The Vatican II Weekday Missal
has in its Meditation For Spiritual Growth the “Twelve Steps of Alcoholics
Anonymous”. It is stated therein that
these twelve steps have helped millions to put into order a shattered
life. One of the steps has struck me and
has deepened my understanding of the significance of prayer. It reads as follows:
“We sought through prayer and meditation
to
improve our conscious contact with God
as
we understood Him,
praying only for knowledge of His will for us
and
the power to carry that out.”
The words that struck me most
is:
“CONSCIOUS CONTACT WITH GOD”
Reflecting on how I have been praying in the past, it
seemed that most often I had just taken for granted the Presence of God. Yes, I was indeed talking to God but He
seemed to be far beyond my reach. He
seemed to be in a distant place overlooking at what I was doing but without a
real, so to say, ‘eye to eye’ contact with Him.
It dawned on me then that through prayer I should
strive as much as possible to be conscious of God’s loving presence in me and
be in touch with His Spirit dwelling in me.
This requires full concentration that is focused on God’s Almighty Being
in the light of my own understanding on Who He is. To my
mind, purely human efforts would be inadequate to achieve this. To have a
“conscious contact” with God, I have to humbly acknowledge my need for Divine
Assistance.
This divine assistance, I believe, will be granted by
God to me and to anyone who sincerely desires to have this gift of having a
conscious contact with Him. Coupled with
this desire should be a habitual practice of keeping still at certain moments
of the day, for in Psalm 46:10, God says: “Be still and know that I am God.”
Now, every time I have my daily
“Quiet Time”, I strive to put a stop to
what I am doing and in silence allow divine
grace to imbue me with the gift of having a “CONSCIOUS CONTACT WITH
GOD”.
By: Buddy Cagurangan
July 22, 2012
