Strength for your week: The source of all our goodness is not ourselves

Strength for your week:
The source of all our goodness is not ourselves

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Contemplation overflows into our lives, bringing us a new sense of response-ability. We learn from prayer and also from theology that God initiates all movement toward good in our lives. Through contemplation we become more and more sensitive to these inner movements. We begin to recognize more clearly where the Spirit of God is present and where the Spirit is absent. Contemplation fine-tunes our awareness so that the Spirit’s presence becomes more and more radiant. The choice to respond to the Spirit is always in our hands.
We can refuse; we can feign ignorance; we can choose to be deaf. This deliberate nonresponsiveness to the Spirit is the clearest way to grasp the nature of sin in our daily lives. Our refusals often lead to actions that violate the law of God and communion with his people, as well as our vocation to love and service. This nonresponsiveness penetrates the marrow of our days more completely than does the vague list of sins we may look over before confession. Perhaps the drop we have seen in the reception of the sacrament of Penance is precisely because our sense of the Spirit’s direction in our lives has weakened. We can also freely choose to respond to the Spirit’s gentle voice.
Attunement to the Spirit
Contemplation—the sacred space in which we become attuned to the voice of the Spirit of God—reveals to us our total dependence on God. The source of all our goodness is not ourselves, our willpower to do good, or our strength based on our health. We wait upon the Spirit.
1. Make a list of your daily activities. Choose a day, and as you go through each activity, observe whether you are aware of being led by the Spirit.

• Do you start the day with a time of silent contemplation, however short? 
• Do you stop to offer a prayer before making a decision? 
• Is time spent in the car driving from place to place simply a mindless exercise, or are you aware of soaking in the Spirit’s peace? 
• Do you sense God with you and in you as you begin an activity? Have you discovered God as the source of all your activity? Are there some activities in which you feel this and others in which you don’t? Try for a few days to notice your awareness of the Spirit’s presence and activity. 

2. For a week, try starting each day with a five-minute period of contemplation. If you are very busy, do it while you’re drinking coffee, or get up five minutes earlier. Open yourself to the Spirit and ask for guidance during the day.

3. Choose two activities of a typical day in which you especially wish to follow the Spirit’s lead. Picture yourself doing the activity. Curiously ponder: what could be different about this activity? What are various new approaches you could take? What do you need in order to be different when accomplishing this work? Be specific. Ask the Spirit to come into that activity with you, in you, and through you. At the end of each day review those two activities, and see if you were aware of the Spirit’s presence and where the Spirit was leading.

Excerpted from Beginning Contemplative Prayer
by Kathryn J. Hermes, FSP