Asking people to pray is like telling the wind to blow the ear to listen the eye to see We cannot not pray anymore than not be once given the gift of existence We can only shut it out or deny it Prayer is simply the conscious dimension of being when it opens out to […]
From Br. Joseph — This is the sixth reflection on seven signposts for the season of Lent (and for all seasons). Pray always. Prays always; if necessary, use words. Our words in prayer are very important, be them words of gratitude or of amazement, words for forgiveness, or words of need for others or for […]
Signposts point to where we want to go. Follow, or don’t follow. There are seven signposts listed below because seven is the number of completeness. No claim of originality is made for the signs, excerpt maybe for their grouping. Keep hope alive. Dare to trust. Surrender to grace. • • • Reflect love. • • […]
I rediscovered this piece of dialogue from the movie Matrix between Neo and the Spoon Boy in the waiting room of the Oracle’s apartment: Boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth. Neo: What truth? Boy: There is no spoon. Neo: There is no spoon? Boy: […]
Ask for repentance in your prayer and nothing else, neither for divine lights, nor miracles, nor prophecies, nor spiritual gifts—nothing but repentance. Repentance will bring you humility, humility will bring you the Grace of God, and God will have in His Grace everything you need for your salvation, or anything you might need to help […]
You realize that prayer takes us beyond the law. When you are praying you are, in a certain sense, an outlaw. There is no law between the heart and God. (Thomas Merton) I have been mulling over this quote I discovered a several days ago. It bothers me. It is from a writer and spiritual sojourner that […]
Yoda has it right when it comes to prayer, “Do or not do. There is no try.”
From Br. Joseph — St. Jerome, best known as the translator of the Bible into Latin from Greek and Hebrew, is reported to have had a vision of the child Jesus. In the vision, Jesus asked Jerome why he had not given Him everything. Jerome was puzzled. “Lord,” he protested, “I have devoted my life […]
I was talking with an older friend whose wife is the middle of battling the second stage of a debilitating disease. They chose to adopt two children years ago instead of passing this 50-50 chance, hereditary disease on to the next generation. Early in their marriage, he witnessed his mother-in-law progress through the disease that […]
Love can wait to give; lust can’t wait to get. Christopher West was on Life on the Rock last night to answer questions related to Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. Someone asked if he had any prayers to resist sexual temptation. I liked his response because it opens the door to a […]
God always answers prayers. He answers them in His way, not ours.
Inspired to react to a Frederick Franck quote, I wrote this. While watching the six o’clock news, I am forced to face the poverty of my spirit. I am powerless. I am impotent. I am not in control. There is nothing I can do to effect a change. But I do feel compelled to do […]
I was in the middle of the first part of a three-step prayer yesterday evening when my whinny little four-year suddenly bursted into my room and demanded he needed a fresh pair socks at that very moment so he could put on his shoes to go back outside. It jolted me out my prayer and […]
It’s Spring Break, and I’ve stepped out of the iHermitage to look around a little. In “It’s Not About Belief” by Jon Zuck, I found this intriguing little tidbit that adds another way to look at something: The Greek word pisteo is almost always translated “belief” or “faith” in the New Testament. However, it also […]
I find myself asking God to have mercy on those who died in some long ago battle or tragedy described in the pages of history. Am I a fool? Does love and prayer reach far back into time? What about the future, for people who will die to tomorrow or next year or ten years […]
Sound — music — prayer no words — emotions, feelings, but more… essence, existence, but more… A lifting up of the heart from within the heart, not the head, not the intellect, a place reachable without words, beyond words. The space and silence between the notes, between the sounds, between the harmonies. Silence supports it […]
I have had several people at different times tell me in counsel to “live my faith.” I was usually struggling through something at the time, a bit lost and confused about certain things, and my initial response every time was, “How? What does it mean to live out your faith?” They did their best to […]
I was listening to “All Things Considered” on NPR the other evening, and this story about atheists came on. One segment of the story described how atheists are deeply offended, especially when used by the media, by the old axiom, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” Apparently atheists find it degrading to expect them to […]
A man’s daughter had asked the local minister to come and pray with her father. When the minister arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows. An empty chair sat beside his bed. The minister assumed that the old fellow had been informed of his visit. “I […]
From today’s entry in God Calling: Not our wills but Thine, O Lord. Man has so misunderstood Me in this. I want no will laid grudgingly upon My Altar. I want you to desire and love My Will, because therein lies your happiness and the Spirit-rest. When you feel that you cannot leave the choice […]
From today’s entry in God Calling: Jesus, hear us, and let our cry come unto Thee. That voiceless cry, that comes from anguished hearts, is heard above all the music of Heaven. It is not the arguments of theologians that solve the problems of a questioning heart, but the cry of that heart to Me, […]
The prayer of listening makes things simple but it also makes us vulnerable, and that is frightening. Listening makes us open to Christ, the Word of God, spoken in all things: in the material world, the Scriptures, the Church, and sacraments and, sometimes most threateningly, in our fellow human beings. To listen at prayer is […]
I have come to a realization that I dislike admitting. I pray much more like Martha than Mary. (see Luke 10:38-42)
The Our Father is to prayer what Christ is to humanity. (Simone Weil) A couple weeks ago, I discovered by accident(?) this marvelous book in the back a small gift shop, The Prayer of Fire: Experiencing the Lord’s Prayer by Lorraine Kisly. As a blurb on the back cover says, “This is a book on prayer […]
About a month ago, I realized that I was saying one particular prayer wrong. When I enter a church or chapel, I kneel and pray, and start with, “Lord Jesus Christ, please forgive me because I am a sinner…” and go from there. What is wrong in my prayer is the word because. It is […]