Midweek Meditation: "Renewal of Prayer" (J.-P. Dubois-Dumée)

In this spiritual renewal, I believe that one can detect among other things:

• a need for permanence in a civilization of transience;
• a need for the Absolute when all else is be- coming relative;
• a need for silence in the midst of noise;
• a need for gratuitousness in the face of unbelievable greed;
• a need for poverty amid the flaunting of wealth;
• a need for contemplation in a century of action, for without contemplation, action risks becoming mere agitation;
• a need for communication in a universe content with entertainment and sensational- ism;
• a need for peace amid today’s universal outbursts of violence;
• a need for quality to counterbalance the increasingly prevalent response to quantity;
• a need for humility to counteract the arrogance of power and science;
• a need for human warmth when every- thing is being rationalized or computerized;
• a need to belong to a small group rather than to be part of the crowd;
• a need for slowness to compensate the present eagerness for speed;
• a need for truth when the real meaning of words is distorted in political speeches and sometimes even in religious discourses;
• a need for transparency when everything seems opaque.

Yes, a need for the interior life . . (J.-P. Dubois-Dumée, “Renewal of Prayer,” Lumen Vitae 38, no. 3, 1983: p273–274)