Our daily prayer invites us to deeply live two evangelical truths: humility and joy.
In prayer when we permit ourselves to be overcome by the love of God we perceive in wonder that our sense of helplessness and insignificance are neutralized by the power and tenderness of God. We sense a new joy and the knowledge that day and night Someone is with us. We feel in peace thanks to his divine compassion. Our desire grows to feel God’s presence expand within us. This internal expansion of God conflicts with our selfishness, our injured pride and our need for prominence and control.
Only prayer reconnects us with love, leading us to gratefully recognize our own pettiness and to repeat with amazement along with the psalmist: “Through God we shall do wonders” (Psalm 60:12).
When we accept our own pettiness, our heart fills with the same conviction that Saint Paul expressed in this verse: “This treasure that I am, I carry in an earthen vessel, so that it be plain to any observer that the extraordinary strength in me has its source in God, not in myself.”
When the heart grows in humility fear dissipates and freedom appears. We are no longer afraid of our insignificance because we feel His caring watch in our daily activity, as a father protects his own. Great energy is found in this experience, fear, anguish and sadness leave us. One only wishes to grow in love. “As love is the humblest but also the mightiest of all forces that a human being can summon”, as Gandhi experienced.
Love is a divine mystery as we are sustained by God´s own heart. Despite our doubts, errors and setbacks He is always by our side. He is ever loyal.
A humble heart is a heart at peace. It does all it must in every situation and it leaves in God´s hands all those “impossible” problems. It knows that there is no failure for one who surrenders to His hands. A humble heart allows those things that cannot be changed to remain as they are.
When one has embraced the mighty resolve to not leave those intimate moments with God, an incredible thing happens: Our eyes are pervaded by His. We are visited by His patience, forgiveness becomes easier and we become more compassionate of those who inflict significant problems on us.
The humble heart is grateful of God´s care. This gratefulness augments our desire to embrace the faith that Mary had and be able to surrender our will to embrace His will in all the daily situations that we encounter. In the understanding that we can overcome our ego and with it, all the suffering it produces if we only realize that it is born out of our pride and selfishness.
It is through Jesus that we feel the desire for Him to mold us into His image. It is for this reason that the humble heart repeats: Jesus, of the gentle and meek heart, let my heart be like yours.
