Prayer

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When Its No Fun Anymore

Prayer is easy only for beginners and those who are already saints. During all the long years in between, it is difficult. Why? Because prayer has the same inner dynamic as love, and love is sweet only in its initial stage, when we first fall in love, and again in its final, mature stage. In between, love is hard work, dogged fidelity, and needs willful commitment beyond what is normally provided by our emotions and imagination. 

As we grow deeper and more mature in our relationships, reality begins to dispel all illusion. According to Ronald Rolheiser, it’s not that we become disillusioned with the one we love, but we begin to recognize that many of our warm thoughts and feelings we thought were about the “other” were really about ourselves – What we thought was prayer was partly a spell of enchantment about ourselves.

At this critical moment of recognition in any relationship, disillusionment sets in. It’s easy to believe we were wrong, misguided, deluded in feeling as we did. Here Rolheiser is brilliant: Disillusionment is a good thing. It’s the dispelling of an illusion. Disillusionment in love is actually a maturing moment in our lives!

In the spiritual life this is when we typically stop praying. Oh, we likely will not call it that. We are apt to disguise our avoidance with excuses or explanations – not enough time, just taking a break, my work is my prayer, too busy serving others. Fill in the blank! We will fight tenaciously to cling to our familiar preconceptions, a pleasing appearance, “reward” as the economy of grace, and our self-satisfied illusion.

What is needed when the bottom falls out – and it will – is just the opposite. We need to just show-up, minus warm thoughts and feelings, stripped of our enchantment with ourselves. Rolheiser sees this as the beginning of maturity. When we say, “I no longer know how to love,” or “I no longer know how to pray,” then we begin to really understand and grow in our capacity to love and pray.

These words of admonition and encouragement brought me back to something I first heard fifteen years ago as a reflection during Evening Prayer at St John the Evangelist (Anglican) Monastery in Cambridge, MA. It is a text I keep nearby and resort to with some regularity:

Silence has become God’s final defense against our idolatry. By limiting our speech, God gets some relief from our descriptive assaults. By hiding inside a veil of glory, God deflects our attempts at control by withdrawing into silence, knowing that nothing gets to us like the failure of our speech. When we run out of words, then and perhaps only then, can God be God. When we have eaten our own words until we are sick of them, when nothing we can tell ourselves makes a dent in our hunger, when we are prepared to surrender the very Word that brought us into being in hopes of hearing it spoken again–then, at last, we are ready to worship God.

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Initial quote and following references to Ronald Rolheiser are from Prayer: Our Deepest Longing. Cincinnati: Franciscan Media, 2013, pp 45-6. Final quote about “Silence” is from Barbara Brown Taylor, When God is Silent. Cowley Publications, 1998.

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Our Fathers

What are we to say of our fathers? Mine wasn’t perfect – none are, I suspect. When I turned 40, the age he was when I was born, I suddenly had a whole new appreciation for the man. What must it have been like to be the sole bread-winner for a wife and ten children? I buckled at the prospect. He did not.

Married in 1931, the Great Depression and WWII prevented him and my mother from “getting off the farm” until 1945. How they managed to “keep the farm” during those hard early years – when so many other good people had not – continues to amaze me.

We had our scrapes. What son or daughter doesn’t? I recall announcing at dinner that I was going to protest a Presidential campaign rally of George Wallace. He said, “No, you’re not.” I said, “Yes, I am!” Back and forth we went, horns locked.

Experienced parent that he was he announced, “This is what we are going to do… we will both go! We will sit in our seats. We won’t cheer or in any way express approval. However, we will not be part of an organized protest.” Together we went.

We witnessed those I would have been with taking folding chairs over their backs. The violence made national news. Though it took years to temper my impetuous zeal and admit his more mature wisdom, I never again doubted whether he would “be there” for me.

Who among us would not like to relive, perhaps re-script, certain episodes with our dads. Today, I am still in search of a hamburger to rival those I shared with him as an 8-year-old in cafes of small Nebraska towns when I accompanied him as a sales rep for a farm implement company. Oh, the conversation we’d have!

About a year before he died we shared another meal. I took the risk of asking what he wanted me to say about him at his funeral. His eyes shot up, “What?” “Look,” I said, “I’m going to be there and will probably have something to say. Most people don’t get the chance to say what they want said about them. What do you want me to say?”

Composing himself, he thought for a moment. “First of all, you better be there!” Then he said, “Tell them I wasn’t perfect… I made my mistakes. Tell them I’m sorry. But, tell them I tried my best and have loved them more than they will ever know.”

Dads aren’t perfect. But, then, who’d want to be the daughter or son of a perfect parent! We honor them best by growing into the woman or man we were born to be. In this we become more like them.

Dad has been gone more than 21 years now. Fathers Day without him never gets any easier – just different. There are times I am certain of his attentive presence. At other times I would give the world to share an experience or tap his wisdom.

This year I am especially grateful for the way he taught me to pray: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”

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Loneliness

It’s time for a change of pace!

Here is one of my favorite poems from the 14th-century Persian mystic and poet, Hafiz of Shiraz:

Don’t surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.
 
Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender,
 
My need of God
Absolutely
Clear.
 
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This copyrighted translation is by Daniel Ladinsky who entitles it Absolutely Clear. You may find it in his collection of 60 Hafiz poems, The Subject Tonight is Love, Pumpkin House Press, North Myrtle Beach, SC., 1996, p 50.

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Rumpled God

Today, something short! The Seeker by Joey Garcia…

 

The world is smitten with a god

who keeps a sharp crease in his pants,

and whispers, “No! Not like that!”

Oh, but I love the rumpled God

who forgets where he lives, forgets

his own name but never forgets mine.

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Source: Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction. Vol. 20, #2, p. 60.

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We Have Much to Learn

Despite pretensions to the contrary, my knowledge of great world religions other than Christianity is woefully deficient. You might say a one-size-fits-all superficiality characterizes my understanding. I claim to be fascinated with other cultures and peoples but I am still trapped in caricatures and stereotypes.  My loss!

As a Roman Catholic I should know better. Too many presume we all walk in lock-step – granted, too many in the hierarchy wish that were the case! But it’s not as if the Pope sneezes and we all catch cold! Many of us would not survive if that were the case, nor should we!

In the spirit of pushing back against stereotypes and caricatures, I was fascinated to learn that Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer of Mezbizk died on this day in 1760. He was honored with the appellation “Master of the Good Name” as founder of Hasidic Judaism. That title is Baal Shem Tov in Hebrew, thus he came to be commonly known as the “Besht”.

The rabbi has much to teach all people of good will about faith and the spiritual life. Rather than providing a set of teachings, the Besht “communicated his lessons through a certain attitude, a spirit of joy, an instinct for the holiness of experience.” Thus, his followers inspired so many they came to be known as the “pious ones,” the Hasidim.

The Besht was born into a Ukraine still reeling from brutal persecution in which more than a hundred thousand Jews had lost their lives. Within this world of suffering, he proclaimed a “mysticism of the everyday.” Within each task and each moment, regardless of how mundane, there resides a spark of the divine.

The Besht opposed excessive asceticism just as he opposed a preoccupation with the law. Each person is called to discover and express the potential holiness imbedded in the everyday and ordinary. And, this was all to be grounded in a pervasive spirit of joy. He spoke of prayer as a window to heaven and called the entire world a house of prayer.

We have the twentieth century Jewish philosopher Martin Buber to thank for popularizing the stories and example of the Baal Shem Tov and early Hasidic masters well beyond their home in Eastern Europe. Though not himself a Hasid, Buber recognized that Hasidic spirituality carries a universal message especially relevant to the secularized West.

Buber summarized the Besht’s consecration of everyday life to God this way: “The human task, of everyone, according to Hasidic teaching, is to affirm for God’s sake the world and oneself and by this very means to transform both.”

The large Hasidic community in Eastern Europe was largely extinguished by the Nazis. Vibrant communities in the United States and Israel continue to give expression to the joyful and compassionate vision of the Baal Shem Tov.

We have much to learn! We have much to learn!

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I am entirely indebted to All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Times by Robert Ellsberg (Crossroads, 1999) pp. 224-5 for this reflection.

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Forgiveness

I can’t pray the Our Father anymore – at least as I have in the past. Honesty requires that I admit my paralysis. Most of my prayer remains sincere but I now get hung up on “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Integrity demands that I admit deep resistance and objection.

It’s easy in conversation to accept that Jesus’ command to love our neighbor as ourselves is pretty radical. In every day practice we might be able to transcend our urge to extract “an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth”. But love my enemies, pray for those who persecute? Offer forgiveness, not just once but seven times seventy? Do not resist an evil doer but offer the other cheek as well to the one who strikes you?

Last weekend we went to see The Railway Man, a searing account of a former prisoner of war who is unable to overcome the emotional trauma of his past. Based on a true story, Eric Lomax was one of thousands forced into slave labor to build the notorious Burma Railway, known as the “Death Railway” because of the thousands who perished during its construction.

“The Railway Man” begins three decades after the war. It’s long shadow of looms over his marriage. Lomax has terrifying nightmares, and his behavior is erratic, at times violent. His wife sees he is shell-shocked and desperately wants to help. But Lomax refuses to discuss what happened in the internment camp. Intending revenge, Lomax instead travels to Asia to confront his tormentor.

How are such victims to forgive? Are they to be forgiven as they forgive those who have trespassed against them? Locally, two men “sucker punched” and kicked in the head of a young dad who now lies in critical condition struggling for his life. What should “forgiveness” look like for this wife and mother?

Perhaps the ultimate test for our generation is clerical sexual abuse. We all know too well that such a victim never does fully recover from such a profound violation of trust. Unspeakable pain lingers. Emotional landmines lie hidden while spawning a veritable tsunami of collateral damage. Relationships are forever poisoned.

Our generation has been collectively victimized, violated, traumatized. One need not have experienced explicit physical exploitation to know the deep pain. What angers us, what hurts most, is not simply the reprehensible behavior of initial perpetrators. We have come face to face with the fact that the Church itself has failed us all. Unconscionable behavior by the hierarchy seems relentless — like [this] out of Seattle yesterday.  We are all victims of their abuse.

How do we pray with integrity “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”? One thing I have recognized is my tendency to link my need to be forgiven with my willingness to forgive – quid pro quo, we are forgiven as we are capable of forgiving. I’m doomed if my forgiveness is contingent upon or in proportion to my capacity to forgive.

Where is the hope? And, yes, there is always hope! Whether a prisoner of war like Eric Lomax, an anguished wife and mother in Mankato or a “cradle Catholic” in the pew on Sundays, forgiveness sometimes requires a superhuman act. In reality only God can forgive.

“Who can forgive sins but God alone?” remains as pressing in our day as for the Pharisees grilling Jesus. (Luke 5:21). Despite the normative teaching of Jesus in the Our Father, forgiveness is really only possible through God’s saving action in Christ (Rom 3:25f).

Ultimately, God has reconciled us to Himself and to one another while we were still sinners (Rom 5). That gives me hope despite my paralysis in prayer. That is the sole grounds on which we may have hope for the Church as well.

God save us!
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Again, I am indebted to Mercy: The Essence of the Gospel and the Key to Christian Life by Walter Kasper, Paulist Press, 2013 for prompting much of these reflections; esp., pp 138-142.

 

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Woman, Centered in God

We prayed the family Rosary when I was a kid – not just during Lent, not just one day a week, we prayed the Rosary after dinner every day of my childhood. Okay, we may have been allowed a reprieve from time to time but this was truly the exception, not the rule!

Imagine the tens of thousands of times we recited the “Hail Mary” together as a family! I cannot begin to express the culminating grace and profound consolation standing aside our mother’s bed on January 19, 2007 as she breathed her last. One last time we prayed, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. AMEN!” 

May is a month many Christians dedicate to Mary. Certainly there would be no reprieve from our family Rosary this month! Now these deeply imprinted memories are a source of fresh gratitude and comfort.

The Litany of Loreto [link] concluded our family’s after dinner ritual. I confess that as a 7 year old I took inordinate pride in being able to lead the entire Litany from memory! Today I find the images saccharine and archaic. But they set a foundation for which I am eternally grateful.

Today, I much prefer the Litany of Mary of Nazareth. The images are much more accessible and evocative for my heart. On this day in May – the month of Mary – I enthusiastically recommend it for your prayer:

Glory to you, God our Creator … Breath into us new life, new meaning.
Glory to you, God our Savior … Lead us in the way of peace and justice.
Glory to you, God, healing Spirit … Transform us to empower others.

Mary, wellspring of peace ………. Be our guide,
Model of strength…..
Model of gentleness…
Model of trust..
Model of courage
Model of patience
Model of risk
Model of openness
Model of perseverance

Mother of the liberator ………. Pray for us.
Mother of the homeless…..
Mother of the dying…
Mother of the nonviolent
Widowed mother
Unwed mother
Mother of a political prisoner
Mother of the condemned
Mother of an executed criminal

Oppressed woman ………. Lead us to life.
Liberator of the oppressed…..
Marginalized woman…
Comforter of the afflicted
Cause of our joy
Sign of contradiction
Breaker of bondage
Political refugee
Seeker of sanctuary
First disciple
Sharer in Christ’s ministry
Participant in Christ’s passion
Seeker of God’s will
Witness to Christ’s resurrection

Woman of mercy ………. Empower us.
Woman of faith…..
Woman of contemplation…
Woman of vision
Woman of wisdom and understanding
Woman of grace and truth
Woman, pregnant with hope
Woman, centered in God

Mary, Queen of Peace, we entrust our lives to you. Shelter us from war, hatred and oppression. Teach us to live in peace, to educate ourselves for peace. Inspire us to act justly, to revere all God has made. Root peace firmly in our hearts and in our world. Amen.
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Source: The Fire of Peace: A Prayer Book edited by Mary Lou Kownacki, OSB for Pax Christi USA

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Let Us Pray!

Last week we got a thank you note from a friend who is living with a very serious melanoma. We had seen “Joe” at a social event and were grateful for his report of being in remission. As we have in the past we assured him of our prayers. Joe was deeply touched when we told him that his name was “in the box.”

We explained briefly that we have a “grocery list” of names on index cards. Lists go back four or five years by now. We toss the cards into a handsome 4×6 marble box we picked up at a garage sale for a few bucks. It sits on our kitchen table where we see it many times through the day.

Each evening before dinner we ask, “Who should we pray for today?” Generally, people we have seen that day or immediate needs take priority. But we often say, “And for everyone in the box” or silently touch the marble lid near at hand as we say “Amen.”

Joe’s thank you note really touched us. I guess it shouldn’t have, really. When you get down to it, what is it we all want? To be validated, recognized, valued, appreciated – to know when we take off our dress-clothes after a social event that we truly are in relationship and part of a caring community.

There is a whole lot more intercessory prayer going on than meets the eye! But one image has remained with me all week. It comes from First Communion Sunday at Christ the King. Such occasions bring out the multi-generational family like nothing else. A woman I would guess to be the great-grandmother of a well-represented clan knelt after communion with eyes closed and her hands gently clasped near her quiet lips. What must have been in this lovely matriarch’s heart?

Moses interceded before God innumerable times. The one that comes to mind in regard to the woman at Christ the King is recorded in Deuteronomy 9:25 – Moses lies prostrate in prayer before God for forty-days and nights. Similar “standing in the breach” is attributed to Jeremiah (18:20), Ezekiel (13:5 and 22:30) and many others in Scripture. Jesus teaches us to ask for what we need.

But who needs more testimony than the serene focus of a grandmother on First Communion Sunday? So, in her honor and on behalf of all those for whom we have offered to pray, please join me in what I imagine was on her heart:

For this reason I kneel before the Father,from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19)

 

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Holy Water

Is it a glitch in technology or does God have something else on mind?  In either case, I can’t get an internet connection on the laptop this morning.  It’s really tedious to write a blog on an iPad but it’s possible to cut and paste.  So what I had intended to write about feeling enthusiastic and hopeful about the future of the church will have to await resolution of my internet connectivity issues.

Maybe God does have other intentions!  Just yesterday my friend Susan Stabile posted something on her blog, Creo en Dios [link] I really liked and actually thought I would want to share.  Greater powers than me seem to have the same idea.  Here is what Susan shared from something that had been posted in a church bulletin:

I accept the Sign of the Cross

…on my forehead – to learn to follow Jesus;

…on my ears – that I may hear the voice of God;

…on my eyes – that I may see the glory of God;

…on my lips – that I may respond to the word of God;

…on my heart – that Christ may dwell there by faith;

…on my shoulders – that I may bear the gentle yoke of Christ;

…on my hands – that Christ may be known in my work;

…on my feet – that I may walk in the way of Christ.

I Make the Sign of the Cross, the promise of eternal life to all who are faithful to Christ.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Although the Pelagian overtones of “the promise…to all who are faithful to Christ” makes me squirm a little, this is a marvelous reminder of our Baptism.  All the more reason we should reclaim the rich symbolism of Holy Water at the entrance to our churches.

And, about those “Pelagian overtones”… our faithfulness does nothing to earn Christ’s promise.  All is gift and all is given!  All God asks is our response in gratitude and love to the utter gift extended to us in Christ.  This is the grace into which we have been baptized.  Thanks be to God!

 

 

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Countering Lenten Lethagy

I admit it – I’ve gotten a little lax and lazy! We are two-thirds of the way into Lent and I need a mid-course correction. Today I took a pen to paper and tried to generate possible strategies for activating each of the traditional Lenten practices of fasting, alms-giving and prayer. Here’s what I came up with. No, I am not committing to put each into practice. I just need to get the energy flowing as a counter to Lenten lethargy. Maybe something here will give you a jump-start as well.

FASTING

City crews came through yesterday pruning trees on the boulevard. Pruning shapes, strengthens and beautifies trees. Pruning actually increases productivity in food and flower-bearing plants. What “pruning” would have a corresponding effect in me?

Fasting immediately conjures food and eating less. What if we ate the same amount but shared a meal with someone who is hungry for more than food right now? What would happen if we invited a grieving neighbor over for dinner or a struggling colleague out for lunch?

A dinner guest on Tuesday said he has a goal of taking the bus to work at least four days a week. He’s worked up to that number and has learned to enjoy his commute much more than if he were battling traffic. He saves a boatload of money but also takes pride in lessening his consumption of fossil fuels.  Consider eco-fasting!

ALMS-GIVING

I am very attached to my opinions and am disposed to judgmentalism. What if I were to consistently try – and this would be a challenge – to give everyone I meet the benefit of the doubt? What if I tried really hard to give the best interpretation to the other person’s words or behaviors for a full 24 hours?

What is our most precious resource? Of course, its time! What if I conscientiously gave my attention to someone who holds a different opinion, to the neighbor who asks to borrow a cup of sugar but actually wants to vent about an exasperating child, or recognized when someone needs us to take time to quietly listen and is not asking for answers or our opinion?

What would be the hardest thing for me to give away? Wow! As I compile my long list of possibilities I am inspired to wonder “why?” What is it about this item that would make it so hard? Simply getting in touch with this fact opens us to better understand our true values and can be quite illuminating!

PRAYER

I have Psalm 46:10 on a card on an easel in my prayer space: “Be still and know that I am God.” Truthfully, God must get pretty exasperated with my incessant babble, wish-lists and emergencies. What if I were to give myself over to simply resting in God’s embrace like a child in her mother’s arms?  What… let God be God?

My friend Susan Stabile quoted Fr. Robert Barron’s book Why Your Body Matters for Prayer on her blog Creo en Dios a few days ago [link]: “The body in a significant sense precedes the mind. If you’re having difficulty in prayer today try kneeling, or bowing, or making some sort of reverent gesture. The body often leads the mind into a deeper spiritual space.”

We mouth the Lord’s Prayer all the time but do we really mean it? What if we were the pray – really pray – YOUR kingdom come, YOUR will be done… here, now!  Mean it!  That would be nothing short of the deep, transforming conversion Lent is intended to inspire.

Finally, and most importantly, Lenten practices are not about our endurance or success. Rather, they are intended merely to dispose us to God’s enduring presence and ever-merciful love.