"Don’t perform righteous deeds to others will see them. Don’t show off that you are fasting. Don’t pray to be seen. Rather pray in your inner room."
Why do we show off? What’s this inner need we have to try to be, to pretend to be more, to be something we are not, even when we are doing good deeds? What is this pride? What is this fear we have, sometimes rejection or even hatred of ourselves?
The Lord want us to pray from our "inner room", from our hearts. Isn’t one of our deepest longings: simply to be able to be myself? Not to have to pretend. Not to feign that I am somebody else. To be accepted. To accept myself. Just to be able to "be". To be understood.
Can we see prayer, in a very fundamental way, as a space for that?
That relationship, that encounter with the One who simply wants me to be me: actually He insists on it because He does see me as I am and loves my heart.
The Lord demands it and will accept nothing less so that He can begin to make me who He wants me to be, not the false self that is being sold to me from all sides.
How beautifully simple: to be that child that I am before Our Father. This is of the essence of prayer.
Imagine being in that space with your family, with those you most love. FAMILY PRAYER? What happens when you pray as a family?
You surrender your false image of yourself and simply come to rest in being yourself before God, in the presence your spouse, your children, your parents, your siblings.
Being together in God. In Love. Growing communication. Growing communion. How intimate! How freeing!
And also...
How challenging, how scary! Especially at the beginning.
So our Mother Mary has given us the Rosary to help us enter this sort of deeper prayer, this deeper relationship with God, to come to know and love Jesus – that can open up a deeper and growing relationship with one another.
Prayer together, particularly the Rosary, as a family can open our hearts and our homes to God’s grace, His power, His light, and His strength for our journey together called life.
Isn’t this what we really want?
Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, pray for us.
