Adoration and Service

Prayer, which is an essential aspect of Christian life, is an immense realm.  We have only just begun to explore its mysteries.  We often have little taste for prayer because we are not sure exactly what it is.  And yet, prayer is one of the principal dimensions of our lives and our eternities.  To be occupied with God is the highest occupation.  But this requires an apprenticeship.  To penetrate God’s word in the Bible or in the liturgy, to contemplate nature, or to reread the Psalms, trying to discover God in a personal way—these are all ways of putting ourselves in a prayerful disposition.  And that is the one thing that matters.

The tragedy of the modern world is that it no longer occupies itself with God.  One of our essential reasons for existing, therefore, is precisely to give witness to adoration, to give God the place in our own lives that the world denies in him.  We too easily forget what ought to be the primary focus of our spiritual life.  As Giorgio La Pira...has imaginatively put it, “the world rests on two pillars: contemplative monasteries and workers’ barracks.”  In other words, there are two fundamental dimensions to existence: the love of the poor, the abandoned, the disinherited; and the gesture that carries us spontaneously toward all suffering, the practice of adoration.

We must therefore accustom ourselves to this double rhythm of adoration and service, which together form a complete existence.  I would thus deny that a life dedicated exclusively to service would truly be a human existence.  To affirm the central place of adoration, which many people feel, but are ashamed to admit, is one of the Christ’s raison d’etres with respect to others who often do much more in the realm of service than we are able.  Not every Christian is required to be a mystic, but all Christians—even those who are just learning to pray, those for whom meditation is something difficult—must be persuaded that prayer is essential in the order of values, and they must be prepared to make a minimum of sacrifices so that prayer can have a real place in their lives.

– from Prayer: The Mission of The Church, by Jean Daniélou, SJ (1905–1974)