Homily: “The Perfect Prayer of Presence”
(NOTE: This homily was given a few years ago but I wanted to share it here today as we journey together into a New Year!)
I would like to begin this homily with a question: “Are you really here?
Now that may sound like a silly question: “Of course I’m here!” You might respond. “I’m sitting here aren’t I?” “You can see me can’t you?” But are you REALLY here? Or are you somewhere else: Back somewhere last year, last month, last week? Or are you already lurching ahead to what is coming next: that gathering, meeting, or deadline? I want to suggest that REALLY BEING HERE is one of the hardest things for us human beings to do.
This is why the prophet Samuel’s response to God’s call is so very important (1 Samuel 3). Samuel’s response is what I would call the perfect prayer of presence. He simply says: “Here I am.” It was dark, he was asleep in the temple, and, we are told, he was not yet familiar with the Lord. Yet, when Samuel hears his name called he immediately responds: “Here I am.”
Prayer for us is always a response. We can fall into the illusion that somehow we initiate prayer. We pray for someone or something, we choose to sit in God’s presence. But whatever our prayer, or our prayer form, it is always a response. Somewhere in the dark of our own lives. Somewhere in the unfamiliar places of our own hearts, God is already calling us by name and when we feel the nudge to pray it is always a response to that voice we’ve already heard whispering in our depths. A response coming out of the truth of who we are. A response giving voice to the deepest longing of our lives. Unlike when other people call us by name, when God calls us by name it is always with a recognition that opens us up to the deeper truth of who we are in God’s eyes.
So all we need to do, like young Samuel, who was yet still only a child, is BE HERE, be present. The perfect prayer of presence is all we need to say to God: “Here I am.” God can only find us where we are right now. Even if that is a dark and unfamiliar place. If we are stuck somehow in the past we can’t hear God call our name. If we are obsessing about some still non-existent future, we cannot hear God call our name. We need to be HERE the best we can. We can never be anywhere but here and we cannot be who we are anywhere else but here, right where we are, right now.
In the Gospel of John, John the Baptist, with his disciples alongside him, looks up, sees Jesus and says: “Behold, the Lamb of God” (John 1:29). Because John is present where he is he not only sees Jesus, but also recognizes who Jesus is. And because of John’s practice of presence his disciples can see Jesus too and choose to follow him. For us too it is only in the here and now, in this place, amid the circumstances of my life this day that we can see Jesus and point him out (live lives that point him out) to others.
When we strive day in and day out to be fully present. When we practice the perfect prayer of presence: “Here I am,” we make ourselves available for God to not only enter into our lives, but through our lives enter into the lives of those around us. And, in the end, isn’t that really what we are HERE for?
We follow in a long line of people who have practiced this perfect prayer of presence. Like Abraham, called to leave his home, all that was familiar to him, and be led into a new and unknown country. Or Moses, who was called to take on a role he never could have imagined for himself: leading others out of slavery and into freedom. Or Samuel, who heard God’s voice in the night and instinctively knew he needed to be present and trust how God wished to draw him into deeper life.
As the New Year unfolds, let us take up that perfect prayer of presence and say to God: “Here I am!” And let God lead us to where he desires us to go.
Chiaroscuro Spirituality 