GENUINE AND FAKE SPIRITUALITY

WEDNESDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke, OP 

2 Kings 2:1,6-14; Ps 31:20,21,24; Mt 6:1-6,16-18

Seeking the attention of God in Genuine Spirituality

From the discourse on the duty of a Christian to love his enemies and pray for his persecutors, the Lord takes us to the subject of our interior disposition that connects us immediately to God. The key in the teaching of our Lord on this matter is the centrality of God in the life of the redeemed. This theme runs through all aspects of his sermon on the Mount. It formed the very basis of the Beatitudes, which revealed various attitudes or virtues of a Christian that attract special blessings or graces of God directly to his soul. What makes the Christian religion unique among other religions is the direct relationship with God that a Christian has through Jesus. The basis of this relationship is that the Christian religion starts with the note of death to self and invitation or openness to the indwelling of the Spirit of Jesus Christ in our souls. This yielding of rein to the Holy Spirit gives us direct access through the blood of the Lamb to God the Father in the eternal covenant, which brings us to share the life of God as we cease to live our own lives and live the life of God through the Holy Spirit. The parable of the seed a farmer sowed on his farm illustrates this spiritual process and reality well.

The explanation above gives us the background to understand the directives of our Lord in matters of prayer and other spiritual works or engagement. “Be careful not to parade your good deeds before men to attract their notice; by doing this you will lose all reward from your Father in heaven.” There is reason to be vigilant in this matter, or there would have been no need for this warning from the Lord. There is a subtle difference between this warning and his injunction earlier in the sermon when he said: “your light must shine in the sight of men, so that, seeing your good works, they may give the praise to your Father in heaven.” The difference is that the real good works are prompted by the Holy Spirit and done by his grace. We do these good works with our souls enamoured or filled with God’s love. God is the beginning and the end of these good works; hence, our doing of them attracts praise to God and not to us, and for this, we are happy that God is praised. This is not the case for the paraded good works; their source is the self, and they end in the praise of the self. The latter is a counterfeit of the former; It is a corruption of the genuine good work by the evil one. It is against the subtle snares the evil one lays on the path of virtuous works to corrupt them that the Lord warns us. Many Christians fall into this subtle snare of the devil who empties their Christian practices of every merit and makes them charades of genuine Christian good works.

The corruption of the act of prayer that is supposed to emanate from our union with the Holy Spirit is more insidious and dangerous. Prayer is the first activity or operation of the redeemed soul; it originates from our union with the Holy Spirit as a pure cry for God. This purity of prayer can be replaced with a counterfeit by the evil one. Hence, our Lord’s warning: “And when you pray, do not imitate the hypocrites: they love to say their prayers standing up in the synagogues and at the street corners for people to see them; I tell you solemnly, they have had their reward.” Because the intention of the one who prays standing up in the synagogues, at the street corner, shouting in the night, or during the day, is to be seen and considered prayerful, he had received his reward from the people. This consideration is important and to be given a deep thought. If the Holy Spirit initiates prayers, and they are to reach God, then prayer should be an interior activity because God is the Spirit and hears our thoughts and not our words. “But when you pray, go to your private room and, when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in that secret place, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.” The essential things here are the origin and the end of our good works. Love of God must initiate and must be the end of all our good works to be spiritual works. An example of an interior life is the prophet Elijah, who was taken up to God because he lived for God. Also, God answered Elisha’s prayer because he prayed sincerely to receive a double share of the spirit of Elijah for God’s work.

Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, the grace to live an interior life and walk with the promptings of the Holy Spirit, that all we do may be done for the glory and praise of your name; for our salvation and salvation of souls.