Pilgrimage to 'inner space'

I am inserting some pictures of the good people of the Parish of St. Aloysius, Springburn, Glasgow. It was the feast of Aloysius the patron Saint of the Parish – and also my own second patron. The parish priest, Fr. John McGrath, added an appropriate festive touch to the refreshments at the Guesthouse at Nunraw.

Part of the days Pilgrimage was the processional making of the Way of the Cross marked by the Crosses on the drive between the Guesthouse and the Abbey. The very elderly people were undaunted by the challenge on this uphill trek. It took them longer than expected but they attained the goal of getting to the Abbey for the Mass.

Applying the experience of coming apart in this monastic setting, Fr. John McGrath used the example of Henri Neuwen who suffered from the consequences of overwork, burnout, and needed to find his “inner space”. He went to a monastery and describes his experience of his stay at the Abbey of the Genesee, in “The Genesee Diary”.

Fr. John drew the parallel of the search for that “inner space” which we have to find in our own Pilgrimage in Life. His thoughts are well illustrated in the following entries from Fr. Neuwen’s Diary.

September Monday, 23

Often I have said to people, "I will pray for you" but how often did I really enter into the full reality of what that means? I now see how indeed I can enter deeply into the other and pray to God from his centre. When I really bring my friends and the many I pray for into my innermost being and feel their pains, their struggles, their cries in my own soul, then I leave myself, so to speak, and become them, then I have compassion. Compassion lies at the heart of our prayer for our fellow human beings. When I pray for the world, I become the world; when I pray for the endless needs of the millions, my soul expands and wants to embrace them all and bring them into the presence of God. But in the midst of that experience I realize that compassion is not mine but God's gift to me. I cannot embrace the world, but God can. I cannot pray, but God can pray in me. When God became as we are, that is, when God allowed all of us to enter into his intimate life, it became possible for us to share in his infinite compassion.
In praying for others, I lose myself and become the other, only to be found by the divine love which holds the whole of humanity in a compassionate embrace.

Wednesday, 25

Today I imagined my inner self as a place crowded with pins and needles. How could I receive anyone in my prayer when there is no real place for them to be free and relaxed? When I am still so full of preoccupations, jealousies, angry feelings, anyone who enters will get hurt. I had a very vivid realization that I must create some free space in my innermost self so that I may indeed invite others to enter and be healed. To pray for others means to offer others a hospitable place where I can really listen to their needs and pains. Compassion, therefore, calls for a self-scrutiny that can lead to inner gentleness.

If I could have a gentle "interiority" -a heart of flesh and not of stone, a room with some spots on which one might walk barefooted-then God and my fellow humans could meet each other there. Then the centre of my heart can become the place where God can hear the prayer for my neighbours and embrace them with his love.