The intense stillness of a loving heart

“But it is vitally important at the outset to emphasize that there is no need for a log cabin, cottages, huts, in order to lead a life of prayer. Prayer is interior. The hut, the log cabin, the chapel, is the human heart in which we must learn how to pray. Solitude sometimes helps prayer, and for special vocations is the cradle of prayer, and powerful prayer at that. But for the average Christian, prayer doesn’t need a geographic spot. Prayer is a contact of love between God and man. Married people don’t need a bedroom to make love. One can make love any place and ‘making love’ does not necessarily mean immediately what people think it means! Making love can mean looking into each other’s eyes. It can mean holding hands tightly. It means being aware of each other in the midst of a crowd. So it is with prayer. In the intense stillness of a loving heart all of a person strains toward the beloved, and words-- simple, gentle, tender-- come forth, audible or inaudible as the case may be” (Catherine de Hueck Doherty, a Russian Catholic missionary, venerated by the Catholic Church).

I got to read in John 12 this week where Jesus is “annointed at Bethany” as the header in my NIV Bible says. I was in a rush and only had 10 minutes in between classes to spend time with God (I had woken up late) and in those 10 minutes, I also needed to scarf down some lunch since that was my only break during the day. A sweet woman once told me that she often asks God to “bend time” for her. I’ve been praying that prayer a lot lately. And he answered me. Those 10 minutes were some of the richest of the whole week. There is an image that has stuck with me ever since then -- the image of Mary, secretly treasuring in her mind the bottle of perfume in the other room, moving among her guests, making sure everyone was comfortable, breathlessly waiting for that precious moment when she could go do what had entered her mind only when she had seen her Lord entering her house. I can see her pondering when to make her move, holding her secret all evening, and then finally bringing the bottle out into the crowded room. I’m not sure why, but in my mind’s eye, she is calm and composed, moving with grace and dignity, fully aware of the surprised stares, but choosing to focus on the one person in the room that mattered. “Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume” (John 12:3). “In the intense stillness of a loving heart all of a person strains toward the beloved, and words-- simple, gentle, tender-- come forth, audible or inaudible as the case may be.”

Mary’s action is a prayer, a making of love. The breaking open of this bottle is simultaneous with the breaking open of herself-- she makes herself incredibly vulnerable-- but this emptying of herself is a forgetting of herself, and this pouring out of pure, unabandoned love is not met with judgement, at least not from the one who matters.

I feel that I am experiencing more and more the indescribable, silent secret Mary felt settling within her, the precious inwardness, boundless in its depth of sweetness and profusion. And it does, it feels like flowing liquid, like a cup running over, or a bottle spilling over with perfume. I long to sit wide-eyed at his feet like she did, even while everyone is rushing around us with vain preparations, and I want to hang on his every word, wishing our time would never end together, but carrying him in my heart even while I’m away from him, pondering what I can do for him, how I can thank him, wondering what parts of me I can break open at his feet and pour out to him, how I can love him. I want to look into his eyes. Hold his hand tightly. And be aware of him in the midst of a crowd. I want to strain towards my beloved with every fibre of my being.

I went outside tonight, because I saw the faintest pink flush in the sky and wanted to catch the glimmer of the sun after all the clouds today. And the more I gazed, the brighter it grew, until the whole sky was strewn with orange clouds, fading to pink, and the place where the sun was falling asleep was the source of all that fire. I was surrounded by buildings, but I ran to a place on campus where I could see the grand display. And nothing existed in that moment except the sky and my Lord who was creating it anew every second. On my walk back (I had run a far piece), it was windy and cold as I walked, and the thought came to me that I probably looked ridiculous to the people I passed when I was running to look at the sky. “But I was going to see my bridegroom,” I whispered under my breath with a warmth rising in my soul, and he is everything to me.