Fr. Don's Daily Reflection - January 4, 2025
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from You.”
A certain strand of Buddhism makes “mindfulness” or attentiveness its essence. Jesus' parable of the sower whose seed falls on various kinds of ground touches the same matter: how open are we to the word of God, the seed? The point of the parable is that God's word can only be effective in us if we receive it well.
Daily experience shows us how difficult it is for us to pay attention to anything. We fall asleep reading the paper, watching TV, in class, during a sermon. Or, if we don't go that far, while the priest is talking about the upcoming Lent, or honesty, we are thinking of brunch or wondering where we left the detergent.
Why do so many things have to be repeated and in so many different ways? Viewed theoretically it makes no sense; we should be able to hear and take in what is being said to us. Yet how tough it is for us to give our full attention to anything: a parent, a child, our work, a piece of music, even our food. In fact, we often purposely try to do several things at one time to avoid “wasting,” as we say, all that time on one thing.
Someone has said that there is no moment so rare as one where we want to be where we are, doing what we are doing. More often our attention is scattered all over creation. We might practice the opposite habit during prayer or at Mass. We could begin by making gentle efforts to give our whole attention to what we are hearing.
Instead of fighting in irritation with our distractions, turn them into a prayer or brush them aside and refocus on a word or phrase. Take a word or a phrase like “God is my strength” or “The Lord is with me” and as we sit and find our mind drifting we just repeat the phrase slowly. And over and over again during the time we're trying to pray. Concentration can grow as a habit.
Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”
