MAKING TIME FOR PRAYER

(a picture of Bryant Creek on Abbey grounds)

FINDING PLACES TO PRAY

(This little devotional appeared in LIVING FAITH for Monday, May 26th.)

"We went outside the city gate along the river where we thought there would be a place of prayer."  (Acts 16:13)

Paul traveled constantly to preach.  He was faithful to prayer even though he was away from home.   We may not be traveling far from our home like Paul,  but we are usually on our way to some place every day, even if it's just to the mailbox or the backyard.   Whether we are going to a doctor's appointment,  out to the garden,  or to the office, bringing children to school or engaged in some other form of movement, each of us has an opportunity to pause and unite with God.

We can always find a place to pray.   For Paul it happened to be along a river.   I often pray in the airport  or in the car.  (I call my car "a little hermitage on wheels.")   There's no excuse for just floating through the days without a "hello" to God because I am en route somewhere.   All I need do is turn my heart toward the Beloved One and make the inner connection.

Sr. Joyce Rupp,  O.S.M.  

NEW LOOK TO FRIARY BUILDING

NEW WALL PUT ON FRIARY BUILDING    Over the past year we have addressed some issues with our friary buildings;  several walls needed to be replaced and all of the         exterior wood needed attention.  With the assistance of some friends,  we have been able to address these issues.   A final part of thetask was completed recently.    You can see the new wall that has been put on, stained and watersealed this past month.

We are very grateful to all those who helped us during this past year finish this important project.   Please keep them in prayer.

SPRINGTIME PRAYER OF GRATITUDE

In the book,  PRAYERS FOR A THOUSAND YEARS,  we find this prayer by Sr. Miriam MacGillis, from Genesis Farm in New Jersey;   it celebrates not only the earth that we know today, beginning again to burst with the new life of Spring, but offers us a prayer (very Franciscan) that acknowledges, with GRATITUDE,  all that has gone before us in the past billions of years in bringing creation and the world we know today to birth:

I give you thanks for the enormous contribution of those who lived before me,

for the thousands of years during which humans crafted their images of you in the image of the feminine and of the Earth,

for loosening our tongues that we might utter words about your eternal word,

for the Ice Ages that shaped the lands, mountains, and rivers, that have in turn shaped our imaginations,

for all of the mammals who have taught us to birth and succor our young,

for the coming of the flowering plants that channel their energy into the seeds by which the future is endowed,

for the birds who brought song and melody to the Earth,

for the great green plants and their interdependence with insects,

for all the teeming life within the oceans which fashioned the sensing organs of Earth,

for the first simple life forms that learned to take nourishment from the sun, our mother star, and laid down a pattern giving themselves away to others, and receiving life from others,

for the super nova event by which our mother star collapsed and created the stardust out of which this solar system was formed,

for stars and galaxies in which is incarnated all the dreams, visions, and energies by which you have shaped this present moment,

for the first moment -- that utter act of giving by which you brought forth this single body of the universe out of which I weave the web of my own existence,

for the dark, impenetrable, pregnant, awesome mystery that you are, and out of which you called my name.   AMEN.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

(a mother/daughter who made retreat here recently)

a BELATED MOTHER'S DAY PRAYER FOR ALL MOTHERS,  

to all you who 'mother' in natural and spiritual ways:

Holy God, you compared your own love for your people to the love of a mother for her children.   Look with kindness on all mothers who have shared in your creating love by the gift of their children.

We thank you for the joys and sorrows of their lives, the giving and sharing, and, especially for their love that has formed us in your image.

Listen to our prayers and bless these mothers who have nurtured and sustained us and others.  Give them patience in abundance and let them find joy and satisfaction in all their works.

Glory and praise to you, loving God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, and who reigns with you in the glory of heaven, forever and ever.  AMEN.

(adapted from  Blessings and Prayers for Home and Family)

Richard Rohr on 'Prayer'

In the May 2014 issue of  St. Anthony Messenger,   Franciscan friar,  Richard Rohr, is interviewed about mysticism and prayer in an article entitled: PRAYING LIKE ST. FRANCIS.    Here are some excerpts about 'prayer' from the article.   

Prayer is something that people of all religious traditions understand as a necessary component of holy living.

You need to find some way to learn or study or to pray sort of on the side of your Sunday worship community.  Those people who do tend to go deeper.  A Sunday service and believing a certain set of doctrines -- which is what organized religion means for most people -- is not enough.

Praying is looking out from a different set of eyes, which are not comparing, competing, judging, labeling, and analyzing, but receiving the moment in its wholeness.

Prayer is to give you access to God and to allow you to listen to God, to hear God. 

The goal of prayer is divine union -- union with what is,  with the moment, with yourself, with the divine -- which mean with everything.