Thursday, January 9, 2014

How to Stay Aware: The WIT Prayer

The first step into lived Christianity is to accept that we have become Christ – and keep ourselves aware of it.

How do we do that?

We say the WIT prayer – all day long.

As soon as we wake up, we remember the mystery of who we are: that we have “become Christ” by Baptism. We reaffirm the gift we made that day by saying: “Lord, I give you my body!”

Live this day with me, live this day in me, life this day through me.
Let me think with your thoughts and speak with your words and act as your body on earth.

With, in and through: WIT.


With me

Our life is a mystery: the mystery of living by God’s own divine life, the life of Jesus himself. We ask Jesus to live it with us, in us and through us.

Everything we do today, we want to do in partnership – koinonia – with Jesus as God. There are over thirty times when St. Paul attaches the Greek prefix syn- to words to make them express our union with Christ, as co-actors with Jesus in what he did and what we do now. (In English we use the Latin prefix co- ). For example, we “co-live,” “co-suffer,” “co-work” (cooperate) with Jesus as members of his body. When we act, he co-acts with us and we co-act with him. Saying, “Lord, do this with me!” keeps us aware of this. Aware that we are never alone. And that we never act just as individual human beings. Everything we do, we want to do consciously with Jesus. “Lord, do this with me!
Say it when you wake up, when you get out of bed, when you step out of your room, when you leave your house, get into your car or walk into your workplace, when you sit down at your desk, when you open a drawer or turn on your computer, when you pick up the telephone, every time you start a conversation or someone starts one with you.

Say it when you go home, fix yourself a drink or turn on the television set. Say it when you kiss your spouse or play with your children. Say it when you write a letter or pick up a book to read. Say it when you clean your house or mow the lawn.


Say the WIT prayer all day long.[1]
“Lord, do this with me; do this in me, do this through me.”

This will keep you aware all day long that your life is to be Christ.

That becomes an ongoing mystical experience.




In me

Jesus doesn’t just co-operate with us like a friend by our side. That would be great, but it wouldn’t make what we do divine. The mystery of our life is that Jesus lives and acts in us, and we live and act “in him,” the way a vine lives in its branches and the branches act as part of the vine. It is a mystery of identification. We act divinely as Christ – with him and in him. He acts humanly as us – with us and in us. What he does in us, we are doing. What we do in union with him, he is doing. As Christians we are divine-human people living divine-human lives and performing divine-human actions. This is the mystery we remind ourselves of when we say, “Lord, do this in me!


Through me

We might think that Jesus acts with us and in us just to help us “do our thing” and to raise everything we do to a higher level, the divine level of God. It is more than that. He also acts through us to do “his own thing.” He uses us (as partners, not tools) to keep fulfilling his divine mission on earth. He is always working with us, in us and through us as Messiah, the “Anointed One,” the Savior, Emmanuel, which means “God-with-us.”

The name “Jesus” means “God saves.” The name “Christ” is Greek for “Anointed,” which in Hebrew is “Messiah.” We were anointed at Baptism – consecrated, committed and empowered – to continue the “messianic” mission of Jesus as Prophet, Priest and King. Or better, to let him continue it with us, in us and through us.

How do we do this? Say the WIT prayer:

Say it all day long. Make it a habit. Say it until saying it becomes “second nature” to you. Say the words until they are implanted in your mind. Until they settle into your heart. Until they become the abiding stance of your will. Don’t do anything without saying, “Lord, do this with me; do this in me, do this through me.”


Say the WIT prayer all day long. [1]

“Lord, do this with me; do this in me, do this through me.”

This will keep you aware all day long that your life is to be Christ.

That becomes an ongoing mystical experience.



[1] Quoted from my book Nuts and Bolts of Daily Spirituality (23rd Publications, 2013), page 28.





[1] Quoted from my book Nuts and Bolts of Daily Spirituality (23rd Publications, 2013), page 28.

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