INTERIOR PRAYER the value of silence
Silent prayer in the midst of the pandemic By a Holy Spirit Adoration Sister
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Contributor
ife in today’s world, from east to west, from pandemic experience – persons with definition north to south, has become a novelty. The and character. phenomenon of COVID-19 has become an The second wave of elevated cases will enigma, urging a different lifestyle – a life of display God’s exuberance of an encore of his adventure. While those in the medical and salvific symphony, allowing us to meet him and scientific fields explore and push the limits thus to find ourselves. May the Lord empower of their expertise, they engage in a frantic search to us to develop clarities of faith from within, rich alleviate and attenuate its impact on suffering humanity. meanings and equilibrium, by delving deep As God pushes our boats into the unfathomable depths into his mysteries. When the conundrum of of our hearts, we watch in silence God’s grace giving orchestrations in the panThe charism of the Sister Servants of the Holy Spirit of Perpetual demic, leading us all in Adoration in Corpus Christi, also known as the pink sisters is to our continuing pilgrimage glorify God by living a life totally dedicated to the contemplative life towards the Triune God, in a permanent enclosure. They keep adoration before the exposed the zenith, the apogee Blessed Sacrament, sing the praises of God seven times a day in their and apex of our living and divine office and offer prayers and sacrifices, especially for priests dying. We begin to perand missionaries. ceive His presence, and we are compelled to bend They lift up to God the whole world and the intentions entrusted our knees and exclaim, “It to them. They maintain a special devotion to the third person of the is the Lord.” Blessed Trinity, opening themselves to his action and collaborating Immersing ourselves with him. in the Trinitarian stillness, The life of the order is prayer. For a sister with the Sister Servants of we begin to feel that the the Holy Spirit of Perpetual Adoration, prayer is living and breathing global crisis is like an in the Holy Spirit. For a servant of the Holy Spirit, every day should be exile that reveals the best. a new Pentecost, every breath they should beckon to the Holy Spirit. How? By stripping us of our health, our jobs, close contacts with relations, and the pandemic reaches its culminating point, only the freedom to make choices and even lives. Hopefully, we existentiality of God remains, and he becomes to us the find the essential – God. The exile reveals what really living God. matters and frees us to seek the Lord with all our hearts Sinking into the presence of our Eucharistic Lord, we and to praise his glory – always. articulate a question: Why the pandemic? What is God That this is God’s world and that he rules it will dawn doing? The answer comes – he is saving, rescuing, blesson us glaringly in the silence of our tryst with the Lord. ing, healing, enlightening, judging. We glean a spiritual Out of the emptiness of COVID-19, God would make a insight - God is in battle. A spiritual war is in progress new creation. As an event that produces graces, God will against evil, ignorance, pain. All of us are combatants. recreate our history, establishing harmony and beauty God meets all of us in this crisis, qualifying us by this very in our existential chaos and making it fuel in the furnace suffering the world is enduring. Evil is not everything. It of salvation. Indeed, he is at work, shaping us, makhas an origin and a finish. We see everything that evil is ing us a people for his glory. May we come out of the 28
S O U T H T E X A S C AT H O L I C
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FALL 2020
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M AY T H E Y A L L B E O N E
