God’s Presence in God’s People (Chapter 12) (Thursday in the fifth week of Lent)

PAUSE
As I enter prayer now, I pause to be still; to breathe slowly to recenter my scattered senses upon the presence of God.

(pause)
I pray Psalm 80: 3, repeating the words slowly, several times:
“Restore us, 0 God; make your face shine on us, that we may be saved.”

REFLECT
Bible: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. (2 Cor. 1: 3-4)

Book passage: The University of Wisconsin’s Center for the Study of Pain conducted an experiment in which researchers timed how long volunteers could keep their feet in buckets of freezing water. They discovered something very remarkable: whenever a companion was allowed in the room with the person whose feet were being frozen, he or she could endure the cold for twice as long as those who suffered alone. “The presence of another caring person doubles the amount of pain a person can endure,” the researchers said.* The same is undoubtedly true of emotional pain. (p.188)
*Kushner, cited in Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah (New York: Doubleday), xiv.

ASK
Ask myself: Who reveals God’s loving presence to me? Do I spend enough time with them? Do they know how deeply I value the comfort their presence brings? Ask the Lord: The apostle Paul says that we can pass on to others “the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” I take a few moments now to ask the Lord to show me someone who needs to know His comfort (from the Latin con fortare, meaning “with strength and support”) expressed through me this week.

YIELD
A prayer attributed to Francis of Assisi:

0 Master, let me not seek as much to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love.
Amen