Augustinian Sisters of Our Lady of Consolation

Office of the Augustinian Center for Spirituality

La Consolacion Convent, 273 Santolan Road
San Juan City, Metro Manila, Philippines

RECOLLECTION GUIDE
For the month of July 2018

THEME: Entering Into The Well Spring of Prayer

GRACE: Ask the Lord the grace to desire for God, so that this will lead you to enter into
God’s wellspring of prayer.

SUGGESTED SCHEDULE

8:00-9:30 Adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament

9:30-10:30 Communal Reading of the texts given

10:30-11:00 Health Break

11:00-11:45 Personal Prayer and Reflection (Journal Writing)

11:45-12:00 Midday Prayer

12:00-3:00 Lunch Break and Siesta

3:00-4:00 Spiritual Reading or Journal writing

4:00-4:30 Health Break

4:30-6:30 Faith Life Sharing within Vespers

7:00-9:00 Dinner, Community Recreation and Night Prayer

SUGGESTED SCRIPTURAL/SPIRITUAL READING MATERIALS:

a. Is 55:1-13 - “All you who are thirsty, come to the water!”

b. Mt 6:19-34 - “But seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness and all
these things will be given to you as well.”
c. Excerpts from “Contact with God: The Desire for God” by Anthony de Mello, SJ and
the Confessions of St. Augustine.

DESIRE FOR GOD

Excerpts from: “Contact with God: The desire for God” by Anthony de Mello, SJ
From: “Saint Augustine Confessions” Penguin Classics, Book X: 1, 2, 6; Book VIII: 4
“If you wish to attain a deeper experience of God, you must bring two vital dispositions with
you; a desire for God and courage and generosity. If you do not have these dispositions, you
must give time at the beginning of the recollection to acquire them.

The desire for God: God cannot resist a person who desires Him ardently. I was much
impressed by the Hindu story of a villager (Ramakrishna) who came to a sannyasi (a holy man)
while he was meditating under a tree and said to him, “I want to see God. Show me how I can
experience God.” The sannyasi, typically, said nothing. He continued with his meditation. The
good villager returned with the same request next day- and the next and next and next,
though he received no reply until, seeing his perseverance, the sannyasi at last said to him,
“You seem to be a genuine seeker after God. This afternoon I shall go down to the river for my
bath. Meet me there.” When the two of them were in the water the sannyasi grasped the
head of the man firmly, pushed it under the water and held it there for a couple of minutes
while the poor man struggled to come out of the water. After a couple of minutes the
sannyasi released him and said, “Come again to the banyan tree tomorrow.” When he came
the next day it was the sannyasi who spoke first. “Tell me,” he said, “why did you struggle so
much while I held your head under the water?”, “because” said the man, “I was gasping for air-
without air I would have died.” Then the sannyasi smiled and said, “The day you desire God as
desperately as you desired air, you will surely find him.”

That is the chief reason why we do not find God: we do not desire Him ardently
enough. Our lives are crowded with far too many other things and we can get on pretty well
without God. He is certainly not as essential to us as the air we breathe. This is what He was
to a man like Ramakrishna. Each time I think of his life I feel deeply moved. He was barely
sixteen years old and already a priest in a Hindu temple, charged with performing the rites of
the temple deity. He was seized with a longing to penetrate through the veil of the temple idol
and get in touch with the Infinite Reality that the idol symbolized, a Reality he called “Mother”.
This became such an obsession with him that he would sometimes forget to perform the rites.
At other times, he would begin waving the sacred lamp before the deity and, seized with his
obsession, would absentmindedly continue to wave it for hours until someone would come in
and bring him to his senses and stop him. He had all the signs of a man who was deeply,
passionately in love. Each night before retiring to sleep he would sit before the deity and cry,
“Mother, another day has passed and I have still not fould you! How long must I wait, Mother,
how long?” And he would weep bitterly. How can God resist such longings? Is it any wonder
that Ramakrishna became the extraordinary mystic he was? He once said to a friend, speaking
about what it means to long for God. ‘If a thief were sleeping in a room that was separated
from a treasury full of gold only by a thin wall, would he sleep? All night long he would be
awake contriving devices to get at that gold. When I was a youngster, I desired God even more
ardently than that thief desired gold.’” Excerpts from Contact with God by Anthony de Mello, SJ

St. Augustine tells us of the great restlessness of the human heart that cannot rest till
it has found its rest in God. Without God for whom are we created, We are like fish out of
water. If we do not experience the agony of the fish it is only because we kill the pain with a
host of other desires and pleasures, even problems which we allow to occupy our mind, and
suppress the desire for God and the pain of not having Him as yet.

St. Augustine expresses his desire for God in his Confessions as he prayed, “Let me
know You, for You are the God who knows me: let me recognize You as You have recognized
me. You are the power of my soul; come into it and make it fit for Yourself, so that You may
have it and hold it without stain or wrinkle. This is my hope; this is why I speak as I do; this is
the hope that brings me joy, when my joy is in what is to save me.

O Lord, it is You whom I love and desire, so that I am ashamed of myself aside and
choose instead, and I please neither You nor myself except in You.

My love of You, O Lord, is not some vague feeling; it is positive and certain. Your word
struck into my heart and from that moment I love You. Besides this, all about me, heaven and
earth and all of that they contain proclaim that I should love You, and their message never
ceases to sound in the ears of all mankind, so that their is no excuse for any not to love You.
But more than all this, You will show pity on those whom You pity; You will show mercy where
You are merciful; for if it were not for Your mercy, heaven and earth would cry Your praises to
deaf ears.

Come, O Lord, and stir our hearts. Call us back to Yourself. Kindle Your fire in us and
carry us away. Let us smell Your fragrance and taste Your sweetness. Let us love You and
hasten to Your side.”

If you do not have this kind of desire for God, ask for it. It is a grace that the Lord gives
to all whom He wishes to reveal Himself to. Hopefully the recollection, by quieting the other
cravings in your heart, will bring this deep-rooted desire to the surface, to the wellspring of
prayer.

POINTS AND GUIDE FOR PRAYER AND REFLECTION

 What is your interior disposition right now as you desire for God and enter into
prayer? How much is your desire for God, for prayer?
 What struck you from the given reading materials? Why? Name and articulate
them.
 What do you feel you need to bring before your God now in prayer (certain
concerns? needs? burdens? fears and anxieties? pains? consolation?)
 Take all these points and entrust them all to the Lord for His blessing, resting in his
love. End your day with a thanksgiving.

Excerpts from: “Contact with God: The desire for God” by Anthony de Mello, SJ
From: “Saint Augustine Confessions” Penguin Classics, Book X: 1, 2, 6; Book VIII: 4