Remember that in prayer you meet God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, to worship him and allow yourself to be transformed by him. He is the one who takes the initiative and calls you, he longs for your presence much more than you long for his.
"What is yours" is, first and foremost, about making the decision to pray to respond to this call and create the atmosphere that precedes an encounter.
Try to remain silent in his presence, to be attentive with all your faith and love, in order to accept what the love of God wants to make of you.
Through the Spirit of Jesus that dwells in you, the Father wants to make you a person that is more and more like his own Son.
First of all, try to "wipe the slate clean" in order to reach your innermost core and from here open yourself to the presence of God and make yourself available to him.
During this first stage of prayer, try to focus your attention, and this requires a great effort, determination, patience and concentration.
This stance is your humble way of contributing to the work of the Holy Spirit in you: indeed, what matters in prayer is not what you do but what you allow God to do in you.
It is important that in this first stage you become aware of what you really wish for … Express this with a few short sentences that you can repeat to yourself several times.
Remember that you are never alone in prayer: you pray on behalf of many brothers, you carry their wish, their voice.
Feel united with them and supported by them.
(silence…)
SONG:
(Invocation of the Spirit)
Descend into your innermost core, to meet God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit ….
Remain in his presence, do not rush …
Experience the love that dwells in the Divine Persons …
Try to respond to the commandment of love:
“You shall love the Lord your God …”
LISTEN!
The text we want to contemplate is the one that is the most recited by the people of Israel, it is their Creed:
LISTEN!
Let it enter into your heart, let it penetrate into your innermost being: LISTEN!
“Listen, Israel: Yahweh our God is the one, the only Yahweh. You must love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. Let the words I enjoin on you today stay in your heart. You shall tell them to your children, and keep on telling them, when you are sitting at home, when you are out and about, when you are lying down and when you are standing up; you must fasten them on your hand as a sing and on your forehead as a headband; you must write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Dt. 6, 4-9)
(silence …)
SONG
(Song that is conducive to listening, to silence …)
“The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying in Yahweh's sanctuary, where the ark of God was, when Yahweh called, “Samuel, Samuel!”. Samuel answered: “Speak, Yahweh; for your servant is listening”. Samuel grew up. Yahweh was with him and did not let a single word fall to the ground of all that he had told him”. (1 S 3,7,10,19).
(silence…)
"Follow the whole way that Yahweh has marked for you, and you will survive to proper and live long in the country which you are going to posses" (Dt. 5, 33).
(silence…)
This listening stance is necessary in order to embrace the Word, the message, the plan God the Father has for me; in my life, in my day-to-day work, God speaks to me.
Do not disregard any of his words, his message …
“The time in which we live is favorable to exercising the contemplative dimension of life, in order for it to be intimately renewed and strengthened by extracting the lymph that comes from its theological roots."
(John Paul II)
SONG
(A song that is conducive to the listening of the Word …)
(silence…)
Him who seeks confusion, is superficial, fears silence, cannot reach his innermost core.
Prayer requires a gentle violence,
for one must proceed from the world of the senses to interiority.
Prayer is about letting the spirit of the Lord pull us towards the Father, manifest his love and the love of our brothers.
It is about entering into another reality, walking against the general trend, fighting superficiality, my own superficiality.
Praying alone on the path of solitude, with the heart of a disciple.
Prepared to face whatever may come, abandoned in the hands of the Father
Wishing to live out the whole experience.
In full communion with all brothers and sisters …
Free from all the bonds of egoism
With a humble and clear soul.
Free to give … ready to give oneself over.
“Always be in an attitude of prayer and plea, praying always in the Spirit, keeping watch together with perseverance and interceding for everyone".
(silence…)
“We pray for you always:
that our God may make you worthy of vocation and fulfil with his power your wish to do good and grow in faith”.
(silence…)
“Keep watch, always praying, that you may always have the strength”
(silence…)
Him who prays and is in a listening stance discovers the force of the Spirit's murmur, in silence; him who seeks out the face of God, listens to the prayer that springs from his heart :
“Answer me quickly, Yahweh, my spirit is worn out;
do not turn away your face from me, or I shall be like those who sink into oblivion” (Ps.142, 7).
This is the aspiration of him who seeks out the face of God, revealed in Christ. Christ, the face of the Father!
Contemplate this face, enlightened by the light of the Spirit.
Everyone repeat in his heart:
“I shall seek out your face, o Lord…”
SONG
(reply to the election)
- santificatore per rivelare agli uomini il mistero della tua vita, fa’ che nella professione della vera fede riconosciamo la gloria della Trinità e adoriamo l’unico Dio in tre Persone.
Per Cristo nostro Signore. Amen
Conclusion: I believe in you, I hope in you, I love you, I adore you, O blessed Trinity.
Antiphon of the B.V. Mary: Hail Daughter of God the Father, Hail, Mother of God the Son, Hail, Spouse of the Holy Spirit. Sanctuary of the Most Holy Trinity.
