~ by Fr. Jack Bentz, SJ

Much of my personal daily prayer is just sitting on a prayer bench with an empty mind. Sounds easy enough. I can sit. I can have a fairly empty mind. No, really, it’s pretty empty.

I set the alarm on my phone for 30 minutes, get comfortable and get through it. I try to connect with my breath and open myself to God. And then I try that again. And again. And then, seemingly two hours later, the alarm finally goes off. And I do it again the next day.

Since I began this practice some ten years ago, my interior life has been transformed. I still pray fruitfully with words, with Scripture, at Mass, celebrating the Eucharist and everything else that goes with being a Catholic priest but it is on this bench every morning in silence, that God reaches me and teaches me how to be a human being. A human being breaths and waits. A human being exists because he is loved by God. A human being is free to wait on God. God is God and I am that human being free, loved, and waiting for God each morning.

As I sit and breath and wait I realize again, “No big deal.” Whatever wants to occupy my mind is no big deal and I can let it go. I am no big deal and I can let myself go. My prayer is no big deal and so I can show up and let it go. Inner peace is no big deal.