PRAYING WITH NATURE

(last year's beautiful sunflowers here at Ava)

 

PRAYING WITH NATURE

 

(Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB, has more to tell us about praying with nature in her June MONASTIC WAY)

 

Nature teaches us many things.   It is coming to hear this language, that is beyond language, which is the language of the soul.

 

When we see things only en maase, in great, large, sweeping entities, we lose the mystery of life.  "The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificient world in itself." (Henry Miller)

 

There is a call to nature in all of us -- the challenge of the mountains, the enormity of the ocean, the cry of the clouds, the stolidity of the trees -- that both calls us beyond ourselves and into ourselves.  Each of them is already in us, one more powerful than the other, attempting to teach us what we need to know.

 

Water calls us to explore the depth of the self.  It washes away, wave after wave, the seismic shocks of the day upon our souls.  It soothes the riled self.

 

Fire drives us out of ourselves, it touches the spark within us that leads us to create new worlds in the face of the years gone to ashes before us.

 

Earth, the vast expanse of the plains, the colors in a far away meadow, beckons us to explore, to know, to touch, to grow with the environment around us.  It makes us its own and teaches us what home is about.

 

Air, fresh and soft, teaches us how little it takes to live, to go on, to be pure of heart, to begin to live all over again, to believe.

 

What nature has to teach us, if we wll only take the time in this technological world to listen, is the very rhythm and richness of life.  "Climb the mountains and nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves." (John Muir)

 

We live, most of us, in a boxed-in world, secure from the wind, away from the water, shadowed from the sun, free from the rain, cemented a distance from the woods.  We live totally unnatural lives and wonder why we feel out of place here.  "Come forth into the light of things; let nature be your teacher."  (William Wordsworth)

 

TRINITY SUNDAY

(An image of the Trinity in a painting in our friary.)

A THOUGHT TO TAKE TO PRAYER FOR TRINITY SUNDAY:

 

"The Trinity becomes a reality in us as the guest of the soul.  Why go on searching for God beyond the stars when God is so close to us, within us?   Don't try to reach God with your understanding;  that is impossible.   Reach God in love; that is possible."

 

(Carlo Carretto in his Letters from the Desert, Orbis, 1972)

PRAYING WITH THE SEASONS OF THE YEAR

(winter at the Franciscan Prayer Fraternity)

PRAYING WITH THE SEASONS

The spiritual life is more than doctrine.  It is coming to see God in the works of God.

 

Realize that mysticism is the gift of learning to see Life under life, behind life, and beyond life.  Nature teaches us many things.  It is coming to hear this language, that is beyond language, which is the language of the soul.

 

SPRING teaches us patience.  Things -- and we, as well -- grow slowly.  Do not overvalue the speed that races to produce what the heart is not yet wise enough to use well.

 

SUMMER teaches us that to have the fullness of life -- great tastes, good fun, warm sun and wild abandon -- we must have less of it than we expect.  Too much of anything sears the soul.

 

FALL teaches us the value of resting our minds as well as our bodies, the value of readiness,  the value of transition.  In all the in-between phases and places of life, we are given the time to allow our souls to catch up with our restless energies, to take stock of the present, to get sight of all our possible futures and choose between them.

 

WINTER teaches us what it means to close one phase of life so that we can begin something else, totally different, totally new.  It gives us the joy of beginning over and over again throughout the whole of life.

 

To live in rhythm with the seasons was natural in an agricultural society.  Now in the technological age, it has become a spiritual discipline, a sign of maturity yet to be developed.  Everything that grows in us in life is an experience from which we are meant to grow.

 

(taken from FOR A LISTENING HEART, June's reflections for THE MONASTIC WAY by Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB) 

Prayer for the Feast of St. Anthony of Padua

(statue of St. Anthony is down near our little pond) 

MODERN PRAYER to ST. ANTHONY

        to FIND WHAT IS LOST

 

St. Anthony, when you prayed,

     your stolen book of prayers was given back to you.

Pray now for all of us who have lost

     things precious and dear.

Pray for all who have lost faith, hope or

     the friendship of God.

Pray for us who have lost friends or

     relatives by death.

Pray for all who have lost peace of mind

     or spirit.

Pray that we may be given new hope,

     new faith, new love.

Pray that lost things, needful and helpful to us,

    may be returned to our keeping.

Or, if we must continue in our loss,  pray that we may

     be given Christ's comfort and peace.   AMEN.

 

(this prayer appears in the 1993 St. Anthony Messenger Press book:

   St. Anthony of Padua)

PRAYERFUL REFLECTION ON JESUS

CHRIST JESUS IS OUR EVERYTHING!

 

Hope, Life, Way, Salvation,

Understanding, Wisdom, Light,

Judge, Door, Most High, King,

Precious Stone, Prophet, Priest,

Messiah, Sabaoth, Teacher,

Spouse, Mediator, Scepter,

Dove, Hand, Stone, Son, Emmanuel,

Vineyard, Shepherd, Sheep, Peace,

Root, Vine-stock, Olive Tree, Source,

Wall, Lamb, Victim, Lion, Intercessor,

Word, Man, Net, Rock, House!

 

(Damasus from the 4th Century)

FAREWELL TO EASTER

 

FAREWELL TO EASTER

 

For these 50 days of Easter it was given for us to live in the Paschal Joy, much as those early followers of Jesus did in those post-resurrection days.  And then comes the "last and great" day of Easter, Pentecost, and with it our return into the real time of this world.   (In the church year we call it Ordinary Time.) 

 

COME, HOLY SPIRIT, FILL OUR LIVES AND CREATE OUR WORLD ANEW!   MAY THERE BE MANY NEW PENTECOSTS!

 

As we move from Easter time into Ordinary Time,  may we allow the life of the Holy Spirit to use us to birth a new Church in ever new and exciting ways.  The great gift of Easter for the world is the Risen Christ;  the great gift of Pentecost is the Spirit of that Risen Christ who comes ever anew to make each of us a temple, a dwelling, a church for the purposes of God in the world of today.   As much today as 33 A.D. we need new Pentecosts, new apostles, new disciples, new gospel writers, new everything for the service of God in the world.   Open your life daily to that Holy Spirit's power and see what great things God can accomplish through you!

A PRAYER REFLECTION

 (the above image of Mary is in front of the Hermitage here at Ava Prayer Fraternity)

 

OPEN HANDS / CLENCHED FISTS   &   PRAYER

 

On praying with open, outstretched hands:  On one occasion, I gained new insight into this ancient gesture, when I read somewhere that the Assyrians had a word for prayer which meant:  "to open the fist."   The fist, and especially a fist raised threateningly, is the sign of a high-handed, even violent person.  People grasp things in closed hands when they are unwilling to let go of them;  they use clenched fists to assault and hurt and, even worse, to beat others down so that they cannot get up.

 

Those who pray, however, are saying before God that they are renouncing all highhandedness, all pride in their own sufficency, all violence.  They open their fists.  They hold up their empty hands to God:  "I have nothing that I have not received from you, nothing that you have not placed in my empty hands.  Therefore, I do not keep a frantic hold on anything you have given me; therefore, too, I desire not to strike and hurt but only to give and to spread happiness and joy.   For I myself am dependent on him who fills my empty hands with his gifts."

 

(Balthasar Fischer in  Signs, Words, and Gestures,   Pueblo Publishing Co,  1981)