Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Cross, Page 8
Thursday, March 22, 2001
FOODFORTHOUGHT
examination of consciousness twice
each day around this question: Where
was the mystery of God most evident
this morning or this afternoon? He
then gives thanks for whatever
awareness he is blessed with.
—There is Father Tim, who finds
the prayer of the church a significant
way to hold the people of his parish up
to God throughout the day. When he
comes for direction, he brings a list of
words that have been most striking in
the Breviary and we discern together
God’s message in them.
—There is Mary Ellen, who has
rediscovered the rosary by meditating
briefly on each of the mysteries and
then on each of the beads. She finds
the scriptural rosary profoundly nour
ishing.
■ ■ ■
Many of us grew up with the Balti
more Catechism notion of prayer as
“the lifting up of our minds and hearts
to God.” That was fine as far as it
contemplation, a form of prayer deep
in Catholic tradition in which one
reads a Gospel passage again and
again, and then places oneself in the
scene, observing the characters, lis
tening to them and slowly entering
into conversation with them as one
gets drawn into the scene.
As Sharon grew more adept at this
prayer, which is so appropriate to her
personality, her prayer life simply ex
ploded. She has found herself being
Anna in the temple, holding the infant
Jesus. Sharon has been in the crowd
hearing the Beatitudes as Jesus spoke
them the first time. She has been
among the intimates of Jesus at the
Last Supper.
Sharon cannot get over the close
relationship she now has with Jesus.
It has affected her whole life.
Dave is a methodical, thoughtful
individual who came to spiritual di
rection wanting to harness his mind
and to listen more while praying. He
might say.
One has to give up control to be at
prayer. Any form of prayer that in
vites that letting go is the right form
of prayer for a person.
At this point in Lent it could be
appropriate to do a check-up on the
prayer we have committed to during
this season.
—Is it helping us receive our lives
better as a gift from our gracious^^
merciful God?
—Is it opening our eyes to others as
our sisters and brothers?
If the answer to both is “yes,” then
we are most likely true to the prayer
the Spirit is inviting us to this Lent. If
not, then we should at least question
our prayer of the season. Jesus just
might be waiting for us and beckoning
us onward.
(Jesuit Father Rice is a spiritual
director with Loyola, a spiritual re
newal resource in St. Paul, Minn.)
God longs to be in union with us,
but God has to see us as we are and
where we are, not where we are not.
So Christ conversed differently
with Phillip than with Mary
Magdalene, differently with Teresa of
Prayer takes many forms. But prayer definitely gets to the heart of the matter for Christians.
“Prayer develops that conversation with Christ which makes us his intimate friends, ” Pope John Paul II wrote in
his 2001 letter titled “At the Beginning of the New Millennium.” The “reciprocity” of this conversation “is the very
substance and soul of the Christian life, ” he said.
Prayer doesn’t consist only of imploring God’s help, the pope observed. Flayer also is expressed “in thanksgiving,
praise, adoration, contemplation, listening and ardent devotion.”
Listening to Scripture — reading it devoutly, alone or with others — was one form of prayer that the pope
encouraged. “Listening to the word of God should become a life-giving encounter in the ancient and ever valid
tradition of ‘lectio divina,’ which draws from the biblical text the living word which questions, directs and shapes
our lives,” the pope said.
And he called it a signs of the times “that in today’s world, despite widespread secularization, there is a
widespread demand for spirituality, a demand which expresses itself in large part as a renewed need for prayer. ”
David Gibson, Editor, Faith Alive!
Praying all ways
By Father Richard Rice, SJ
Catholic News Service
s
lharon is a highly imaginative,
intuitive woman who joined me for
her spiritual direction three years
ago, seeking a prayer life that would
connect her to the living God and lead
her beyond the recitation of prayers.
I introduced Sharon to imaginative
and I spoke of centering prayer in
which one repeats a word or phrase for
15 or 20 minutes and lets it enter one
more deeply.
Dave now prays this way twice
daily and credits this form of prayer
for a new depth of friendship with
God, with himself and with others.
These are just two stories among
many.
—There is also Mark who does an
went, but it was a half-truth. It em
phasized our initiative in prayer.
The new Catechism of the Catholic
Church has corrected that with its
remarkable Part 4 on Christian
Prayer. Early in the section appear
the words: “Prayer is the encounter of
God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts
that we may thirst for him.”
Our God is thirsty for us. That is
overwhelming when we begin to real
ize the implications.
All prayer is at
God’s initiative. As
Paul writes, “We do
not know how to
pray as we ought,
but the Spirit itself
intercedes with inex
pressible groanings”
(Romans 8:26).
aliv e
0,
'ne has to give up control
to be at prayer. Any form of
prayer that invites that
letting go is the right form of
prayer for a person.”
All contents copy right ©2001 byCNS
Avila than with Thomas Merton, anc^
God is conversing differently with you
today than with me.
A major duty of a spiritual director
is to bring a person a working knowl
edge and experience of varied prayer
forms. Another duty is to listen long
— to listen until the director either
can confirm the person’s way of pray
ing or perhaps suggest a new way that
might dislodge the person from a ru^
or be more true to the person’s own
individuality.
■ ■ ■
The major hurdle in prayer is to get
beyond oneself and beyond simply
“saying prayers,” which can invite the
attempt to control God,
and to begin “being at
prayer,” which is to be
in responsive conversa
tion with our God.
That is both inviting^
and terrifying because
one is never sure what
one might hear in such
a conversation, if any
thing, and what one