JESUS' SOURCE OF STRENGTH ..... prayer

 

THE NEED TO DRAW STRENGTH ... like Jesus ... FROM PRAYER:

 

Our adult years are a marathon, not a sprint, and so it is difficult to sustain graciousness, generosity, and patience through the tiredness, trials, and temptations that beset us through those years.   All  on our own, relying on willpower alone, we too often fatigue, get worn down, and compromise both our maturity and our discipleship.   We need help from beyond, from somewhere even beyond the human supports that help bolster us.   We need God's help,  strength from something beyond what is human.   We need prayer.

 

The first disciples of Jesus already realized this.  They looked at Jesus and sensed that he drew his real strength and his power from a source beyond himself.   Nowhere is this more evident than in the Gospel of Luke.   In his gospel there are more descriptions of Jesus in prayer than in all the other Gospels combined.   Luke gives us glimpses of Jesus praying in virtually every kind of situation:  he prays when he is joy filled;  he prays when he is in agony;   he prays with others around him;  he prays when he is alone at night, withdrawn from all human contact.  He pays high on a mountain,  on a sacred place, and he prays on the level plane, where ordinary life happens.  In Luke's Gospel,  Jesus prays a lot.   

 

And the lesson is not lost on his disciples.   The sense that Jesus' real depth and power are drawn from his prayer.  They know that what makes him so special, so unlike any other religious figure, is that he is linked at some deep place to a power outside of this world.   And they want this for themselves.  That is why they approach him and ask him:   "Lord, teach us to pray!"

 

 

(excerpt taken from SACRED FIRE by Fr. Ronald Rolheiser,  p. 169-170))

TAKING TIME FOR PRAYER

HAPPY EASTER (view of altar in chapel)

 

THE  DIFFERENCE   ( a poem by Grace L. Naessens)

 

I got up early one morning and rushed right into the day;

I had so much to accomplish,  I didn't have time to pray.

 

Problems just tumbled about me and grew heavier with each task;

Why doesn't God help me, I wondered; He answered:  "You didn't ask."

 

I wanted to see joy and beauty, but the day toiled on, gray and bleak;

I wondered why God didn't show me -- He said,  "But you didn't seek."

 

I tried to come into God's presence;  I used all my keys at the lock;

God gently and lovingly chided,  "My child,  you didn't knock."

 

I woke up early this morning and paused before entering the day;

I had so much to accomplish that I had to take time to pray.

 

 

 

 

HAPPY EASTER

(our Easter chapel)

 

from your Franciscan friars at the House of Prayer in Ava, MO,  a very BLESSED EASTER.  

 

May this season of 50 days bring many experiences of the Risen Lord into your life and into our Church and world!

 

Thomas Merton and prayer

SIMPLY MERTON: Wisdom from His Journals

 

(2015 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of the famous Trappist, Thomas Merton.  The following excerpt is from this new book named above that was just published on Thomas Merton by Linus Mundy.)

 

 

It seems an understatement, and rather trite to say it, but Merton believed in the power of prayer.   He believed, along with thousands, if not millions of others, that prayer can bring benefits of healing,  transformation,  grace, conversion, and perhaps even freedom from want itself.   He firmly believed, as do many, that when individuals pray, when families and communities pray,  God answers those prayers in a loving manner.   On numerous occasions he expresses the sentiment that if it were not for the fervent prayers of whole communities -- like the Trappists,  the Franciscans,  large communities of sisters and brothers and priests,  and small ones as well -- the world would slip off into the realm of darkness and despair and ruin.

 

In a letter he wrote to Sufi scholar, Ch. Abdul Aziz,  Merton described his method of contemplation:  "It is not 'thinking about' anything, but a direct seeking of the face of the invisible, which cannot be found unless we become lost in him who is invisible."

 

He realized in his later years especially that contemplation was about self-emptying and freedom from self-awareness.  This was the path to an infinite relationship with God.

 

We make the whole thing too complicated, he keeps implying:    "It's a risky thing to pray, and the danger is that our very prayers get between God and us.  The great thing in prayer is not to pray, but to go directly to God.  If saying your prayers is an obstacle to prayer,  cut it out.  Let Jesus pray.   Thank God Jesus is praying.  Forget yourself.  Enter into the prayer of Jesus.  Let him pray in you.   (The 'Jesus Prayer' is the best way to forget that you are praying.  But don't take away from weak people the crutches they need.)    The best way to pray is:   stop.   Let prayer pray within you, whether you know it or not ..."