A few seconds to redeem every hour.

How many times did your phone buzz today? If you are like most of us, you lost count before lunch. Maybe even before breakfast.

A text, a headline, an email, a reminder that your package has shipped.

Each one tugs at us, and each one pulls us a little further out of ourselves, and away from the real world in front of us. By evening we feel scattered, as if pieces of us were left behind in a dozen different places. We were present everywhere but present to nothing.

That scattering is not just a psychological problem. It's a spiritual problem.

There's an ancient Christian practice that's meant to do exactly the opposite of "scattering" the mind. While it's been called a lot of things, one of the most common terms if "recollection."

The word comes from the Latin recolligere, to gather again. To recollect yourself is to collect the fragments, to call your mind and heart back home from wherever they have wandered, and to stand once more, whole, in the presence of God.

It is not a technique for advanced mystics. It is the simplest thing in the world. It's not at all difficult to do, and it can be just as easily done by someone who has been a Christian for 24 hours as it can for one who's been a believer all life long. All it takes a decision and dedication to do. And the great thing is, it's one of the most powerful ways you can grow in your relationship with God.

It's a simple practice, available to everyone, that has forged innumerable heroic saints out of "every day" people like you and me.

It is simply remembering Who is present.

Scripture uses a phrase that the Desert Fathers (the early Christian monks who retreated to the desert to live more spiritual lives) quickly co-opted in their sayings and writings. It's found in the story of the Prodigal son. It happens while he's literally sitting among pigs. Luke says, "But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!’" (Luke 15:17).

The Greek is literally eis heauton elthōn, “coming into himself.” He had been living outside himself, spent and dispersed. The turning point of the whole story is not the walk back to the father’s house. It is the moment he gathers himself enough to notice where he is.

Everything else follows from that.

My own practice of recollection I borrowed from the Diary of St. Gemma Galgani.

She wrote a personal “rule” for herself (a fine practice I'd recommend, but maybe that's another e-mail), and one item on it was this: every time the clock chimed, she would pray, “My Jesus, Mercy.”

Nothing elaborate. Three words at the top of every hour.

Well, I don't have a clock that chimes. A few of you might. Some of them might even go cucko.

What I bet most everyone reading this does have is a phone that has an alarm function.

So, I have alarms set throughout the day. I set it up to flash up a different inspiring image with the words "My Jesus, Mercy" on it each hour. I do this every hour of the day starting at 7am and ending at 10pm.

When one goes off, I stop. I recollect myself. I recognize that Jesus is present, right where I am. I might be in the kitchen. I might be driving. I might even by in the middle of a conversation. When I'm in a conversation, I still do it, silently and subtly. I don't make a show of it, because that's akin to praying on the street corners. This isn't about showing off. It's about my relationship with Jesus.

I pray the same prayer, "My Jesus, Mercy," that St. Gemma did. If it's good enough for her, it's good enough for me. And then I recollect myself in God's presence. I realize He's here, within me (as I'm a temple of the Holy Spirit) and even in the face of everyone nearby who is made in God's image.

Then I take a quick look back over the hour that just passed: Where was I with Him? Where did I drift? Where did I fall short and need mercy?

I'll say a few words to my Jesus, and give Him a chance to speak back. Not often with words, more often it's a simple consolation, a sense of His presence. More like a hug than a conversation.

It takes a few seconds, once an hour. But it changes the entire hour. And those hours add up to change the entire day. Those days change the month, those months the years, and those years, and entire life.

Now, I know some of you might be thinking it seems to simple. It's almost too easy. Yeah, it is. Jesus doesn't set up an obstacle course for you to get past in order to enjoy your relationship with Him. But He does ask for persistence, for consistency. That's what this practice is all about.

Why is this little practice so powerful? Well, I'm sure you can think of plenty of reasons on your own. But here are a few others you may or may not have considered.

First, it fulfills what Paul exhorted the Thessalonians to do: "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17). The Greek word is adialeiptōs, which carries the sense of “without leaving gaps.”

Most of us hear that command and imagine it's a bit unrealistic, as if it's telling us to stay on our knees, hands folded, 24/7. But that's not really what Paul is saying. It's not about a non-stop stream of words. Paul is talking about living a life in which no part is sealed off from God.

The hourly alarm is one way of doing exactly that. It is like a smooth layer of putty over all the gaps, covering everything and filling in all the little cracks. It changes our day, no longer relegating prayer solely to an item on a "schedule." Rather, it folds the entire schedule into prayer.

Second, it trains the heart to live inside a truth that's already there, but we so often forget Paul, speaking in Athens, said of God, "In him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). The psalmist asks, "Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?" (Psalm 139:7).

We believe this is true. It's a claim we'd argue to defend, quite vigorously, as Christians. And yet we live most of our hours as practical atheists, acting as though God were somewhere else, waiting for us to show up at the appointed time.

Augustine saw this in himself and confessed that God had been interior intimo meo, “more inward than my innermost self” (Confessions III.6.11), while he himself had been outside, searching.

Recollection is not summoning a God who was absent. It is waking up to a God who never left. The alarm is kinda fitting then, right? The alarm does not bring Jesus into the hour. It brings me into the hour where Jesus already is. Just like in the morning the alarm wakes me up into the world my body was in all along while my mind wandered through fields of dreams.

Third, the prayer itself is perfectly chosen. “My Jesus, Mercy” is nearly the tax collector’s prayer: "God, be merciful to me, a sinner" (Luke 18:13). It is the whole gospel compressed.

“My” is intimacy and belonging. “Jesus” is the Name above every name. “Mercy” is the honest admission that the last hour did not go as it should have, it's humility, and humility is the gateway to love which is the foundation of our relationship with God.

You cannot pray those words with any sincerity, if you really pay attention to the words you're praying, and stay proud. You also cannot pray them and fall into despair.

And that leads to the brief examen. Looking back over a single hour is far more manageable than reviewing a whole day at bedtime, when the mind is tired and the morning is a blur. It's also easier to remember things you might forget if you only did it once at night. One hour is easier consider, and you are more likely to remember the small things. The psalmist prayed, "So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart" (Psalm 90:12). Counting hours is maybe the best way to effectively count days.

What surprises people who try this is not the few seconds of prayer. It is what happens between the alarms. Knowing that the next chime is coming, you begin to carry this awareness, this sense of His presence, forward. You catch yourself mid-sentence and think, “He is here for this.”

Think about it like this. How would your life look different if you realized, every second, Jesus was right there in the room with you. He is, whether you realize it or not. But realizing it, recollecting yourself to this reality, helps you to live like you actually believe.

The practice of the presence of God, which Brother Lawrence spent his life learning while washing pots and pans, stops being a lofty ideal and becomes something almost routine. Not the kind of "routine" that loses force through repetition, but the kind that actually gets stronger, like lifting weights. Its repetitive, sure, but it's kind of like breathing. Some things need to be repeated on the regular.

So here is a challenge, if you are so bold as to accept it.

Set an alarm for the top of every waking hour. It's simple enough, and you only have to do it once. You can set it up to repeat at the same time every day. You probably have to do it for each hour, but you can get it all set up in about fifteen minutes once you know what you're doing.

Choose a short prayer, Gemma’s or another, five words or less, not much more. Set it to "vibrate" (you can do a sound, but if you do, there might be times when it comes when you wish it didn't, like in the middle of church or at work) and pick a distinct vibration pattern that stands out form your usual notifications.

When it goes off, stop whatever you are doing if you can for a few seconds. Breathe. Acknowledge that Christ is present. Say your prayer. Add any other thoughts you'd like to share with Him, as a friend speaks to a friend. Briefly look back over the hour: one thanks, one sorrow. Then return to your work.

Do it for a week and notice what changes. Not your schedule. Your schedule will look identical. What changes is that you will have come to yourself (your TRUE self) again and again, and found each and every time that you were never alone. Soon, old habits will start to change. Virtues will grow, and vices will fade. And you'll grow closer to your Beloved Jesus more quickly than you ever thought possible.

 

God Bless,

Judah