Training Rules

The room is in total darkness, we cannot see a thing. We strike a match: we perceive something, then we can see many more things. We light fifty matches and now, yes: the room is gorgeous, full of colors, figures and objects. Has the room changed? It is the same, but for me everything has changed. What happened? The light made the room “present”, the light has illuminated “the face” of the room for me.

When one does not pray, God is a dark room, an empty word, a “Mr. Nobody”. When I begin to pray, God begins to become “someone” for me. The more I pray, the more “the light of His face shines” in me, for me.

Furthermore, the events, people and circumstances that surround me appear clothed in the light of His presence, encased in the frame of his will. It is not that the events and things are magically gilded by divine light, rather when my inner eyes are inhabited by God, everything that these eyes contemplate appears to be touched by God.

From the book “ Journey Towards God” by Father Ignacio Larrañaga