How exquisite it is to listen to Jacques Gauthier. Not only because his Quebec accent makes us vibrate and encourages us to be in a good mood, but because his lyrics are as poetic, spiritual and stripped down as his faith. With him, prayer seems so easy. On the occasion of his visit to France for the promotion of his spiritual autobiography In his presencepublished by Artège editions, the poet and essayist with eighty books on spirituality could not resist the urge to come and tell Christian Familyof which he was once a chronicler, the long companionship of God in his life.
Your book is called In his presence. You who have been practicing prayer for a very long time, what do you feel inside when you put yourself in the presence of God?
Very often, like many prayerful people, I feel nothing on an emotional level! Yet I know He is there. That’s faith, naked faith. To know that I am in his presence.
It is not of the order of the felt, but of the order of the deep heart. It happens to me of course to experience some small clearings. At such times, I feel great peace and deep silence without any distractions. These rare moments are real gifts. The danger is believing that we are going to experience the same thing again the next day, and becoming discouraged when distractions and droughts return. This is why Saint Teresa of Avila said that one should not seek God’s graces in prayer, but the God of graces. To look at Him, beyond all that one can feel, all that one can conceptualize or all that one can experience. He is beyond everything. Simply be present in his presence, because he promised us that he would always be there with us: “And I am with you always until the end of the world” (mt 28, 20).
How then to respond to people who want to make a personal encounter with Christ and who say they do not feel his presence?
I tell them that they are in solidarity with what the world is going through. The world feels nothing either. And we, our prayer would always be in ecstasy, would always be in jubilation when there are so many young people who commit suicide, so many abortions, so much suffering, so much addiction? It does not go well ! To live the drought in prayer is to be in solidarity with our contemporaries and, in a certain way, to share the weight of the world. In the dryness of prayer, we are profoundly missionaries. Look at Thérèse of the Child Jesus: in all her prayers, she experienced dryness and aridity. However, she is a little saint who radiated a lot and who brought joy to those around her. It’s a cross to persevere when you feel nothing. But the longer we are on the cross, the stronger and deeper our joy becomes.
These people would however like to experience dazzling conversions, to receive a sign from God…
Conversions are not all the same, and depend only on God. Mine was an intoxication – a honeymoon, I like to say. Others feel nothing or think they feel nothing. These people need to be accompanied to learn to discern the presence of God in their lives: “See the peace you have that you didn’t have before? “, “Do not you think that something has changed in you? » But, I repeat myself, God is beyond the sensible. Some people run all the retreats in search of a sensible experience. They seek sensations for their souls that run out as quickly as they appear. Our soul needs more: it is before God, in naked faith, in silence and the desert, that it is satisfied. We are not all hermits, you will answer me, but we can all, in the metro, at work or at home, close our eyes to descend into our hearts and simply give thanks to Him.
What would you say to a person who would like to persevere in the fire of God, but who would go through a night of faith or who would be plunged into full acidity?
I would say to him: try to continue as if nothing had happened, not to throw everything up in the air, to trust. Mass is a chore? You go there all the same and then too bad if you are dry, if you cry out to the Lord. It is a grace when the Lord misses us. Ask ourselves this question: do we miss the Lord? If we miss him, it is because he is present to us, otherwise we would not suffer from his absence. He is much closer to us in our nights. He is much closer to us when we have the impression that He is absent. And if we’ve already gotten the hell out or if we’ve given up everything, we come back. We come back, because we are constantly starting over. In faith, we walk without ceasing. We are novices, we are just starting out. Each morning has its beginning. Each day is enough for its joy. Tell yourself that the Lord knows what you are going through. He will join you one day or another. And if you come back to Him, you will cry, like the others, because you have moved away from the source and we cannot give this living water to our hearts if we do not drink from the source. And that source is Him.
Don’t we sometimes have too sophisticated, too intellectual a search for God?
It’s true, there is a little too much of ourselves in this search, whereas God is there, everywhere. He first makes himself present, constantly and simply, in his word. It is close at hand and enough to feed us. Some, too, always run after something new, like after that new book that has just come out that would necessarily be better than the old one or that would better show us the way to God. But a book from fifty years or three centuries ago is as good as those from today. There are fulgurances in Saint John of the Cross, Saint Bernard, Saint Augustine or in the Fathers of the Church which are very topical. Why would it be outdated? These authors are friends and lights for my faith. Let’s not be afraid to feed on the classics!
The cult of performance pursues us even in our spiritual life. A successful prayer, does it exist?
True prayer begins precisely when you feel like you’re losing it or you don’t pray! The greatest effort in prayer is not to pray, it is to surrender completely. To lose control. Saint Paul tells us: “We don’t know how to pray properly” (rm 8, 26). But “The Holy Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness” and “intercede for us” shouting : “Abba! Dad ! » The success of a prayer never comes from us, but from the Holy Spirit who shapes us.
But don’t our distractions annihilate the action of the Holy Spirit?
On the contrary, when the distractions are there, it means that we are not yet dead [rires]. Personally, I pray with my distractions. I have plenty, all the time. They charm my winter nights: I must not forget to buy that, to answer that person, to go to Christian Family… [rires]. All these distractions, I transform them into prayer. It is certain that at the end, one has the impression of having completely missed one’s prayer. But isn’t that what God wanted for me today? Did I not say to him, at the beginning of my prayer: “Not what I want, but what You want” ? It’s not my problem if I’m distracted. Me, I didn’t do anything wrong. My conscience is pure, everything is correct. It is God who decides what He wants to give me: a word of His mind, a distraction or a drought. The fruit of my prayer does not belong to me.
What is the greatest danger to our spiritual life?
To get used to. To no longer marvel. “In time, goes, everything goes away”, sang Léo Ferré. We go to mass because we’ve always done it that way, when inside we don’t even have a poor heart anymore. “There’s something worse than having a soul, even if it’s perverse, it’s having a used soul”said Charles Péguy. “Over time, we no longer love”, concluded Léo Ferré. This is the danger of the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son. There is also acedia, that kind of sadness and depression of the soul. This danger is growing, because our busy lives often lead us there. Everyone must be very vigilant vis-à-vis the warning signs and not hesitate to go and recharge their batteries thanks to a retreat or to read a beautiful book of spirituality that puts us back on track. But it can also be a grace to experience acedia, because it can help us to change, to question ourselves. To help us discern that we had become so accustomed to grace that we had become impervious to it.
In the end, by your poetic words, your simple words, you have been revealing for seventy years the grace that the Lord hides in all things.
Yes, the Lord reveals himself through us. He needs us. He begs for our love. He shouts to us: ” I am thirsty. Give me a drink. » What is He thirsting for? From U.S ! From our yes, from our hands, from our heart. Benedict XVI said: “The whole Trinity is revealed in this cry of Jesus on the cross. » We think that it is we who desire God, but it is He who seeks us and waits for us. And we give Him enormous pleasure by allowing ourselves to be loved and by stopping running to the right and to the left. The Lord tells us all the time: “Come to me, all you who are weary, I will relieve you. I am gentle and humble in heart. » Do we believe it or not?