Christ Centered Prayer

What is Christ centered prayer?

     It is, very simply, talking to God directly; all by myself, talking to Him in my own words, in my own way, telling him all about something; consulting with him; praising him; telling him I really do love him even though I don't act like it sometimes. Christ centered prayer is remembering that the Holy Spirit is in me and remembering that Christ is in me and in my life.

     I picture Him there with me, even though the picture of Him is vague, and I talk right to his face. He is right there with me — that I know.  If I can’t think of anything to say, I tell him so. I tell him I just want to sit there with him and think about his being there so near to me and how glad I am that he wants to be with me. Why does he want to be with me?  I ask Him, “Why.” I say, “Jesus, I know why I want to be with you, but I can't imagine why you want to be with me” — but He does!  How wonderful!  How thankful I am that he does. “I can't think of anything particular to say to you, Jesus, but please let me just sit here with you, quietly, peacefully, knowing you are here, enjoying so much the nearness of you, the knowledge that you are right here with me! This is peace, Jesus; this is joy; this is happiness and this is a holy and a beautiful, shared thing between you and me alone. Just let me love you, Jesus, quietly, like this. Just let me love you.”

    Now, to stimulate ourselves to this personal, private conversing with Jesus, often reading is good — the Scriptures, or any spiritual writing. Ask the Holy Spirit to join you in the reading, and right off that makes two of you and you know what Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”[1]

     So now, you are no longer two, you and the Holy Spirit; but three, you, the Holy Spirit and Jesus. And, I am sure, that right there, too, is God our heavenly Father.

    We should try to pray often, bringing Jesus into the midst of our acts, our thoughts, our words at a moment’s notice, many times throughout the day, so that He is a part of our day, the lining so to speak, that cannot be seen, but that we know is there, the lining that helps to shape and hold the pattern of our daily life. 

     In this way, more and more, our lives can become truly Christ centered and more and more truly Franciscanized. As the book says, there are two centers in prayer, the person of Christ and our own life. We are trying to bring the two together.

    How do we do this?

    Think of the life of Christ, the living man. What did He say? What did He do? How do I relate His living acts on earth — His spoken words to my life now? A good way is to take the little happenings in His life and relate them to my life.

    In the story about the Samaritan woman by Jacob’s well, Jesus sat down next to her as though she were a friend and asked her for a drink of water. She was nationally an age-old enemy of the Jews, and she was looked down upon. Jesus did not look down on her. To Him she was just like any other person, Jew, Gentile, Samaritan — all His sisters and brothers, His friends. Project that into our daily living and what thought do we immediately come up with?

    The Gospels are alive with Jesus and the things He did and said that can be brought squarely into our lives; this is very good for us to practice. In any given situation in our daily lives we should ask ourselves, “What would Jesus do in this situation?  What would He say?” Or better still; ask Him directly, “what would you do, Jesus? What would you say?"  All right! That is what I will do, that is what I will say. This way Christ comes alive in our daily living. He becomes a part of it, another person in it — a V I P in our lives.

    Christ is in us when we receive the Holy Eucharist and because we know this, we see Him in other people. We help Him through the contact with other people. We wheel Christ, in this old person in the wheel chair, down the long corridor. We smile into the face of Christ when we smile into the face of this old woman while she repeats for the 8th, 9th and 20th time the same monotonous little story of her life, and when she says, “Come and see me again,” we know it is Christ inviting us to come again, and again, and again. The more we think about Christ and His life in the Gospels, the more we grow to know Him. To know Him is to love Him deeply, and to want to imitate Him; His gentleness; His kindness; His love and His thoughtfulness. Lord, let there be peace, and kindness, and love in the hearts of all men.