A REFLECTION TO PRAY WITH!

THE TREASURE OF THE HEART
         (read:  Matthew  6: 19-23)

Nothing is more practical than finding God,
than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way.

What you are in love with,  what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.

It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,  how you spend your weekends,
what you read,  whom you know,  what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in Love,   stay in love,   and it will decided everything.

(This reflection is by Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J., former Father General of the Jesuits)

THE HEART OF PRAYER

WHAT IS AT THE HEART OF OUR PRAYER?

The Gospel for today is Matthew's  THE LORD'S PRAYER  (Mt: 6: 7-15);  in a  short reflection on the readings for today in the LIVING WITH CHRIST missalette, p. 141,  we read:

Jesus reminds us that real prayer is not about the number of words we use.   God doesn't need all those words:   God already knows what we need before we even ask.   Rather, our prayer should open us to acknowledging God as God -- and to acknowledging our fundamental dependence on God.  Let us also ask God to help us forgive the sins of others so that we might be forgiven for our own sins.   Just as love of God and love of neighbor are the heart of the Law,  acknowledging God as God and learning to forgive are the heart of prayer.

(Fr. Donald Espinosa, AA)

PRAYER AND PERFECTION

(closer view of day lilies in front of friary)

"So,  be perfect,  just as your heavenly Father is perfect."    Matthew  5:48

BECOMING PERFECT -- authenticity in prayer

For a long time, today's Gospel was a stumbling block for me.  Then, one day,  I suddenly remembered advice I was given many years ago, that a good way to judge the authenticity of prayer was to ask:  "Am I paying attention to God or to myself?"

If I pay attention to myself I see someone trying hard to be perfect but becoming trapped in perfectionism.   I see someone striving to be good but becoming discouraged and cynical.   I see someone whose painful efforts to be charitable yield a pitiful, meager harvest, a few good deeds scattered among a thorny litany of excuses.

But if I pay attention to God I become less interested in myself and my religiosity.  I begin to enjoy what Julian of Norwich called the "courteous love" of Jesus.  I begin to see how his love sustains all of creation, the just and unjust alike.  The longer I look at God, the more I rejoice in the goodness of the Creator, the easier it becomes to pray for my enemy, to greet with joy the brother or sister I do not love.   Slowly and hesitantly my tongue is loosed and I begin to sing with the psalmist,  "Praise the Lord, my soul!"

We were created to praise, and when we become what we are meant to be,  then we will be perfect.  It may happen today or at the hour of our death or after the longing of purgatory, but we will become perfect, because that is God's will for us.

(reflection above is by Rachelle Linner and appears on page 201 in the June 2013 issue of GIVE US THIS DAY, a daily missalette from Liturgical Press)

JUNE LOOK

DAY LILIES ARE IN FULL BLOOM IN FRONT OF CHAPEL

PRAISE OF CREATION

(red hot poker and lily)

 

Spring into summer always brings lots of flowers to the Ozarks;  along with spring rains (tornadoes, too), mild to warm to hot temperatures, lots of green and all the colors of God's splendor.   How do we let this lead us to wonder and awe  -- and prayer?

 

I thank you, O God, for the pleasures you have given me through my senses;  for the glory of thunder,  for the mystery of music,  the singing of birds and the laughter of children.  I thank you for the delights of color, the awe of the sunset, the wild roses in the hedgerows, the smile of friendship.   I thank you for the sweetness of flowers and the scent of hay.   Truly, O Lord, the earth is full of your riches.

 

( prayer by Edward King  -- 1829-1910   --  taken from THE BOOK OF A THOUSAND PRAYERS  by  Angela Ashwin,  p. 87)

 

 

 

PRAYERS of PRAISE AND GRATEFULNESS

(dam at Rockbridge grist mill)

 

LIFE PRAYERS  -- now praise and gratefulness: 

 

Over the course of our life we continually offer up prayers -- whether we call them that or not -- prayers spontaneous and urgent,  prayers written and thoughtful,  prayers of petition and of peace.  These are our life prayers.   They express our deepest intentions, values, and wishes.  Their scope and beauty are in evidence throughout the pages of this book,  LIFE PRAYERS from around the world.   Now, in this final chapter, we turn to what has been called the very heart of prayer:  praise and gratefulness.

 

In a world that puts great value on material acquisitions, progress, and power, why praise the Earth?   Why give thanks?   It has been said that praise and gratefulness complete creation.   When our hearts receive the beauty of the world, then the circle of gifting is complete, and we become fully present to life.

 

This simple grace reminds us that the food we eat and the life we are given become a blessing when we are thankful.   Our gratitude transforms the world from objects and mundane experiences to blessings  -- it sacralizes the world.  Our joy in the beauty of the Earth is an essential part of that beauty.

 

Prayers of gratitude and praise are a gateway through which this beauty enters our lives.   They give us a common vision of the wondrous blue-green planet that is our home.   We are born of the Earth.   The Earth is our origin, our nourishment, our support, and the container of all spiritual revelation.  Our spirituality itself has arisen from the spirituality of the Earth.   We are totally implicated  in one another's presence and identities. 

 

Touched by gratitude we realize that we belong here, and in our mutual dependence we are freed to love this world wholeheartedly.  It may be that the greatest gift we humans can give the rest of creation is our love and our heartfelt appreciation.  Our love is as essential a part of life's give-and-take as the cycles of water and oxygen or any other nourishment flowing through the biosphere.  And for millennia prayers and songs of praise have been offered up to celebrate the miracle of existence:

 

...I know nothing else but miracles .... To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,  every cubic inch of space is a miracle, every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with miracles.   Every foot of the interior warms with miracles.  (Walt Whitman)

 

May our voices join in this lineage of prayer celebrating the ordinary miracles of our lives!

 

(except taken from LIFE PRAYERS,  by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon,  published by Harper One in 1996,)