The Church in its prayers makes great use of the Psalms, which have been called “the Prayer-Book of the Holy Spirit.” They tell us a great deal about the spirituality of devout members of God’s Chosen People, Israel, in Old Testament times, about what they longed for. They had a very great longing for God, and because they centered His presence on the Temple in Jerusalem, they had very strong desires to visit and enter the Temple. . .
There can be no doubt that we, who come under the New Testament, are invited to long for God even more strongly than the Israelites, and what is more, if we are faithful we can find Him much more deeply than the Israelites. . .
We shall not get close to satisfying our longing for God unless we enter the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and according to St. Paul, you are that Temple. . .
I expect you know of some churches where it is easy to pray. The whole atmosphere, as well as the architecture, moves you to prayer. But other churches seem very difficult to pray in. They give no feeling of the presence and majesty and loveliness of God. They get in the way if you try to pray, at least with your eyes open!
You are the Temple of the Holy Spirit. You did not build yourself. You were made that way. How easily we say “God created me,” and think that we believe and mean it. But I wonder if we have any idea at all of the perfection and beauty and glory that God created when He brought you into being. He built the Temple that you are, and He did a wonderful job. If you could see what you are like as you come from God’s creating hands and Heart, even at this moment in your life, you would be rapt in prayer and go into an ecstasy. You cannot see what you are like at the level where you come into existence from God at this moment, but if you have no idea at all of the greatness within you, you will not find that the Temple helps you to pray when you enter it, just the contrary.
We are all sinners. We need to be very humble. We must not pretend that we act in a holy and praiseworthy way. If we look at our conduct it ought to make us contrite. So in asking you to enter the Temple that you are, I am not advising you to think that you are a pretty good person and deserving of praise. The more unworthy we think we are of God’s gifts the better. But if you are to pray in spirit and in truth and find God within you, the inner Temple that you enter must be spacious and beautiful and inspiring. You cannot pray deeply in spirit in a squalid place within you.
So I suggest that we begin our mental prayer with a very sincere and deep act of contrition for our sins, a real humbling of ourselves in the dust before God, and ask Him to forgive us all our sins. After that we should normally try to see the Temple within us, as we enter it, not as the kind of person we have made ourselves, but as the kind of person, the kind of Temple of the Holy Spirit, that God is making us at this moment. . .
You will not misunderstand me, I am sure, when I say that there is nothing more Godlike than your soul on this earth. You are made in the image of God. This is your reality. You did not make it. Your sins do not unmake it unless you unite yourself to them and make them into yourself.
So it is not an exaggeration to say that your soul, the Temple of God where you can worship and find Him in spirit and in truth, is larger and much more spacious and much more beautiful than the Temple of Jerusalem with all its splendor as Solomon made it. It is in this inspiring Temple, so like God that it almost draws prayer from your heart, that you should try to enter and be utterly silent in the presence of God. Being absolutely yourself, at peace but not conscious of looking at yourself, just being that image and likeness of God in His creating Hands and not spoiling it with thoughts, feelings or imaginings of your own. . .
Why not sometimes enter into the center of the Temple of your soul, where you are so like God because He is so close as to almost shine through, and find that you are brilliantly light, and then in deep simple silence enter into the glory of the Lord, all else being outside. Jesus wants the Temple to Himself: “Come apart to a lonely place,” He invites, “where we can be alone” and rest in one another in peace and silent joy.
