Thoughts on contemplation

Is Your Prayer Lopsided?

Contemplation requires a radical shift in thinking: Deep contemplative prayer is not so much learning how to contemplate God by some method or practice, as it is becoming aware that it is God who is contemplating us. Repeat this statement to yourself again and again: Deep contemplative prayer is not so much learning how to contemplate God by some method or practice, as it is becoming aware that it is God who is contemplating us. Prayer is too often viewed from a lopsided perspective, as something we must do, an obligation to fulfill or an effort on our part to reach out and try to contact a God “out there somewhere.” But this is not prayer because there is no relationship, no intimacy of heart and spirit with this kind of separation. Thus one definition of prayer might be: Prayer is God praying in us. The God who lives in you and me prays in you and me. This frees us and is so right because it allows God to be God.

—from the book In the Footsteps of Francis and Clare by Roch Niemier, OFM