The celebration of Easter fills our churches with joyous music and with the ringing words, “He is risen indeed, alleluia!” At Easter, we celebrate Jesus’ triumph over death and we affirm that we are a people formed by the presence of the Risen Christ. This new relationship to God and each other was forged in the passion of the Cross. Easter fills us with a renewed sense of hope for what is possible as the people of God. But in the following weeks and months, we may fall back into our old patterns of thinking and living. I know this from my own spiritual journey that the stress of daily living can rob me of the very hope that I seek to live by.
One of the ways I have found over the years to help me hold onto the Easter certainty and joy is in rereading a little book, The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence, a 17th-century Carmelite monk. (You can find the text of this book online for reading on-screen or download a free pdf at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/lawrence/practice.)
This small book is about leading a holy life in the midst of our daily multitude of tasks and responsibilities. When I first encountered this book I thought that the idea that I with all my failings could lead a holy life and be holy was impossible. After reading it, I realized that I had had a very limited idea of what holiness was all about.
The Oxford dictionary defines holiness as: “The state of being holy: a life of holiness and total devotion to God.” This definition sounds more like something that can be attained by only the greatest saints than something I could strive for. But for Br. Lawrence, a holy life is captured in the phrase, “our only business is to love and delight ourselves in God.” His view of a holy life is grounded in his open trust in Christ and of Christ’s love for him. To be holy in this way is to take delight in seeing and knowing Christ. Br. Lawrence sees each task he must complete and each person he encounters as just such an opportunity to love and to know Christ.
He also writes about the joy of making little sacrifices each day, such as striving to love even the difficult tasks and people, which he did by having a constant conversation with God throughout the day. This approach to prayer freed me from thinking that only the formal structured prayer that I had grown up with was acceptable to God. To begin each task with a prayer of thanks to God and offering the work as an act of love transforms even the most dreary things we must do. Even in the face of suffering, such a prayer of offering transforms it into an opportunity to experience the presence and and love of God in the midst of the suffering.
Striving with God’s grace to see Him in every person and moment of life has enabled me to experience Christ in a deeper and more dynamic way. For if we praise and thank Him only in the midst of the joys and beauties of life, we miss knowing the Christ of the Cross who embraced rejection, suffering and death for us and who is with us in our own suffering and sorrow.
Such a simple change of perspective and practice, but one that challenges us to break down the division we make between our spiritual life and our daily reality. This Easter, ask the Risen Lord to give you the grace to live by the hope of Easter every hour of every day, and the grace to take delight in your love of God and of His boundless love for you and for all of us.
— The Rev. Canon Stewart Murray is a retired priest of our Diocese.
Approaching holiness
The celebration of Easter fills our churches with joyous music and with the ringing words, “He is risen indeed, alleluia!” At Easter, we celebrate Jesus’ triumph over death and we affirm that we are a people formed by the presence of the Risen Christ. This new relationship to God and each other was forged in the passion of the Cross. Easter fills us with a renewed sense of hope for what is possible as the people of God. But in the following weeks and months, we may fall back into our old patterns of thinking and living. I know this from my own spiritual journey that the stress of daily living can rob me of the very hope that I seek to live by.
One of the ways I have found over the years to help me hold onto the Easter certainty and joy is in rereading a little book, The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence, a 17th-century Carmelite monk. (You can find the text of this book online for reading on-screen or download a free pdf at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/lawrence/practice.)
This small book is about leading a holy life in the midst of our daily multitude of tasks and responsibilities. When I first encountered this book I thought that the idea that I with all my failings could lead a holy life and be holy was impossible. After reading it, I realized that I had had a very limited idea of what holiness was all about.
The Oxford dictionary defines holiness as: “The state of being holy: a life of holiness and total devotion to God.” This definition sounds more like something that can be attained by only the greatest saints than something I could strive for. But for Br. Lawrence, a holy life is captured in the phrase, “our only business is to love and delight ourselves in God.” His view of a holy life is grounded in his open trust in Christ and of Christ’s love for him. To be holy in this way is to take delight in seeing and knowing Christ. Br. Lawrence sees each task he must complete and each person he encounters as just such an opportunity to love and to know Christ.
He also writes about the joy of making little sacrifices each day, such as striving to love even the difficult tasks and people, which he did by having a constant conversation with God throughout the day. This approach to prayer freed me from thinking that only the formal structured prayer that I had grown up with was acceptable to God. To begin each task with a prayer of thanks to God and offering the work as an act of love transforms even the most dreary things we must do. Even in the face of suffering, such a prayer of offering transforms it into an opportunity to experience the presence and and love of God in the midst of the suffering.
Striving with God’s grace to see Him in every person and moment of life has enabled me to experience Christ in a deeper and more dynamic way. For if we praise and thank Him only in the midst of the joys and beauties of life, we miss knowing the Christ of the Cross who embraced rejection, suffering and death for us and who is with us in our own suffering and sorrow.
Such a simple change of perspective and practice, but one that challenges us to break down the division we make between our spiritual life and our daily reality. This Easter, ask the Risen Lord to give you the grace to live by the hope of Easter every hour of every day, and the grace to take delight in your love of God and of His boundless love for you and for all of us.
— The Rev. Canon Stewart Murray is a retired priest of our Diocese.
The Rev. Canon Stewart Murray is a retired priest of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa.
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