Spirit of Love and Truth, guide Your Church to a newness
of life, that she may be a source of light to a world pervaded by darkness and
strife. Amen.
Rosary
Intentions
 |
| Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pray for us who have recourse to thee! |
My prayers today are for
those who have trouble praying—Mary, you always know just what to say. Please take all prayers, no matter how small
or incoherent they may be, and present them to our Lord Jesus Christ as though
they were your own. Help us to become
better listeners, so that we may hear what your Son is telling us and be better
Apostles for Him.
I want to offer a special
prayer for my boss, who is taking a cruise next week to Mexico with his entire
family. I pray that he has a safe,
pleasurable vacation—he’s earned it this year!
Part of the prayer is for me, too (is that selfish?). I will be in charge of one of our locations
(since my boss’s son-in-law in the GM and going with him) AND handling any of
my boss’s immediate issues, as well. Let’s
pray that it’s a quiet week on the work front.
And lest I forget those who
are on ‘forced vacations’—the unemployed; St. Joseph the Worker, pray for them,
that they find satisfying work at a fair wage.
Reflection
I’ve been meditating today on the simplicity of Jesus’
preparation for one of His most important actions—the naming of His followers
who were to preach the gospel, tell the Jesus story and provide the leadership
of the nascent Christian community. Luke simply notes, “Jesus went up to the
mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God.” (Luke 6:12-16) How
instructive for us. What excellent advice: to take all of our decisions to God
in prayer. Again, the actions of Jesus provide for us a model to be imitated.
How often we fret, get anxious or even fearful to make
decisions. How often we forget to invite God to be a partner in our
decision-making. In prayer God can play the devil’s advocate-giving
perspective, teasing the complexities from the decision(s) facing us, and
neutralizing the fears and minimizing the risks. And in our deliberations God
can provide peace in the final decision. We must remember always that prayer is a conversation, an exchange, a speaking and a listening with the most important Person in our lives - the only One who truly knows us and knows what we need. Prayer can be a great many things - a spontaneous outpouring of joy, sorrow, desperation, hope, love, or anger. But most of all prayer is conversation.
Conversation consists of two parts - speaking and listening, and a good conversationalist, as with a good prayer, knows that the better part is listening. (Luke 10:38-42) We should allow our prayer time to have some loving, attentive silence in which we wait upon the Lord. In other words, we should say our piece, and let the Lord say His piece. In this way, we will be blessed by hearing and listening. We will be strengthened by the One who loves us. We will not have the courage of our convictions, but rather, the courage of the Lord's Will - far more powerful and far more meaningful than anything we could summon alone. Even if the answer does not come immediately, it will come - through other people, through circumstances, through a changed heart and a transformed mind and will.
As we look at today's world, the truth of a line from St. Paul's
letter to the Romans strikes us forcefully, for indeed all of creation is
groaning in labor pains as it struggles to bring forth Christ's new life from
the old one. This strife is caused by the fight we all must engage in as we try
to overcome our selfishness and be freed from the corruption of sin, fully
redeemed by Christ in both body and soul. Such is God's will for humanity.
We see in Christ's all-night prayer the importance of His
choices as He gathered together those who would serve to make Him and God's
message of reconciliation known to the world. It was not necessary for Him to choose the
most eloquent and scholarly, because the Holy Spirit revealed the truth to them
and gave them the power to live it and verbalize it. It continues today. Jesus chooses those who
are humble, those most receptive to His word and who sincerely desire to love
and serve God and learn to love and serve others as Christ Himself does,
steadfastly and unconditionally. If the Church is to stand firm and continue to
grow, it must have a solid foundation, Apostles who will function under the
headship of Christ, the capstone.
Worldly forces are now exerting much pressure on the Church's
foundation, our bishops, in hopes of toppling her who stands against the
world's lax values. A media given to
reveling in smut and sensationalism enjoys loudly touting infidels within the
Church, exerting pressure upon her, trying to bring about changes in her basic
moral tenets by suggesting that the strictness of these and the celibacy of
priests rather than the human preponderance toward sin and the failure of some
individuals to remain completely faithful to Christ's teachings is the cause of
all our problems.
Our most successful weapon is prayer and Apostleship. God will help us. It IS that simple, if we will just believe.
No comments:
Post a Comment