Stretching our heart
Numbers 24:5-6
How fair your tents are, Jacob, how fair your dwellings, Israel,
Like valleys that stretch afar, like gardens by the banks of a river, like aloes planted by Yahweh, like cedars beside the waters!
Hope. Since the 1st Sunday of Advent when we lit the candle of Hope, we've prepared our hearts to the coming of Christ.
In this reading of Numbers 24:5-6, Balaam has the desert before him and he sees the tribes of Israel, beyond the desert he sees fruitfulness, beauty and victory.
Pope Francis explains that “Balaam opened his heart and the Lord gave him the virtue of hope. Hope is that Christian virtue that we have as a great gift from God that lets us see far beyond, beyond the problems, beyond the pain and difficulties, beyond our sins”. It shows us “the beauty of God”.
For St Augustine, “Hope means stretching our heart”. We don't see what we're longing for but by desiring it, we prepare our hearts for it. By desiring it, we're increasing the capacity of our heart.
Like Augustine, we can learn how to stretch our heart and prayers of contemplation are one way to achieve this.
John Main, one of the modern-day masters of Christian meditation, suggests a very simple and practical type of meditation technique: sit still, sit straight, sit silently; and recite your prayer-word from the beginning to the end of the meditation. Do this twice a day, morning and evening, for between twenty and thirty minutes each time. He says we should do this without any expectation of receiving consolation or enlightenment. Leave that all up to God to grant in his own good time.
Can you spare 20 minutes in silence for God twice today?
A meditation written by Marie O'Grady, project manager at St Augustine's Centre, a space for spirituality and education
Follow the Order of Saint Augustine (O.S.A.), Province of England and Scotland
Thank you! 83 people prayed
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Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone. Col 4:6