Our readings from Mark and 1-Samuel speak about the importance of centeredness in our own prayer and solitude. The reading from Samuel is the famous scene where young Samuel, asleep near the ark of God hears a voice calling out in the darkness, to which he goes to the elder, Eli, proclaiming, "Here I am... you called me." Eli sends him back to bed, not having been that voice in the night. After being awakened the third time, the old, wise man of God discerns that it is the Lord himself calling, and he thus instructs Eli to respond, "Speak, for your servant is listening!"
The Gospel reading shows Jesus, out-and-about, doing the ministry of healing and exorcism. Early one morning, he goes out into the wilderness to pray, showing us the value of prayer and solitude--in particular in the context of an apostolic ministry.
The self-possession which comes from prayerful solitude tends to be a challenge in my own experience. One must have a certain centeredness in one's own identity and powers in order to give from a balanced heart. Take, for example, the ministry of being a school teacher. Having a thousand things on one's mind... bills that are due, what is for dinner once getting home, having to grade papers, keeping an eye on Johnny in the back row who is misbehaving, and so on... a good teacher must be ready and able to put all of those concerns aside in order to be truly present to a young person who presents some need. Maybe it is simply help with a math problem-- or maybe, too, that is a disguise for something deeper. That student may be coming to the teacher at any hour of the day, ostensibly to get help with homework, while having a deeper wound to express and receive reassurance for that is rooted in strife or hunger or illness in his/her family. Only a teacher in full possession of his or her ability to deeply hear and respond in love can respond appropriately to this kind of cry for help.All the more the challenge of priestly ministry. A distant confessor, a distracted preacher, a harried meeting convener, an impatient employer... how often we see this in those who are to be icons of peace and solitude and got-it-together-ness! How often, brothers, do we see this in ourselves? It ain't easy to achieve that solitude that allows us to act from the very core of our being as a beloved child of God, yet that is the call for anyone engaged in apostolic ministry. Prayer is not simply chalking up a score on the board... Office done? check... Rosary in the pocket? check... celebrate the Third Mass on Sunday morning? check... (How tempting this can be for a 'busy' person!) Prayer is that place of ultimate refuge and centering for those who would presume to allow the Lord to work through them. Sometimes elusive, that prayer, that desire for God's presence in the midst of it all, is in itself is a struggle and a wound... but it keeps us honest.
This is the moment when I woefully exclaim that I'm not there yet... that it's a struggle for me... In my best moments, maybe I see a glimpse God's peace. In my best moments, I know I can achieve an amazing, luminous transparency. In the meantime, I continue to strive, through grace, to be an instrument of God's plan and God's action in spite of myself. This is why it is so important to pray for priests, and for priests to pray for one another and for their bishop... we do this work in a beautiful, primal solitude, but we support each other in radical relationship... in deep ecclesial communion. De Toqueville spoke of governments, that in a democracy, "people get the government they deserve". A corollary may very well be operative with respect to the prayer offered on behalf of the Church's ministers: "a [parish, diocese, all the way up to the papal palace, I suppose] gets the priests it deserves."
Henri Nouwen's The Wounded Healer explains the challenge of Christian solitude as the key to apostolic ministry in words that are so clear and inviting and encouraging:
Anyone who wants to pay attention without intention has to be at home in his own house--that is, he has to discover the center of his life in his own heart. Concentration, which leads to meditation and contemplation, is therefore the necessary precondition for true hospitality [for those who come to us in need]. When our souls are restless, when we are driven by thousands of different and often-conflicting stimuli, when we are always "over there" between people, ideas, and the worries of this world, how can we possibly create the room and space where someone else can enter freely without feeling himself an unlawful intruder? Paradoxically, by withdrawing into ourselves, not out of self-pity, but out of humility, we create the space for another to be himself and to come to us on his own terms... ...human withdrawal is a very painful and lonely process, because it forces us to face directly our own condition in all its beauty and well as misery. When we are not afraid to enter into our own center and to concentrate on the stirrings of our own soul, we come to know that being alive means being loved. This experience tells us that we can only love because we are born out of love, that we can only give because our life is a gift, and that we can only make other free because we are set free by Him whose heart is greater than ours. When we have found the anchor places for our lives in our own center, we can be free to let others enter into the space created for them and allow them to dance their own dance, sing their own song, and speak their own language without fear. Then our presence is no longer threatening and demanding, but inviting and liberating.