Prayer, the sacraments, spiritual reading, doing God's will

Yesterday's post laid out the reasoning for letting go of your own will and letting God's will drive your life. Sounds good! How do you do it? Suppose you decide it's time to try out this God's will thing... How do I know what God's will is? It is notoriously easy to deceive yourself into imagining that your own desires are synonymous with His.

Chapter 8 of This Tremendous Lover ("Seeking Christ in Prayer") begins to answer this question. "There are four great ways of getting in touch with Him; prayer, the sacraments, reading, and the doing of God's will. The latter, in fact, would include them all, but we are here thinking for the moment in terms of obedience to the commandments and the duties of one's station in life."

But first, the chapter starts off with good news on the possibility of a spiritual life. "We exclude no baptized person who is willing to avoid mortal sin. It does not matter what is his or her age, condition, or education, or what has been his or her history; it does not matter what sins he or she may have committed in the past, or what opportunities he or she may have neglected, or what graces he or she may have refused; as long as it is a case of a baptized person, who is willing to try and avoid mortal sin, all the doctrine we have outlined can be applied to his or her case." Boylan cites Matthew 1.21: "And thou shalt call his name Jesus. For he shall save his people from their sins."

The obvious way for such a person to get started is the imitation of Christ, and the way to start this is to get to know Him. "The obvious policy from the very start is to get into touch as soon as possible and as closely as possible with our Lord."

And this is where the prayers, sacraments, reading, and doing God's will come in. They are all intertwined. We need our own concept of God to pray to Him; hence the reading. We need grace to absorb the reading and learn about God; hence the sacraments and the prayer. Sincere prayer comes from sincerity in doing God's will; sincerity in doing God's will comes from praying for His grace.

So where do I stand in all this? I'm long in the sacraments: Mass attendance 6 times a week (OK, sometimes only 5); confession once or twice a month. Prayer is a little weak; I pray before Mass but on days I don't attend Mass I generally don't pray either. Not coincidentally these are the days that are exceptionally hard for me. Reading is a little weak; all too often I pick up a novel instead of spiritual reading. And willingness to do God's will? Mostly OK but sin is more a part of my life than I care to admit to myself.

So how to make some forward progress? I will strive to pray every single day and to read every single day, and to practice the presence of God. By this I mean to stop several times a day, quiet my thoughts, and make myself aware of God's presence in my soul.