“I repeated every word, but while I was pronouncing each word, my spirit would be steeped in the Person I was naming.” (Saint Faustina, Diary 577).
I read a little passage from the Gospel of Saint Luke the other day, and I was suddenly struck by the great mercy of God…
“He went out to the mountain to pray; and all night He continued in prayer to God. And when it was day, He called His disciples, and chose from them twelve, whom He named apostles; Simon, whom He named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.” (Luke 6:12-19).
And as I was reading that passage, I was suddenly struck by the beauty and magnificence of that night of prayer…
When Saint Faustina prayed, she often received visions of the Blessed Trinity, which became so overwhelming to her that she was unable to complete her prayers… Saint Faustina wrote in her Diary 577, “Once, when my confessor told me to say ‘Glory be to the Father’ as my penance, it took me a very long time; and I began many times, but did not finish, because my spirit became united with God, and I could not stick to the prayer. Quite frequently, I am unwittingly enveloped by God’s omnipotence and become entirely plunged in Him through love, and then I do not know what is going on around me. When I told my confessor that this short prayer often takes very much of my time and that sometimes I cannot even finish it, he told me to say it right away, there, at the confessional. However, my spirit became immersed in God and, in spite of my efforts, I could not think as I wished. And so the confessor said, ‘Please repeat after me.’ I repeated every word, but while I was pronouncing each word, my spirit would be steeped in the Person I was naming.”
And I have been reflecting on this as I was thinking about the prayer that God the Son prayed to God the Father through the love of the Holy Spirit during the whole night before He chose His disciples. And my miserable human mind is reaching, trying to imagine the beauty of that prayer…
You see, God is LOVE – perfect LOVE! And that night of prayer was the deepest, most profound, and most perfect expression of the INFINITE love of God. So, when I imagine that night of prayer, I cannot fathom – using my miserable human mind – the great love that existed between the Father and the Son, which was communicated through their LOVE, the Holy Spirit, during that night. For though the Son suffered and died ALONE (the Father and Holy Spirit did NOT suffer with the Son) the Father and Holy Spirit UNDERSTOOD the sacrifice of the Son far better than any other soul, and They love Him perfectly through this knowledge.
And on that night – KNOWING that Christ would do the Will of the Father and choose a disciple who would betray Him – how much LOVE there was! You see, when He prayed, Christ expressed His INFINITE love for God. And the mystery of that consumes my mind.
For Christ not only chose His betrayer, but He TRUSTED him and LOVED him – Judas carried the money purse after all – and, on the night before He died, Christ bent His Holy Head to allow Judas the betrayer to kiss Him…
And today, this causes me to wonder…
How many times has my Beloved bent His Holy Head for me – just so that I too could betray Him with a kiss?
And how much work have I yet to do to atone for the terrible wrong that I do, after God Himself prayed all night so that He could call my soul to be His disciple, just as he called Judas the betrayer?
For I have come to realise, that I am far worse than Judas – for Judas betrayed Him once with a kiss – and I betray Him every single day…
How weak is the soul that cannot rest in the Lord – so weak, it cannot even save itself. How much my Beloved loves me to SACRIFICE Himself for the likes of one such as me – who betrays Him daily, more than Judas ever did…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.