“I’m letting God love me.” ~ Archbishop Raymnd Hunthausen

To be loved, to open oneself to receive love, makes us capable of loving others.

More and more I realize the need for us to understand prayer as a rendezvous with love, as the receiving and offering of love. The retired Archbishop of Seattle, Raymond Hunthausen, a great man and a great pastoral bishop who took Vatican II seriously and helped his people grow up in their faith, suffered many persecutions and indignities at the hands of attacking right-wing Catholics for his compassion toward all persons and his stance on social issues. Through it all, he conducted himself publically and pastorally with integrity, mind-boggling patience, respect, and loving-kindness. Out of sight, he suffered his garden of Gethsemane. Now in his nineties and living in Montana among his large extended family, he was asked what he is doing with his time these days. He responded simply, “I am letting God love me.” That I believe is a beautifully accurate description of contemplative prayer.

Letting God love us is our first vocation. Everything else, all that is good and true and enlivening, flows from this primal call. Prayer is where we learn it.

~ djm