Praying with whole body

                 While liturgy is a community honoring of God, he can also be honored all day long. A person who is in constant contact with God can make prayer out of anything. A cigarette enjoyed can be a prayer.
           Lovers speak and communicate to one another without words. True love is wordless; it speaks through our action. Have there ever been two people in love who did not sight? Yes, every movement of the body can honor God.
Recall how refreshing the sensation of cool water flowing over a hot skin is in the summer time. In its way, the skin is thanking God for the wonderful sensation. To rejoice over being healthy is surely a way of parsing God, for he is interested in having us healthy and using our bodies for their purposes…
            St. Angela of Foligo narrates that once in a vision the lord told her, “I take pleasure in all you do, whether you are eating or drinking or sleeping. I rejoice when all your bodily organs are functioning well.”
In his book “the little flowers,” St. Francis tells us that Brother Mario’s wonderment of God consisted of his constantly saying just “uuuuu”. And Brother Bernard’s devotion to God consisted in running up and down the mountains and hills.
               Behind all these experiences stands the fact that God surrounds us like light and air, like water around the fish. Our problem is that we have lost our instinct for his presence; we never think about it. We have lost our instinct for God’s nearness; we have lost the antenna and have not tuned in on the right channel.
            Though God is actually near, he can be far off. And so contact with him is similar to two lovers want to hug one another, but can’t get close enough one another because of a window pane between them.
           The fault with us is that we are used to getting all our sensations form outside us… and God is within. If we turn inside ourselves, we will find him there. There we can hear him talking to us, especially when we are silent and quiet.