Waking Prayer: Making Contact with God

Obviously, the first thing we need to do on waking up is make contact with the Trinity. The life we are about to live this day is “Trinitarian life”—because we are made in the image of God, and God’s life is relationship – that is, interaction – between Father, Son and Spirit. It doesn’t make sense to start the day without establishing conscious relationship – that is, interaction—with the Three Persons whose life is the key to and pattern of ours.

All the above applies to human life. But if we have received (perhaps without recognizing it) the “grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,” then in addition to our human life, we share in the divine life of God. Our life is not just in the image of the Trinity’s; it is the life of the Trinity, shared with us.

So our life is to share in the life – which is the relationship, which is the interaction – between the Father, Son and Spirit. How do we do that?

Let’s make it simple. 

By Baptism we “became Christ” (don’t believe me? see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 795). So just live as Christ. We let Jesus interact with the Father and Spirit (and the world) with us, in us and through us. That can be more simple than it sounds. Start your day with three prayers:

1. Say the Our Father. When his disciples asked him to teach them to pray, Jesus responded by teaching them what to pray for – the five priorities of his own heart. When we pray the Our Father, we interact with the Father by making the Son’s desires consciously our own:

• Our Father: We begin by recalling that, in Christ, we are divine, sharing God’s own divine life as children, not just creatures. We talk to God as Jesus does, calling him “Father.”

• Hallowed be thy name: Jesus lived to make the Father known and loved. So should we.

• Thy Kingdom come: He announced the reign of God on earth and worked to establish it. We make this our mission in life.

• Thy will be done: When doing meant dying, Jesus put the Father’s will first. We choose the same.

• Give us…bread: Jesus came to gather the whole human race together around the table at the “wedding banquet of the Lamb” – where he himself is the Bread of Life and joy. We condense all our desires into this one and ask for it alone – for everyone.

• And forgive… as we forgive: The Bread of Life is served only at a communal banquet. Only those can receive it who are willing to sit down with everyone else, forgiving all as God forgives. We ask for this in union with Jesus.

2. Say the WIT prayer. Realistically, we can’t do any of the above. So we interact with the Son by asking Jesus:

     Live this day with me.  
     Live this day in me. 
     Live this day through me. 
     Let me think with your thoughts, 
     Speak with your words, and 
     Act as your body on earth.

This is the WIT Prayer (With, In and Through). Repeated repetition, all day long, will make you a mystic.

3. Say the “Come Holy Spirit.” We realize we can’t even surrender to Jesus by our own human power. So we join Jesus in asking the Spirit: 

   “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and enkindle in us the fire of your divine love.”  

    Then we pray to Jesus and the Father, declaring our hope: 

   “Send forth your Spirit, Lord, and our hearts will be regenerated. And you will renew the face of the earth.” 

   If we know the traditional prayer of the Church we add: 

   “Father, by the light of the Holy Spirit you instruct the hearts of your faithful. Grant us by the same Holy Spirit that we may always do what is right and just, and always rejoice in his consolation. We ask this through Christ our Lord.”

By saying these three prayers we are trying, at least, to begin this day consciously loving the Father, united to the Son “in Christ,” responsive to the Holy Spirit. To do this is to live our real life.