19th Sunday Year A - Homily 2

Homily 2 – 2008 

You might remember how last week’s Gospel started: When Jesus received the news of John the Baptist’s death, he withdrew by boat to a lonely place where they could be by themselves. It didn’t work! Thousands of people beat him to the place, so he finished up busily healing their sick, and then feeding them – a crowd of thousands. Today’s Gospel takes up from there: after sending the crowds away, Jesus went up into the hills by himself to pray. He wanted space and time – space where he could be alone, and time when he could be with his Father.

What happened when he was alone with his Father? Was it something like what was described in today’s First Reading: Elijah, alone on the mountain of God, standing with his back to the cave, waiting for God to pass by? After Elijah had witnessed a fierce cyclone, earthquake and fire, the reading goes on: …There came the sound of a gentle breeze.  (Other translations put it slightly differently: … the sound of a gentle whisper, or, more puzzling, but more accurate, … the sound of sheer silence.) And we’re told: Elijah covered his face with his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. With face covered, seeing nothing, he stood immersed in the sound of sheer silence. I wonder if that, too, is what Jesus’ prayer was: seeing nothing, immersed in the sound of sheer silence.

There are lots of ways of praying. My own preferred way of praying is to sit (unlike Elijah, who stood), eyes closed, and simply to be in the presence of God. It is a form of praying with a long Christian tradition. The vivacious, sensate Spanish mystic, Teresa of Avila, spoke about prayer as: “gazing upon God present within us”. I go along with God present, present within me, in the deep core of my own being. I believe that. But I do not see anything - there is nothing to gaze upon. If I listen, all I hear is the sound of sheer silence….  So, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, I simply seek to be in the presence of the unseen, unheard God, who I believe is present within me, and who basically loves me.

The aim of the prayer is simply to seek to empty the mind, to think of nothing, and just to be with God - all the while, repeating a brief mantra to keep the attention from wandering. In a sense, I never succeed. My imagination is like a thousand monkeys. It fills with memories of past happenings or fears or worries or desires or plans for the future.  In fact, the here and the now, the present moment, is desperately slippery – the time of prayer seems to be more a constant and steady… becoming aware of my distractions, gently letting go of them, and patiently bringing myself back to the sheer, empty silence of the present moment.

Does praying like this achieve anything? Its purpose is not to achieve anything, other than to stand open and honest before the mystery that is God. But there is a hope, all the same, a desire that keeps on coming up: the hope that, by being simply available to God, getting myself out of the way, letting go of my ego and its addiction to control, I might make myself less cluttered so that God may do in me, do with me, whatever God wants – and that, I hope, is to share with me the vision and the heart of Jesus.

After sending the crowds away, Jesus went up into the hills, by himself, to pray.