Like a motor hoe in action on the terrain

27 Feb 2020

#Godinallthings, #theeveryday, beauty

The motor hoe is a farming apparatus, made of a motor and a handle, generally used for hoeing and weeding the terrain. In few weeks we will find ourselves in the middle of the process of preparing our garden to be seeded for a new season.
To prepare better the terrain we will use the so-called motor hoe. I still remember that last year, in this period, we undertook the same operation; utilising and seeing this machine in action immediately evoked something in me. With the passing of time, now and then, the memory of this experience came back. With sympathy it represented me a sort of a useful metaphor with witch I could comprehend what the novitiate is supposed to be.
Often, in fact, people asked us what it means to live here or what we do but usually it is difficult to explain. Now I would like to respond with this metaphor.
The life in novitiate is like a motor hoe in action on the terrain.
Living in the novitiate often means being disposed to “reprogram” our exterior or interior mechanisms, habits, ecc. This implies digging a deep furrow inside us, that allows us to strip off and free ourselves from many structures and let go our masks, defences, ideas, false idols. In fact, anyone of us is inhabited inside, knowing it in part or not, by a series of attachments.
The spiritual path proposed by Saint Ignatius of Loyola invites us to free ourselves from this “disordered affections” to feel reconciled with ourselves, God and the others.
I connected all this with the image of the motor hoe in action that is turning the dry dirt breaking it and mixing it in a form of tiny pieces, creating a new layer of fertile earth, that shines in new colours and shades, above all is fortified and renewed. The same thing goes for us novices in everyday life. We train ourselves to get in contact with our inwardness and to know that which was hidden before. We don’t talk about psychological introspection but about prayer. In it we continually ask the Lord to lead us with His Presence.
The descent of the motor hoe is very evocative. It reminds the deep prayer, the listening of the Word and of others, the patient work of God who leads us step after step with his Presence.
I would like to finish inviting you to discover the ignatian spirituality and the beauty of prayer. Jesus said these Words: «Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light». (Mt 11, 29-30)
The content of this article can help us to listen these words of Jesus. It prepares us to receive this sweet yoke and this light burden. His Presence will do the rest.

Marco Garbari, novice of the second year

Sullo stesso argomento

When prayer becomes…preparing breakfast

by Alessandro Di Mauro

During novitiate life it happens, on a rotating basis, that we have to prepare breakfast for everyone before starting individual morning prayer. In such cases, one of us needs to wake up a little earlier than the others to be able to reconcile preparation time and meditation time. I have sometimes wondered if it is really necessary for us to be present when doing this service or if there is a deeper reason for doing it.

For some time now, when the alarm clock rings in the morning, I often feel, in my heart, the desire to meet the Lord during my personal prayer and in the Eucharistic celebration that we live daily. I have, however, realised that even when I have to anticipate the alarm clock for breakfast, the desire does not change and it almost seems to me that this also enters into the dynamic of meeting Him. A question then arises for me: is it possible that even the act of preparing breakfast for everyone is somehow part of a form of prayer? To answer this question, I immediately ask myself another: what is the meaning of Christian prayer? I believe that prayer is an encounter with the Lord to deepen more and more the communion of life with Him. As St Teresa of Avila used to say, it is the moment when I meet the Beloved. On the other hand, if we read the Gospels, Jesus himself often stopped to pray alone in the intimacy of dialogue with the Father, so much so that it triggered the Apostles’ desire to understand how to pray: ‘Lord teach us how to pray’. What needs prompted them to make this request? Certainly the example of Jesus must have been a driving force: as the Master prays, it is good that we also pray; but I believe, first and foremost, they had the desire to experience the same encounter as Jesus with God the Father. In prayer, therefore, two freedoms meet, that of the believer who seeks the Lord and that of God who has the desire to be heard by those who pray to him. This is also the reason why it is, often, complicated to pray, because on the one hand there is a supernatural dynamic, whereby prayer is a gift from God, for which one’s heart must be prepared; on the other hand it is a human encounter that takes place in ordinary life, a challenge to recognise God’s voice that is often covered by the din of everyday life.

But back to breakfast! What does this have to do with its preparation? Nothing, if one approaches preparation thinking that the purpose is to have some milk, coffee and tea ready on time. But if one lives this operation savouring every single moment of it – from picking up the coffee pots to preparing them, to hearing the whistle of the coffee ready and enjoying the heat that the vapours give off when it is poured into the thermos – thinking that this gesture will be of help to the brethren, to those whom the Lord has placed beside him, something changes. By living the preparation in this way, even these gestures can become an encounter with God the Father, for whom I recognise in the other a brother for whom it is well worth losing half an hour of sleep.