is yours: breath, heart, body, soul, and all his faculties.
He belongs to you, but more than that, he longs to be in you, living and ruling in you, as the head lives and rules in the body. He desires that whatever is in him may live and rule in you: his breath in your breath, his heart in your heart, all the faculties of his soul in the faculties of your soul, so that these words may be fulfilled in you: Glorify God and bear him in your body, that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in you.
You must, then, have one breath with him, one soul, one life, one will, one mind, one heart. And he must be your breath, heart, love, life, your all.”
On this Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, may you experience a foretaste of heaven through a profound encounter and union with God in prayer! For that is God wants us all to long for: to be in union with Him as Mary and the Saints are!
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The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the Asian Journal, its management, editorial board and staff.
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Fr. Rodel “Odey” Balagtas is the pastor of Incarnation Church in Glendale, California.
