prayer

Here is an essay from Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ. It was aired on the NPR segment, This I Believe, ”a national media project engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values and beliefs that guide their daily lives.”

To listen to the Sister Helen’s essay, Living My Prayer, click here and then click on “Listen Now”.

Living My Prayer
by Sister Helen Prejean

Sister Helen Prejean’s work as spiritual adviser to death row inmates formed the basis of two books, including Dead Man Walking. A native of Louisiana, Prejean became a nun in 1957. In 1981 she dedicated her life to helping the poor of New Orleans.

Weekend Edition Sunday, January 6, 2008 · I watch what I do to see what I really believe.

Belief and faith are not just words. It’s one thing for me to say I’m a Christian, but I have to embody what it means; I have to live it. So, writing this essay and knowing I’ll share it in a public way becomes an occasion for me to look deeply at what I really believe by how I act.

“Love your neighbor as yourself,” Jesus said, and as a beginner nun I tried earnestly to love my neighbor — the children I taught, their parents, my fellow teachers, my fellow nuns. But for a long time, the circle of my loving care was small and, for the most part, included only white, middle-class people like me. But one day I woke up to Jesus’ deeper challenge to love the outcast, the criminal, the underdog. So I packed my stuff and moved into a noisy, violent housing project in an African-American neighborhood in New Orleans.

I saw the suffering and I let myself feel it: the sound of gunshots in the night, mothers calling out for their children. I saw the injustice and was compelled to do something about it. I changed from being a nun who only prayed for the suffering world to a nun with my sleeves rolled up, living my prayer. Working in that community in New Orleans soon led me to Louisiana’s death row.

So, I keep watching what I do to see what I actually believe.

Jesus’ biggest challenge to us is to love our enemies. On death row, I encountered the enemy — those considered so irredeemable by our society that even our Supreme Court has made it legal to kill them. For 20 years now, I’ve been visiting people on death row, and I have accompanied six human beings to their deaths. As each has been killed, I have told them to look at me. I want them to see a loving face when they die. I want my face to carry the love that tells them that they and every one of us are worth more than our most terrible acts.

But I knew being with the perpetrators wasn’t enough. I also had to reach out to victims’ families. I visited the families who wanted to see me, and I founded a victims support group in New Orleans. It was a big stretch for me, loving both perpetrators and victims’ families, and most of the time I fail because so often a victim’s families interpret my care for perpetrators as choosing sides — the wrong side. I understand that, but I don’t stop reaching out.

I’ve learned from victims’ families just how alone many of them feel. The murder of their loved one is so horrible, their pain so great, that most people stay away. But they need people to visit, to listen, to care. It doesn’t take anyone special, just someone who cares.

Writing this essay reminds me, as an ordinary person, that it’s important to take stock, to see where I am. The only way I know what I really believe is by keeping watch over what I do.

Independently produced for Weekend Edition Sunday by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with John Gregory and Viki Merrick.

(source)

Great article from Zenit. I love the image of lectio divina as “spiritual GPS” … what has been your experience with reading Scripture? How does Scripture help you pray and navigate life?

“Lectio Divina” Seen as a Compass and Spiritual GPS
Site on Meditation of Scripture Aims to Attract Youth

By Miriam Díez i Bosch

ROME, DEC. 18, 2007 (Zenit.org) - A “spiritual GPS” and a “compass for life” are two images that have been used to illustrate the importance of reading the Bible, says a Catholic consultor for the United Biblical Societies.

Ricardo Grozna said this to ZENIT when commenting on the Web site www.lectionautas.com, which offers guides for “lectio divina,” or the meditative reading of Scripture, and aims especially to attract youth. It already has 50,000 users.

“To define ‘lectio divina’ as a GPS [Global Positioning System] is to see in it a satellite that tells us where we are, like a compass, which indicates to us the path to follow,” Grozna said. He commented that Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, “has referred to ‘lectio divina’ as a GPS, and the Pope has defined the Bible as a ‘compass for life.’”

Sacred Scripture “is a book that interprets my life; the Bible ends up being like a mirror that helps me, and teaches me to seek a path,” Grozna added. “For years, Pope John Paul II and then Benedict XVI insisted a great deal that ‘lectio divina,’ which was a method of monastic prayer of the monks, could reach all Christians.”

Novel evangelization

The program of “lectio divina” on the Internet consists in offering users texts and MP3 files. Users are chiefly youth who download the audio files on their mobile phones. Grozna explained that the aim of the program is to train young people who can lead other youth in reading the Bible.

“The Church is taking all the programs promoting biblical reading as a priority,” explained Grozna, pointing especially to his experience in Latin America. “Catholics have delayed a little in rediscovering the Bible, but the Bible has always been present in the Church. […] I don’t read the Bible, it is the Bible that reads me.”

Grozna said the site’s success is shown by hundreds of e-mail messages from youth telling “how they are changing their lives by following the prayerful reading.”

The method is also ecumenical, he added: “‘Lectio divina’ has been a point for moving forward in dialogue with other Christian brothers.” And it also serves as a social apostolate, “In some countries, the parish youth are using the method of ‘lectio divina’ to reach ostracized youth; those who are in very poor neighborhoods, those who have been victims of drugs, violence, gangs.”

Hugo Flores, manager of the site, was in Rome to present the program. He told ZENIT the program has been well received by theologians and biblical scholars. “They have taken ‘lectio divina’ as a point to help them evangelize and carry the word of the Lord to more groups. Cardinals, bishops, priests … they are fascinated with this novelty, this new form of evangelizing through the Internet.”

(click for article at Zenit.org)

For me, a very meaningful way of praying is the Daily Examen of Saint Ignatius. It’s a simple way of being present to God and prayerfully reviewing one’s day to help people discern where they were finding — and sometimes needing to find — God in their lives.

Other6.com is a new web site from Loyola Communications that takes the essence of the Daily Examen and brings it to the web. It is place where you can respond to one of two questions: Where have you found God today? or Where do you need to find God today? The practice of answering the questions on a regular basis can help one become more mindful of God’s presence in one’s life and increase one’s own self-awareness. There’s even a handy widget that you can set to remind you daily to stop for a moment and be mindful of God in your day.

So what does the rather intriguing name “Other6″ mean? Here’s what the web site says:

Some find God at church on Sundays, but where does God bubble up in our lives the “Other6″ days of the week?

I have found this to be a wonderful way to start and end my day. It is simple and uncluttered … just a place to reflect and pray. Sometimes I go back through what I’ve written before and I can see how God has been working in my life over time. It’s like my own spiritual journal that tracks in a few words where I’ve found God and where I need to find God.

Take time right now to click over to Other6.com and experience it for yourself. Try it out. Add a bubble (you’ll know what I mean when you go there) each day which will help you develop the habit of being mindful of God in the ordinary (and sometimes not-so-ordinary) moments of every day life.

Over the years our nation’s leaders have recognized the importance of setting aside
a day to give thanks for all that God has given us.
It is a day to share food with friends and family,
and to seek ways for sharing God’s bounty with those around us.
We recognize that food does not just magically appear.
We give thanks for the farmers and farm workers who plant and harvest our food.
We pray that all immigrants who come to our nation,
including the many who plant and harvest our food,
will be treated with respect and hospitality.
We give thanks for the workers who process and package our food.
We pray that these workers and all workers
will be paid wages that allow them to put food on their own tables.
Food and the sharing of food is the work of many people.
As we pause this Thanksgiving,
let us seek new ways to share our nation’s prosperity with all who labor.
And let us pledge ourselves anew to be a people of sharing and thanksgiving.

– adapted from “An Interfaith Thanksgiving Prayer”
by Interfaith Worker Justice
www.iwj.org

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has established a relief fund for the thousands of Bangladeshis who are displaced and have lost their homes, crops and livelihoods after the cyclone. If you can help, please, please do. Click on this link to donate now …

http://www.crs.org/bangladesh/2007-cyclone/

And please keep the people of Bangladesh in your prayers. I am especially reminded of Mary who is known (among other titles) as “Our Lady of Sorrows”. Mary certainly knew sorrow in her life especially witnessing the passion and death of her son Jesus. I ask Our Lady of Sorrows to watch over all those who are suffering with a mother’s tender love and care. (icon by Father William McNichols, SJ)

Just received this and thought I’d pass it along. It is a Gospel Commentary for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time (yesterday). The readings for the 29th Sunday are Exodus 17:8-13a; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2; Luke 18:1-8.

I love the line about prayer being the connecting thread of Jesus’ whole life. May such a thread be woven in our own lives.

Christ’s Parable About the Need to Pray Always

By Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap

ROME, OCT. 19, 2007 (Zenit.org) - Sunday’s Gospel begins thus: “Jesus told them a parable about the need to pray always and not to lose heart.” The parable is the one about the troublesome widow. In answer to the question “How often must we pray?” Jesus answers, “Always!”

Prayer, like love, does not put up with calculation. Does a mother ask how often she should love her child, or a friend how often he should love a friend? There can be different levels of deliberateness in regard to love, but there are no more or less regular intervals in loving. It is the same way with prayer.

This ideal of constant prayer is realized in different forms in the East and West. Eastern Christianity practiced it with the “Jesus Prayer”: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!”

The West formulated the principle of constant prayer in a more flexible way so that it could also be proposed to those who do not lead a monastic life. St. Augustine teaches that the essence of prayer is desire. If the desire for God is constant, so also is prayer, but if there is no interior desire, then you can howl as much as you want — to God you are mute.

Now, this secret desire for God, a work of memory, of need for the infinite, of nostalgia for God, can remain alive, even when one has other things to do: “Praying for a long time is not the same thing as kneeling or folding your hands for a long time. In consists rather in awakening a constant and devout impulse of the heart toward him whom we invoke.”

Jesus himself gave us the example of unceasing prayer. Of him, it is said that he prayed during the day, in the evening, early in the morning, and sometimes he passed the whole night in prayer. Prayer was the connecting thread of his whole life.

But Christ’s example tells us something else important. We are deceiving ourselves if we think that we can pray always, make prayer a kind of respiration of the soul in the midst of daily activity, if we do not set aside fixed times for prayer, when we are free from every other preoccupation.

The same Jesus who we see praying always, is also the one who, like every other Jew of his period, stopped and turned toward the temple in Jerusalem three times a day, at dawn, in the afternoon during the temple sacrifices, and at sundown, and recited ritual prayers, among which was the “Shema Yisrael!” — “Hear, O Israel!” On the Sabbath he also participated, with his disciples, in the worship at the synagogue; different scenes in the Gospels take place precisely in this context.

The Church — we can say, from its first moment of life — has also set aside a special day dedicated to worship and prayer: Sunday. We all know what, unfortunately, has happened to Sunday in our society: Sports, from being something for diversion and relaxation, have often become something that poisons Sunday … We must do whatever we can so that this day can return to being, as God intended it in commanding festive repose, a day of serene joy that strengthens our communion with God and with each other, in the family and in society.

We modern Christians should take our inspiration from the words that, in 305, St. Saturnius and his fellow martyrs addressed to the Roman judge who had them arrested for participating in the Sunday rite: “The Christian cannot live without the Sunday Eucharist. Do you not know that the Christian exists for the Eucharist and the Eucharist for the Christian?”

* * *

Father Raniero Cantalamessa is the Pontifical Household preacher.

Continuing my reflections on Saint Teresa of Avila …Teresa was in the convent school with the Augustinian Nuns (see previous post) for about a year and a half. She says that although she grew closer to God, “I still had no desire to be a nun, and I asked God not to give me this vocation” (Life 3.2). But, she notes,

“By the end of this period of time in which I stayed there I was more favorable to the thought of being a nun, although not in that house, for there were things I was afterward to understand were most virtuous that seemed to me to be too extreme…. These good thoughts about being a nun sometimes came to me, and then would go away; and I could not be persuaded to be one.” (Life 3.2)

I love Teresa’s honesty here. I think many people struggle with their vocation (not just to religious life). For some, they know clearly what they are meant to do; but for others like Teresa (and myself), it’s not immediately clear. We have to test it, wrestle with it, ponder it, and ultimately live into it. No one way of discerning is better than another. Somehow or another we end up where God is calling us, though it may be a matter of moments or years. It is so important to hang in there and to continuing to pray and to serve others.Flash of light or cloud of unknowing? — which image fits your experience of finding your vocation? Or what other image fits for you?

I’ve still been thinking and praying on hope which began with my chance encounter with graffiti (see earlier post). I continue to bring this to prayer.

This morning I read Psalm 46 which contains one of my most favorite verses: “Be still and know that I am God.”

To the leader. Of the Korahites. According to Alamoth. A Song.

God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
Selah

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
God will help it when the morning dawns.
The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.
Selah

Come, behold the works of the Lord;
see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
‘Be still, and know that I am God!
I am exalted among the nations,
I am exalted in the earth.’
The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.
Selah

What prayer, poem, memory, etc. do you turn to when you are struggling to hang on to hope?

Watch, O Lord, with those who wake, or watch, or
weep tonight, and give your angels charge over
those who sleep.
Tend your sick ones, O Lord Christ.
Rest your weary ones.
Bless your dying ones.
Soothe your suffering ones.
Pity your afflicted ones.
Shield your joyous ones.
And for all your love’s sake.
Amen.

~ Saint Augustine of Hippo