Spiritual Batteries

The beauty of being forgiven by Fr. Justin Gillespie

Today we try to pray our way into the apostle Thomas' shoes as he experiences the dismay and the pain of coming back to faith after Jesus' death. How he loves deeply and passionately, but needs to reconcile that love with a deeper trust and faith in the person of Jesus.

Today we consider in our prayer how we Jesus' life and passion is present to us and how we can better open ourselves to this presence during Holy Week.

As we approach Holy Week, we turn to Jesus' encounter with a desperate father in order to understand the apparent frustration that Jesus expresses. In prayer we try to discover how, while we might be disappointed and frustrated with ourselves, Jesus only reacts to his desire for union with each one of us being impeded. This is what he wants, and in the depths of our hearts, we do as well.

Praying on the Solemnity of the Annunciation, we try to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us in a re-discovery of how Jesus' physical presence is God's presence. We want our prayer to become contact with that presence, and following two scenes from the Gospel of Mark, we seek it out.

Joseph had the courage to accept that in spite of his inadequacy, God wanted to live with him, to be that close to him. Under St. Joseph's protection, we too pray for the ability to be that close, that at ease with Jesus and with Mary.

At the beginning of Lent, we take up once again Pope Francis' exhortation to let God gaze upon us, and try to pray and explore how this can open us to the real graces that God wants to give us in these days.

As perfect God and perfect man, Jesus relates to us empathetically. In other words, he responds to and feels our interior world. Apart from helping us understand just how true and real our friendship with him can be, we can also understand our relationship to him on the Cross. In short, we want to better understand what we mean when we say that he "sees us". For more fascinating ideas on this topic, they can be found in this recent book: https://www.amazon.com/Atonement-Oxford-Studies-Analytic-Theology/dp/0198813864/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?crid=37V9W9WKODA84&keywords=stump+atonement&qid=1550588791&s=gateway&sprefix=stump+at%2Caps%2C207&sr=8-1-fkmrnull

When Jesus invites us to take up our cross each day and follow him, he is inviting us to live, not to annihilate ourselves. This is the central paradox of our faith, and we need to pray and allow ourselves to be guided by the Holy Spirit so that we might understand it well. For it is in the joy of Cross that we can experience and radiate the attractiveness of Jesus to others. www.spiritualbatteries.com

Contemplating the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears and dried them with her hair, we try to open ourselves in prayer so as to experience the singular love that she did and to try and be just as grateful. The considerations in this meditation are inspired in large part by Eleonore Stump and her recent book, "Wandering in Darkness".

Coming to believe in God's existence and in his power, while challenging, does not ultimately require faith. Knowing that Jesus is God and that He desires union with me - this does require faith. Today we contemplate Jesus' encounter with a leper in St Mark's Gospel in order to pray for an increase in this faith, faith in His attitude towards each one of us.

A shameless friendship with Jesus by Fr. Justin Gillespie

Mary, our Mother: sharing her closeness with Jesus by Fr. Justin Gillespie

The Psalmist tells us to "delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart". With these words as our guide, we try and contemplate the mystery of and infant-God so as to overcome the shame and inadequacy that we feel before such a mighty love. www.spiritualbatteries.com

In Advent, the Church invites us to rejoice as the coming of Christ approaches. In our prayer today we try to contemplate what it means that Jesus comes close to us, how he rejoices over us, and how in him we can experience God's own peace. www.spiritualbatteries.com

This is a meditation given on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Guided by the example of simple people who have marvelled at Mary’s beauty, we too try to join them in our prayer and make that same discovery for ourselves.

We all have the experience of wanting different things, of having all sorts of desires. But God wants to integrate us, to fill us with a unifying desire to be united with Him, and therefore to experience in an authentic way all of the other joys of life. Today we pray about our need to desire more, not less, and for that desire to be something that unifies us and liberates us. www.spiritualbatteries.com

Jesus encourages us to be grateful because he wants us to discover the joy and the communion that he himself has with the Father. Today we contemplate how one leper learned to be grateful, and pray that we might receive a similar grace in our own lives. www.spiritualbatteries.com

In his first letter, St. John meditates upon his experience that God has loved us first and that, as a result, we are able to love him. In today's prayer we try to follow his words so that the Holy Spirit can help us grow in the love that casts out fear and makes our souls beautiful in their pursuit of Him. www.spiritualbatteries.com

In order to believe in God's love for us, we need "proof" of a sort. What can I look to in order to know that He loves me? Many saints have found that answer looking at the Cross. This is where Jesus shows me not only that he loves me, but what that love means. However, in order for that not to remain a dry consideration, we need the fire of the Holy Spirit to ignite us with the faith that Jesus' action on the Cross was actually about me. This is what we pray about today. www.spiritualbatteries.com

Today we contemplate not only the reality of our own death, but the hope that awaits us: Jesus' return to renew the world and resurrect us into his own Life. Christian faith is a faith of hope precisely because it looks to the Resurrection. We do well to pray about these events that await us so that we can live filled with a certain hope in this present time - a hope that enables us to passionately love this world of ours.

St. John Paul II famously challenged us to, "Be not afraid". Today we remember how we have been given the "authority" to become children of God and that this is why we should not be afraid of responding generously to the mission that was entrusted to us in our baptism. www.spiritualbatteries.com

In order to become secure and free persons who are able to face the challenges and possibilities of life, as infants and throughout our life we need other people who see our needs, make us safe, and can soothe us in distress. All of this contributes to makes us secure in ourselves and therefore able to launch out into the world. Here we pray about how Jesus wants us to have this same security and how we can see him seeing us, protecting us, and soothing us in Scripture. And all of this so that, through prayer, we can have the secure confidence of Christian witnesses and transmit this to others as well. www.spiritualbatteries.com

Following the advice of St. Josemaria, we should seek the gift of a "prayer of quiet" - a prayer where it is God who speaks. In this meditation we turn to the prologue of the Gospel of John to practice preparing for such a prayer. Also, we consider how our contact with Jesus should lead us, as it did for Andrew and Philip, to bring others to "come and see" Jesus. www.spiritualbatteries.com

Jesus does not openly declare himself to be God, so much as show it through his actions. What he does reveals God, and his words shine light on those actions. Here we contemplate his encounter with a woman caught in adultery, and pray that we might have more confidence in coming towards Jesus ourselves. www.spiritualbatteries.com

Instead of relying on the podcast, many young adults came together in Dublin for the second edition of "Spiritual Batteries Live", held in Our Lady Queen of Peace parish in Dublin. This is a recording of the guided prayer portion, which was followed by musical adoration and personal prayer. Afterwards, we enjoyed a discussion on the science of human attention and focus, and it's relation to the Christian life. For more information: https://www.spiritualbatteries.com/live

After the Resurrection, Thomas saw his friend Jesus and declared, "my Lord and my God". Who was the God he saw in Jesus' face? Who do we understand God to be, actually? Here we try to prayerfully consider what the entire Bible tells us about the God Thomas saw in Jesus' face, the God we call, Abba, Father. www.spiritualbatteries.com

Every time we participate in the Mass, right before receiving the Eucharist, we say: "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed". As we know, these are the words that a Roman centurion spoke to Jesus, filled we faith. In order to more easily make them our own during the Mass, let's pray about that exchange between Jesus and the centurion. Our goal will be to live that moment in the Mass with greater faith and love. www.spiritualbatteries.com

Jesus is a master teacher and just as he did with Peter, he wants us to see for ourselves what it means to live as children of the Father in the world. Here we contemplate Peter's struggle with whether or not the Temple tax should be paid and, through Jesus' reply, how Peter was taught to be a son. www.spiritualbatteries.com

When circumstances around us - or within us - make it very hard to be award of God's presence, we have a chance to grow in faith. Like the Apostles, we can discover that even though it seems that Jesus is asleep, that he is not concerned, all the world is in his control. He is committed to us and seeks us out. Believing this, more than an emotional state in the moment, is the kind of spiritual maturity that we seek through prayer. www.spiritualbatteries.com

In our Christian life, we are perhaps most aware of our own efforts. It's what we immediately perceive. Contemplating the story of Zaccheus, we might also notice most of all his efforts to, "see who Jesus was": avoiding the crowds by shamelessly climbing a tree. But the real story is that Jesus was the one seeking out Zaccheus. It is a very important discovery to find out how this is also true for each one of us. For more, www.spiritualbatteries.com

We can benefit greatly from contemplating a man who was freed from demonic possession by Jesus. His desire to look at Jesus, to listen to Jesus, and to let others know about him all result from his experience of "salvation". When we see evil in the world - and evil done by members of the Church - we need to respond with an even greater faith in Jesus' salvific love. He deals with evil and conquers it, and that victory is made available to each one of us through the Sacraments within the Church. We want to experience Jesus' love to the full, therefore we want to experience it as Salvation.

www.spiritualbatteries.com Peter sees Jesus walking on the water, and guided by desire more than what he feels possible, asks Jesus to do something he's never done before. If we want to receive the gift of the Eucharist, we do well to foster that same faith, that same courage.

Jesus has made it very clear to us that following him is not an easy path. We must take up our cross each day and follow him. We need to re-discover, though, that paradoxically our joy resides precisely in the daily struggle, rather than in avoiding it. Here we try to pray with Jesus' parable of the talents to see more clearly how we might live this way. For more see www.spiritualbatteries.com

Contemporary psychology - and many other observant people - have noted how vulnerable we are to "confirmation bias": the tendency to notice what we already expected more than what is actually before us. Pope Francis has often reminded us that God is a "God of surprises". To actually be surprised, then, and to received what he wants to give us, we do well to be aware of and struggle against this confirmation bias in our relationship with God.

Great saints like Augustine understood that the human soul is insatiable, that it hungers for the infinite. Desire, then, is not primarily a problem to be side-stepped, but a reality that must be answered. This answer is Jesus, who calls for our deepest desires so that he might answer them.

When we contemplate the life of Jesus, we are doing much more than considering a possible way of acting. We are peering into the inner life of God, his Mystery. What we want to glimpse in this time of prayer is how his essence is self-giving and how that floods with light our own lives and the choices we face.

Pillars of the Church, the feast of Sts Peter and Paul gives us the occasion to consider our own Christian vocation.

St Josemaría, God's love coming close to us by Fr. Justin Gillespie

Following Jesus, not perfectionism by Fr. Justin Gillespie

The Holy Spirit and the gift of freedom by Fr. Justin Gillespie

Our desire for God by Fr. Justin Gillespie

Freely choosing to abide in Jesus, the Vine by Fr. Justin Gillespie

Persistence in Prayer by Fr. Justin Gillespie

True friendship is a rare and precious gift. While it is a gift, it is also something that we need. Jesus provides it, and by praying about what true friendship is, we try to rediscover how vital friendship with Jesus is.

Love has always driven people to great things. It can draw us to holiness, to receive and respond to God's own life. Contemplating Mary Magdalene is a powerful help for us in renewing our faith in God's love AND in our ability - through his grace - to love as well.

The personal joy of Easter by Fr. Justin Gillespie

Good Friday: Jesus draws our sin from us in love by Fr. Justin Gillespie

Contemplating Jesus' love during Holy Week is perhaps made easier by seeing its impact upon other people in the Gospels. Today we consider Peter's denial of Jesus as a way of seeing Jesus' love reflected, as it were, in the mirror of Peter's sin and repentance.

Contemplating the tears of Jesus by Fr. Justin Gillespie

The Christian Vocation: "Do not be afraid" by Fr. Justin Gillespie