Responding to the Father's Love | Getting to Know God, Part 3

In this final meditation of our 3-part series on St. Josemaria's homily, Getting to Know God, Msgr. Martin Schlag reminds us that to truly know God is to love him more deeply. As we grow in friendship with Christ and recognize ourselves as beloved children of the Father, we are invited to become contemplatives in the midst of our daily lives, allowing God's love to transform every thought, action, and relationship. 

Msgr. Schlag encourages us to establish a spiritual plan of life to deepen our prayer and to respond generously to the Father by loving him above all things. 

Listen and reflect on: 

• Growing in friendship with God 
• Loving God with an undivided heart 
• Holiness through daily fidelity 
• Responding to the Father's love 
• Establishing a spiritual plan of life 

Read the full text of St. Josemaria’s homily, “Getting to Know God”, online here. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, my Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and Lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me. In our Lord's presence I invite you to accompany me in prayer, in a meditation on the desire to know God. Getting to know God is not first a matter of learning many, many ideas about Him or studying theology. Not everyone can do that. We all can acquire basic knowledge of God and we need that. But everyone can enter into friendship with God. Everyone can have a relation with God. And Saint José Maria spoke consistently of prayer as such a living relationship. He said, prayer is a conversation with God, unratico de charla in Spanish, as uh like a chat, a conversation with a friend. Uh yet we all know the difficulties. Uh we we desire God, but we get distracted or we don't feel like it, and um and and we begin again and again, we make resolutions and we fail. But the encouraging truth is that God is not waiting for us at the end of perfection. Uh, like we have to be perfect before we can relate with God. He comes looking for us where we are. And um it helps me to meditate on the scene where uh the disciples are in the boat and Jesus approaches them walking on the lake, and they uh get really scared and they they cry out uh because they think he's a ghost, and uh Jesus calms them down and Peter said, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. And Jesus said, Come. So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, Lord, save me. Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying, O man of little faith, why did you doubt? Well as long as Jesus sorry, as long as Peter looked at Jesus, he was able to walk on the water. As soon as he looked at himself and at the wind and the waves, he began to think. But the the point I want to make here now is that Peter meets Jesus or can touch Jesus not while he is walking on the water. So he's not he doesn't really encounter Jesus while he is successful, so to say, but precisely while he's thinking, the Lord's hand reaches him at the moment of failure. Many of us discover God's tenderness not in our strength, but in our poverty, in our fears, in our recurring weaknesses and limitations, in the darkness. Perhaps the places where we most deeply encounter Christ are precisely those parts of ourselves we wish were different, but are unable to change, or we feel unable to change them. That's that is where we can encounter Christ. But to do that we we we just need to persevere in prayer. And uh the Lord teaches us that with a parable, and he's uh Luke reports this, that Jesus told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded man, and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, Vindicate me against my adversary. For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, Though I neither fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out by her continual coming. And the Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous judge says, and will not God vindicate his elect who cry to him day and night? This is perhaps the gospel passage that best supports Saint Hosematius' insistence on what the spiritual tradition calls a plan of life and fidelity to prayer. A plan of life is not a plan for life for the whole of our life, what we'll do when we're uh thirty, what we'll do when we're sixty, what we'll do in retirement, and so on. It's the daily plan of devotions that we have made. And uh that it's important that the Lord doesn't say, pray when you feel like it, or pray when you feel inspired. But he says, pray always and do not lose heart. So perseverance in prayer is already a form of love. You know, and I I always, when I meditate on this scene, I I kind of ask God, well, um, will not God vindicate his elect who cry to him day and night? Well, Lord, we cry to you day and night for so many things, and we want peace in the world and justice and in our own uh lives, we we pray for things, we pray for health, for friends and family members, we pray for conversions, and sometimes you seem to be silent. And and I think what the Lord is saying is, look, when when you persevere in prayer, that is already the faith and the that I seek in you, and it's already a gift of mine. So we need to create space for God in our life in our lives. And and that we do with um the plan of life. Because uh it's a practical truth that prayer doesn't happen by accident. Uh uh, it's not like um our digestion or our heartbeat that kind of goes by itself without our being aware of it. But it's it's very beautiful to read the fourth part of the catechism of the Catholic Church. In my theology classes in Rome, we had a teacher who later became an archbishop, and he told us that when the catechism was put together, the different authors, most of them, or some of them were bishops, others were theologians, sent their sections in beautifully printed on beautifully printed paper, and they added the floppy disks at the time uh and uh they were put together. Uh but the section on the prayer arrived without a floppy disk, and it was on crumpled, smudgy paper, uh written on one of these uh travel typewriters, and uh you could see that uh it had been written with difficulty and uh without technical means because things were x'd out. There was no, you know, at that time you couldn't just delete what you had written, you had to kind of um put a white lacquer on it and let it dry, and not even that was available, so he just uh uh X'ed it out and wrote again. And it was written by a Maronite bishop in the bomb shelters of Beirut during the Civil War. And the the author uh uh kind of wrote that he was he hadn't studied this text with a library because there was nothing available, but he prayed it. This whole part is is a fruit, an immediate fruit of prayer. And in it we read, prayer is the life of the new heart. It ought to animate us at every moment, but we tend to forget him who is our life and our all. We must remember God more often than we draw breath. These are the words of the catechism. So we must remember God more often than we draw breath. That's a powerful image. We can live without eating for quite some time, many days actually, I don't know how many, but uh definitely uh some days. Uh we can also live without drinking uh or significantly fewer days than remaining without food, uh, but we can't uh stop breathing. Uh I don't know what the world record is now in holding your breath, but it's it's uh a few minutes. If we stop breathing, our brain shuts down, we we die, and and so we must remember God more often than we draw breath. Prayer is the breathing of the soul. Uh without it we collapse, we die. And um it's it's it's a comparison that can be misleading because breathing goes semi unconsciously and it goes automatically. We just breathe. Um it's one of those activities in us that we can control consciously, we can breathe more slowly, more deeply, we can meditate by controlling our breath, but we we can't stop breathing. It's it's it's uh uh a natural instinct, an impulse, it's irrepressible. But not so prayer. Prayer is uh actually something we don't like to do by nature. We want to uh do things, we want to touch things, we want to hear things, we want to see things, we want to experience things, but in prayer we need to close our eyes and shut out the noise and be still with our God, listen to God, uh stop the chatter or try to stop the chatter which is going on in our in our brain. So it needs training. And the catechism goes on to say, but we cannot pray at all times if we do not pray at specific times. So we we often say that God is important, and you know I preach it and I I I try to tell others, but what place does God actually occupy in the structure of our day, of your day, of my day? Um is it something I have to do, like a task, or is it really a relationship? And uh let me read this passage from a homily by Saint Jose Maria in the in Friends of God. Try to commit yourself to a plan of life and to keep to it, a few minutes of mental prayer, holy mass daily if you can manage it, and frequent communion, regular recourse to the holy sacrament of forgiveness, even though your conscience does not accuse you of mortal sin, visiting Jesus in the tabernacle, praying and contemplating the mysteries of the Holy Rosary, and so many other marvelous devotions you know or can learn. And he adds, please don't forget that the important thing does not lie in doing many things. Limit yourself generously to those you can fulfill each day, whether or not you happen to feel like doing them. So that's uh uh a nice way of putting it. Limit yourself generously. So be realistic, uh, but at the same time be generous. Let yourself be stretched, let yourself be challenged, um let yourself uh be a little bit maybe overwhelmed and say, how can I how can I get everything uh uh done? You know, how can I how can I commit to this? Uh it's got to be realistic, but it's got to be generous because love requires appointments. Uh you know, a boy and a girl, they they date, they um and they're sure to prepare that date, they're nervous, they want to make a good impression. And um why don't we do something similar with God? From its its Jewish roots, the church has proposed rhythms that have taken shape over the centuries, and St. Osmaria mentions them. You know, there's uh the Eucharist, Holy Mass, the center and root of Christian life, uh morning prayer, mental prayer, spiritual reading, the Angelus, the rosary, the examination of conscience. You know, these are like uh really um reliable devotions that have been tested over time and have proven to be uh really uh necessary or at least very, very helpful for a Christian life, for for a life, for a relationship with God. It's not that God needs schedules uh or a plan, but we need we need it. So uh a plan of life is not a prison or a straitjacket, it is a trellis or a scaffolding that allows the vine to grow. You know, Jesus is the vine, we are the branches, and uh um this our day needs these the structure. And we can also compare it with a bridge. A bridge over a river needs pylons, and we can't put all the pylons on one side of the river, but we have to distribute them uh uh throughout the whole the breadth of the river so that the bridge holds and can support uh weight and and connect the two sides. The the one side our activities uh in work and family, in friendship, in rest, and God on the other side. So Saint Osumaria repeated that uh we become contemplatives in the middle of the road, in the middle of the world, not through uh extraordinary experiences, but but by these small aspirations, by short prayers, and through ordinary practices. And there's there's a story I love. Uh he was in the central house of Opus Day in Rome, where there are several chapels, and someone was curious, they wanted to know what his favorite chapel was. And he went straight to the window that overlooks a noisy street, opened the window, and pointed to the street, and he said, That's my favorite chapel. Because in the noise of the road, in the noise of the traffic, we can be as recollected as in a chapel. But of course, again, you know, we we won't be recollected in on the road or in our activities if we don't have these moments of exclusive dedication to meditation and prayer and the sacraments. So let me ask us, uh, you know, what are the non-negotiable moments of prayer in my day? And probably it won't be always at the same time of the day. That's very difficult. We're not we don't live in a convent, probably, you know, we live uh in in a setting that has very unstable uh schedules and emergencies and requests, and uh we need to answer changes, you know. So uh but we can keep the uh the time of prayer stable.

unknown 18:35

St.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Rosemaria used to compare it with chain mail. The the chain mail uh protects us very flexibly to our movements, but each chain has to be very strong and immovable. So what are the non-negotiable moments of prayer in my day? Have I become casual about them? Have I allowed holes to develop in this chain mail? Um do I protect them, you know, uh with the same seriousness with which I protect meetings and obligations in my professional work. So as I as I have already said, prayer is built through small daily acts in every day. Uh our temptation is to imagine that holiness requires heroic spiritual feats. But Pope Leo XIV reminds us in a document he wrote on the sacred heart, on the solemnity of the sacred heart of Jesus in 2026, said the union of our heart with Christ's heart is not an experience reserved for a select few. Rather, it is a sacramental Eucharistic journey that unfolds each day of our lives. Each day, not not only once a year during a retreat or not during exceptional moments. Each day is an encounter with Christ. Prayer is like a plant that grows, like a tree that needs to have soil and uh to to expand and and to grow. And it's like friendship. Friendship grows by dealing with each other, by meeting each other, by thinking of each other, by reaching out, by talking with each other, by s by spending time together. And now as we pray, perhaps our prayer is is dry, or perhaps we're tired, perhaps we are distracted, you know, perhaps we are annoyed with something, or angry about something, or hurt by someone, uh, but Christ is there. The sacred heart teaches us that God loves not only our strength, but our poverty. Jesus reaches out to Peter when he was thinking, we can encounter Christ in our weakness. And as Saint Paul speaks of this paradox, we carry this treasure in earthen vessels. Um we we often think, or we might think, you know, I um if only I were more recollected, if only I were less distracted, if only I were holier. Um but Jesus says, Come as you are, uh I love you as you are. Um so how many times today can I simply raise my heart to God? If you're listening to this meditation in the morning, you know how many how many times will I do this, or uh if it's in the evening, how many times have I? And don't be discouraged. You know, you can still use there's still minutes to the day. Uh and we we can th raise our heart to God before we begin work. When we walk down a hallway, when we drive, when we wait, uh before we open an email, before we have a difficult conversation. And these little acts of awareness of God's presence, these short arrows of love, they keep the fire of our love alive. Most importantly, they help us to be contemplative, to abide always in Christ. Remember the parable of the vine and the branches which we've already mentioned in the gospel according to Saint John, our Lord says, Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Apart from me, you can do nothing. So Lord I I surrender this meditation to you, and it is up to you to speak into the hearts of uh the people who are listening, uh but but also into my own heart, because I I too want to pray. And so I want to abide in your love. And and this this passage of the gospel uh is something which resonates with what Leo XIV teaches, namely that holiness is is not the result of an isolated effort, but of simply being united with Christ. The branch on the vine doesn't strain or or or kind of or is intense to produce life in itself. It simply receives life by remaining attached to the vine. And prayer is fundamentally remaining with Christ, allowing his life to flow into ours. And it's it's more letting ourselves be found in our weakness. We often seek God in success, in clarity, in virtue, in strength, and all these things are good, but but scripture repeatedly shows God revealing himself in our weakness. Peter is thinking, Thomas is doubting, the disciples are frightened. Uh Paul speaks of a thorn in the flesh. The heart of Christ is pierced. Uh the sacred heart is not the symbol of invulnerability or of independence. It's the symbol of vulnerable love. Leo the 14th writes, the sacred heart of Jesus is an all-powerful love precisely because it is capable of being vulnerable. So maybe the place where we most want to hide from God, maybe that is the very place where He wishes to meet us. And in one of the Psalms, the Lord says, harden not your heart when you hear my voice today. And maybe we say, Of course I wouldn't harden my heart when I hear your voice, but maybe it's the other way around. Maybe I have hardened my heart somewhere, and that is where I should have heard the voice of God. That was exactly the voice of God. So perhaps it's it's an old wound or a new wound, and an anger, a recurring discouragement, loneliness, impatience, temptation, a persistent limitation of ours. And the Lord doesn't say, you know what, go away and come back when you have solved that, and then we can talk. No, he says, Let me enter here. Again, you know, Peter uh felt the hand of Jesus when he was about to die, when he was sinking. So what weaknesses do I most wish I didn't have? And have I allowed Christ into that place? Do I believe that grace can be found right there in that in that spot? Well, just uh uh a word about something that Saint Osumeria warns against. It's routine, you know. Um when prayer is real, it it cannot be routinary. Um but on the other hand, every soul who prays for years faces routine, uh, which Saint Osumeria calls the sepulchre of true piety. Um prayer can become mechanical, words lose freshness, practices feel repetitive, and the remedy against that is not abandoning prayer. The remedy is recovering our first love. It's it's so as I said, true prayer cannot become boring. What can become boring are our practices. Uh we can become boring, but prayer can't become boring. Uh we can never get bored or routinary when we touch the living flame of love. Um so the value lies in uh reviving the relationship, uh realizing that the rosary, the breviary, mental prayer, visits to the blessed sacrament, those are all uh encounters with the love of our life. So the the problem is not that we repeat these acts, the problem is that we forget who we are meeting. Uh, the catechism describes prayer as the remembrance of God. So we overcome routine when we remember whom we are meeting. So when we enter prayer, I think it's always good to ask myself, do I consciously place myself place myself before a living person, or am I merely completing a task? Uh so and and we might start out just saying, well, it's my duty, I will, I will stick to my plan, but then we need to break through that cross. Like like the men who carried the paralytic uh to Christ, they didn't they didn't reach him, and they just broke through the roof of the house. And they placed Jesus uh right in front, uh placed the paralytic man right in front of the Lord. So that's what we should do with ourselves when we uh when we enter prayer. And and also beware of discouragement. You know, we we like to compare ourselves with with others, with the saints, but uh if you compare, you despair, you know, because you take your eyes off Christ and um you look at yourself. And then we needn't be surprised that we sink as as Peter sank. So as Peter in those circumstances we we say, we cry to the Lord, Lord, save me because I am perishing. And and so uh at the end of this meditation, Lord, I renew my here I am, you know, here I am, Lord, and uh teach me to find you in every part, in every moment of my life, especially in the places where I am weakest, and teach me to begin again every day. And we do so. We ask this, trusting in the intercession of our Mother Mary. She is the teacher of interior life, and she uh guides us always to Christ. I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations which you have communicated to me in this meditation. I ask your help to put them into effect. My Immaculate Mother Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.