Speaking to the novices about the canon of the Mass, a question came up, which I think is, of course, important to us. What does it mean if we say, or if we invite somebody and ask somebody, please, pray a real God? What does it mean, pray, real God? I tell you why I would like to say something about this verb, this expression, tonight, because in some way it is In connection with the preparation for tomorrow's Mass, celebrate that beautiful Mass, I am the salvation of the people, says the Lord, in whatever tribulation they shall cry to me, I will hear.

[01:04]

And there is, besides this word of intro, it's another one from the graduate. which may even have an even greater bearing on this question. It says, Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight, O Lord, and the lifting up of my hands as even exactly. This expression, pray real heart, what do we mean by it? What we people understand, they say, you realize for us, it's of great importance, because we as humans, that's our status, that is the power, that is the gift, that is the service,

[02:08]

which we win, that essentially justifies our existence and our way of life, which is determined by the order of faith and not by the existences of the work. And therefore we are asked very often that people rely that we should pray with hope. Now, what we mean, it's good to ask, where the real heart sounds like a tremendous effort, like great intensity. Put into it whatever you can. But then we have to ask ourselves, what can we put into prayer? What is prayer? We all realize that prayer is sometimes out of the innermost center of the human heart.

[03:20]

Prayer is an act, activity, in which man, to a certain extent, transcends himself. Prayer leads us monks of old used to say, to move in the infinite. So prayer is an act which certainly concerns us deeply in the very center of our personality. There's nothing more personal. There's nothing more intimate than prayer. When you pray, withdraw from the public. Go into your chamber, lock the doors, so that you may be seen only by God. So prayer is a real intimate confrontation of our innermost self with the Creator, with the Lord.

[04:31]

with the one who gave us being and with the one who heals, the shepherd of our souls. So prayer by little heart certainly meets with our whole heart in the depth of our It means not only this inner intensity, not only that inner confrontation, most personal confrontation, for which we need six, for which we need more, for which we need less, which cannot be done in a public. Which cannot be done in public. It cannot be done, but we are absorbed in a thousand ways of activities.

[05:35]

But it's not only the inner dimension which is in question in prayer, and which we may need when we say, please pray real hard. Maybe we people need that. Put your whole heart into Make this intention really your own. And we realize that that means real, for example, commiseration. Real compassion. And we are asked to pray, first of all, and even the circumstances of a great misery, great calamity that has befallen certain people. Instead, making this situation more open, interior.

[06:39]

But then it's not only this dimension of interiority which is meant. Pray real hard. It's also, and I think we feel that, that that's kind of, that is associated with pray real hard. And that means make an effort. And make an effort which takes in not only the inner dimension, let us say, the outer dimension. What we have. what we call in the scripture, the soul, our whole living being. Love the Lord your God with your whole heart. That's the depth. Love him with your whole soul. That means our bodily, empirical vision exists.

[07:41]

All that belongs to us, concrete, human being, and with your moral substance, and everything that belongs to you as what you are, as the value over which you rule, the means that are at your disposal. Now then, this expression, to pray real words, is an invitation Put your whole heart into this intention. But not only that. Put all you have at God's disposal. Offer it for this intention. Maybe not in this exclusively real heart. Maybe just in some way. Make some kind of effort. But I would say that here is the way that reality is touched, which in the Old Testament is indicated in the sacraments.

[08:57]

So, pray with your heart. Now, when we look into Holy Scripture, we are, for example, waiting. Man, I say, pop. you shall find that on his lips, in his writings, at least what is left to us, we don't find this kind of, let's say, approach to prayer, which, in other words, seems to, I would say, at least at first glance, make the efficacy of your prayer dependent on what you put into it. Therefore, conceives of fire, or say, as an offering, as a gift, as a contribution that you make.

[10:02]

But we find other expressions in St. Paul which lead us into, maybe, into a slightly different direction. St. Paul asks the Christians, those under his charge, not pray with your heart, but pray without ceasing. Pray without ceasing. Oh, he says, in all things is thanks. Both these expressions certainly are invitations to intensity, to effect. We do pray. But how is the reality of the prayer indicated? Pray all the time. In all things give thanks. In all circumstances in which you live, everything that is sent to you, Give thanks, Alfredo, to the giver of all good gifts.

[11:09]

In other words, recognize all the time and in all circumstances the love of God as the one who fills you with his gifts. And therefore, in yourself, the reaction of pray with unceasing love Realizing that all the time you need and you depend on the supreme love of your God. And in all things give thanks that all circumstances, everything that comes to you is a gift from God with which you react in that inner lifting up of your body Have your hearts lifted up and give thanks to the giver of all these good gifts. So it is in the realm of time and it is a realm of place and circumstances.

[12:16]

And as you know from what we have said before about the idea of time in the Old Testament, this really is in the language of Holy Scripture one and the same thing. Time is made by the things which happen in time. Time is really, as it were, the substance of the events which take place. Now what is then to pray without seeing for all the time? What are the two essential divisions of time? And that we have seen too in the past conference. It is day and night. Time is made up by day and by night. Day, as we have seen in the past, that is the time which is governed and ruled by the power of the sun. And the power of the sun has the effect in order to evoke activity, to give strength,

[13:26]

While the night is the time in which darkness moves, in which, therefore, madness, in which the activity stops and sleep takes over. So these two things, day and night, day as the rising of light, and night and evening and night as the sinking and the lowering of life. There are the spaces in which all our life, every human life, our personal existence, constantly eludes us. That's the essence. Why is it that it sinks? That is the essential rhythm of our life. That is what makes this our time.

[14:30]

The purpose of these two rhythms, the rising and the setting. Now, if we apply that to this invitation, pray without ceasing. Then I wanted to call your attention to that in connection with this word here of the gradual. The lifting up of my hands is an evening sacrifice. The lifting up of my hands is evening sacrifice. What is this evening sacrifice in the Old Testament? That is the one part of what we call the Tamit. Tamit means constantly or little, without ceasing, continuous. How is this continuity of the Tamit offering or sacrifice in the Old Testament?

[15:39]

How is it expressed? In these two words, the Talmud sacrifice has two aspects. It is offered one man in the morning and one man in the evening. In the morning, the prescription is, the word is, that it should be sacrificed there in a place at the side of the altar where the rising sun meets. In the light of the rising sun, This sacrifice should be offered in the morning, while in the evening in the light of the sinking sun. Morning and evening. The Lamb is Israel. The Lamb is in our concept every Christian. Prayer is our addressing ourselves to the shepherd of our souls. We pray as it were as Lamb.

[16:42]

The love is offered in the morning and in the evening. That is the tongue. That is the vocal tongue. That is prayer without ceasing. This morning and in this time of sacrifice was also connected always with the, what we call, the medium. That means an offering does not consist of animal, living animal, what is consists of earthly goods. And these are the things. Flower and oil and wine. Flower and oil and wine. Flower makes bread. What is that nourishment which keeps us in being? That is the very staff of being, of man's being.

[17:43]

Oil, that is what indicates the abundance, a certain abundance of prosperity. Wine, that indicates joy. Flour, oil, and water. These three indicate, let's say, the three essential gifts with which God endows man in his goodness, with which he gives to his love as the good shepherd. And that is our being as the creator. That is prosperity as the one who loves us and who raises us. And that is joy as the one who rewards us, who is our winner. So therefore it is really again, you know, a representation

[18:46]

of our whole, the say of our whole, the meaning of our life, the central meaning of our life in its positive essence. Earnestly sacrifice of the lamb that initiates the complete surrender to God constantly in the morning creates the rising power of life and in the evening the stinking power of life, day and night. So if that is and is an idea maybe of what prayer, what the totality of prayer, what really Pray hard means. Just let us take a few little thoughts as practical consequences of what we have said. We are, as nuns, we are in this position.

[19:51]

Let us start again. We are being asked to pray with real heart for other people, for those who rely on our prayers. Now, what do we do? One thing that we do, of course, in our daily life is that we really enter, one can say, physically into that prayer which is, we call the riches, which is taken at night. What kind of character does that prayer? I speak just in general terms. But what is the general character of our riches? And I would always say and advice, then even though it's being answered, pray with your heart. Don't specialize. Don't immediately and only and exclusively see this as an invitation now to concentrate, let us say, so intensely in the act of your heart on this intention.

[21:05]

I would say one thing that we can right away see if we, let us say, learn from the approach that is beforehand to prayer, that the intensity of prayer, let us say that prayer is real, all prayer depends on it and is realized in the prayer without sin. And that means in prayer at night and in the day. And that means for us as Catholics, it first, or let us say, on the surface, evidently, that our whole prayer is night prayer and it is day prayer. It is vigils, it is three nocturnes, which therefore incorporates the role of the night into And that prayer of visions of Eden, it is the prayer which corresponds to the character of the night.

[22:11]

It is a prayer which rises out of the troubled, out of the conflict, spiritus contribulatus, co-conflict, rises therefore out of that inner complete surrender, which is sacrifice, which is death, and is therefore interiorly connected in its whole character and essence with that fire that our Lord himself offered on Mount Hoth, where he met the whole night of mankind All that tremendous calamity which man through his sin has heaped in the court of victory upon mankind.

[23:15]

On the Mount of Olives he faced it. O Lord, Lord God, let this chance pass. But this challenge was given to him. And that challenge he took. And he took it on the cross. So that is for us the prayer at night. The taking and the drinking of the chalice. It means to accept God's will there where he girds us and he leads us where we don't want to go. Where he leads us into night and into day. Therefore, the beautiful thing is that also that in mid-lives, in the second lockdown, there certainly comes that first wave of redemption. We sing the ayahuasca for the first time.

[24:17]

Out of this surrender, of this willingness to be girded by God, to be led where we don't want to go, It's idolatry with our Lord on the cross. Why is this there? The new day. The day of the day is born. And that is then our day prayer. Our day prayer is not the prayer which we let aside, which would be the expression of our self-confidence, the expression of our self-assurance. Which may well offer the idea that we have something to offer. We bring it ourselves to be. How foolish it would be, you know, for a monk, for example, when he is asked by other people to pray the meal of hope. To think, also for people who ask, for Christians, how foolish it would be to think, now here, this is a very holy person, and he lives a very holy life, and he is constantly accumulating, let us put it this way, accumulating habits.

[25:37]

So, if I ask him to pray for me, it is as if I were to, you know, If he gets to that level, they'll get something. They're out for me. There's a way to learn the Constitution. All that is foolish. In the realm of prayer, because what is prayer? Serve the Lord in fear and rejoice in strength. You see, that is the kind of day and night or unceasing prayer which is indicated in the Word of Satan. That is what makes our prayer really acceptable in the eyes of our Heavenly Father. That we, as servants, in faith, Enter into and follow the Lamb that was led to the cross and did not utter a word.

[26:48]

That is the Easter joke. Easter toys sometimes keep a complaint to say, oh my, this alleluia in the Easter light. To me, it's too weak. It's not convincing. It's too, it's too timid. I like an old sentence that drums and everything, you see, and a real explosion of tremendous enthusiasm. It's not the Christian joy, and it is not the Christian day. It is not the Easter sun. It's not the atmosphere, you know, which surrounds us as Christians. Because who is the sun? Who is the sun of the new Jerusalem? It is the Lamb.

[27:49]

But it is the Lamb that has died for us, that is on the throne as it did. So it is this, this light and this sun which fills our day. And that is also the prayer which we offer. throughout the day. It's always exaltation, yes, but in train. That means in absolute inner dependence, constantly inner dependence. We go so away that when the day or night, maybe we are awake, But when the day rises and the sun is there, then we get our selfish moods. And with our selfish moods, we forget that we are made. We forget that we are redeemed. We forget, in other words, the trailer. And in that way, again, we become masters of ourselves.

[28:54]

In that way, again, we become heavy earths. Our way up to this span, as one says in the Jewish tradition, is like a heavy cloud, you know, which stays like a fog on the earth, you know, and along the way. But the thing is, of course, and that is the beautiful thing in this, that, no, that's the other verse. And that verse says that my prayer be directed as incense in thy style, O Lord. As incense in thy style. That be close to the other. to another realm, one can say, of the temple. You know, the temple was divided into two realms. The one that was the courtyard, and that represents the word. And the center of that way to God was the altar of holocaust.

[29:57]

On this altar of holocaust, the Tammid offering, the morning and evening offering of the land was But then there is another part of the sanctuary, and that part represents the, one can say, the fullness, the fullness which is given to us, which is given by the grace of God to the people. And there is in the sanctuary, and in the sanctuary we have three things. You have a renova, that is the night, and then you have the place for the altar for the chokeway, and then you have the altar of incense. and speaks free without fear, they make the icon. They make that, let us say, the beautiful and perfect state of the Jewish people before God.

[31:00]

Menorah is the purity of doctrine, the light of revelation, that spiritual union with God's light. Then the show breaks, that is the human material fullness, that having what is left, that processing of the daily bread, and enjoying of the daily bread. And then there is the altar of incense, and that is the absolute and pure surrender, which in the day, in the light of the menorah, in the richness which is presented in the twelve ways, a sense to come. Realizing that nothing or this is our possession, is our contribution, is what we have. and what we have achieved, but all that is completely ended.

[32:06]

And therefore, that makes then our prayer wise like the incense. So you see, in these two verses, that's what I wanted to call your attention to. Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight, O Lord. and lifting up my hands as an evening sacrifice. Did you have really the idea of prayer without sin? By day and by night. By night as the evening sacrifice. The inner union with the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. By day, that is the joy of the resurrection. But this joy of the resurrection entrain me in the realization that this joy that we have is absolutely and completely gift and economics of the wounds of our salvation. And therefore, it is taken and received in strength, but still with tremendous inner joy.

[33:12]

So therefore, you see why I pray the best way to respond to this invitation. Dear Father So-and-so, please pray real hard. What you do is take it into your entire life. Take it into your night prayer and make it a part of your day prayer. But before everything else, make it a part of that mass that we celebrate here. And we say at the same time, it is evening sacrifice. And it is the morning of the resurrection.

[33:50]

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