Category: Prayer

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Action & contemplation.

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Today we celebrate the feast of St Catherine of Siena, Doctor of the Church. A third order Dominican she was a woman of both action and prayer. She took a public role in the life of the church, speaking out against schism, promoting unity and advocating for clerical reform. These words from her dialogue on Divine Revelation touched me:

“By your light you enlighten our minds… In this light I know you and I picture you to myself as the supreme good, the good beyond all good… Beauty beyond all beauty, wisdom beyond all wisdom. You are the food of angels, who gave yourself to us in the fire of your love.”

Her public activity was nourished and sustained by the prayer that kept her connected to the God who is the supreme good. It was because she drew her strength from the fire of God’s love that she gained the courage to speak truth to those in authority.

She speaks to me especially powerfully at this time, when our world seems so consumed by cruelty and suffering. In such times it can be hard to see the goodness, beauty and wisdom of God in our lives. It’s easy to get discouraged, to feel swamped by sufferings we can’t alleviate. We can be drawn to despair which stops us from acting at all or we can rush in, attempting to fix everything, ending up burnt out and exhausted.

St Catherine’s example suggests an alternative. We could begin by building up a prayer life that connects us to the fire of God’s love in a way that nourishes and sustains us in all of our actions and all that we are called to face.

How does the fire of God’s love nourish you in all that you face in life?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Gospel Lectio Divina Lent Prayer Scripture

Prayer

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The seventh word in my Lent lexicon is:

PRAYER

Along with almsgiving and fasting prayer is one of the three pillars of Lent. Lent gives us an opportunity pay extra attention to our prayer life. It might be that we manage to take more time for prayer, or try a new practice. It might also be that rather than adding more we give ourselves more fully to the practices we already have.

In today’s gospel Jesus give the disciples some guidance about how to pray. He reminds them that they do not need many words to pray, that God already knows what they need:

“In your prayers do not babble as the pagans do, for they think that by using many words they will make themselves heard. Do not be like them; your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”

He then goes on to teach them the Our Father, a prayer we are all so familiar with that we can use it without much attention or thought. Valuable as a framework of words are prayer is about more than that. Jesus reminds us that prayer is as much about an attitude of heart as about the words we use.

The call to prayer is first of all a call to come into the the presence of God. When we pray we don’t have to know what to say or how to solve the issues we carry in our hearts problems. We only have bring ourselves into God’s presence and to wait there doing our best to be attentive to God and allowing God to take the lead. It’s a call to openness, humility and trust.

What helps you to open your heart to God’s presence in prayer this Lent?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Ecumenism Gospel Lectio Divina Prayer Prophetic voices Scripture

Christian Unity

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As we celebrate the week of prayer for Christian Unity I’ve been reflecting this from St Paul’s letter to the Colossians:

“Clothe yourselves in heartfelt compassion, in generosity and in humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with one another; forgive one another if anyone has a complaint against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must do the same. Over all these, put on love. And may the peace of Christ reign in your hearts, to which indeed you are called in one body.”

His words are an inspiration and a challenge. They show us the best that the Christian community can be, and they remind us of how often we fall short of that ideal within and between our denominations.

This has particular resonance as I reflect on our ecumenical journey. We all stand in need of forgiveness, having misjudged and misinterpreted the insights, gifts and intentions of other denominations. At other times we have all been able to take the risk of reaching out towards other Christians in ways that have brought healing and moved us closer to unity than we could ever have dreamt of.

Many of our denominations and churches are dealing with internal situations that take most of their energy and resources. That is understandable and necessary, but it can make ecumenism feel like its on the backburner. My hope is that we have learned to love and respect each other enough be able to bear with one another in compassion, generosity and gentleness in a way that allows us the freedom to take the space to deal with internal issues without losing sight of the ground we have gained. Then, when the time is right we will be ready and able to take the next steps in our ecumenical journey together.

In this week of prayer for Christian Unity where are you inspired to be generous and compassionate?

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Time for prayer.

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Today’s gospel is all about service. It opens with Jesus leaving the synagogue going immediately to Simon’s house where he cures Simon’s mother-in-law. Immediately she gets up and begins to serve them. The evening sees Jesus serving again, as crowds of people come to him seeking healing. It must have been a long and tiring day, and all of us know that feeling. The next morning Mark tells us:

“Long before dawn, he got up and left the house, and went off to a lonely place and prayed there.”

We tend to read this as a break in the pattern of service, Jesus taking time out to pray in order to return to serving refreshed and renewed. On one level that is is true, but the Gospels often have layers of truth. On another level I would suggest that Jesus’ act of taking time to be alone in God’s presence is also an act of service.

It is an act of self-care which allows him to draw the strength from God that he needs to carry on. It’s also an act of service to others, a reminder that part of what it is to be human is to need time to rest and recharge.

When the needs of the people we serve seem to be overwhelming we can feel pressured to keep going regardless of our own needs. Jesus doesn’t wait until every need is met, every person healed, every situation resolved before he takes the time he needs. It seems to me that he doesn’t expect us to do that either and that there is both an invitation and a challenge in that.

Where is Jesus inviting you to take time to pray in the midst of your serving others?

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Advent Benedictine Spirituality Christ Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy O Clavis David Prayer Rule of St Benedict Scripture Vespers

O Clavis David. Choosing Freedom.

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Today at Vespers we’ll sing the 4th O antiphon, O Clavis David, O key of David:

“O key of David, and ruler of the house of Israel: who open and none can close: close and none may open: come bring out of prison the captive who sits in darkness and the shadow of death.”

It speaks of a deep and powerful yearning for freedom that lives within all of us. We each long for freedom from all that would restrict our growth and development. We desire the freedom to become the people we are called to be, to nurture the talents we’ve each been given.

This yearning for freedom is deeply personal and individual, yet there is more to it that that. The past few years have taught us some hard lessons about freedom. The pandemic, the suffering of war, the economic crisis, the worsening ecological situation all point to the fact that this freedom we desire can’t only be a personal, individual freedom.

It has also to be a communal freedom, a freedom that is willing to sacrifice individual freedoms for the common good. It has to be a freedom that is willing to put the needs of others before our own.

In chapter 72 of the Rule St Benedict tells us that Christ brings us “all together” to everlasting life. It seems to me the same is true of the freedom Christ offers us, we accept it for each other as much as for ourselves.

What would enable you to accept the freedom Christ offers this Advent?

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Advent Benedictine Spirituality Christ Divine Office Lectio Divina Liturgy O Adonai O Antiphons Prayer Scripture

O Adonai. A redeeming touch

Some thoughts from the archives for O Adonai. This evening at Vespers we’ll sing the second of the O antiphons, O Adonai, O Lord God.

“O Lord God, leader of the house of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the burning bush and gave him the Law on Sinai: come to redeem us with outstretched arm.”

It takes us back to one of the passages of Scripture that touches me most deeply, Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush. Moses is engaged in the most ordinary of daily activities, looking after his father-in-law’s herds. Then God breaks into his life in its ordinariness, messiness and uncertainty in a completely unexpected way.

Curiosity compels Moses to turn aside when he sees the bush aflame, and he is drawn into an encounter with God which is challenging and life changing beyond anything he could have imagined.

In the uncertain times we face yet again this antiphon has a very particular message. It tells us that the God of love who came to Moses and the burning bush can also break into the ordinariness and uncertainty of our daily lives and set us aflame. Facing hard and challenging times it’s good to remember that the God of love who reached out to Moses because of the cries suffering people also hears our cries and comes to redeem us.

As we move through Advent where do you need the redeeming touch of God in your life?

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Advent Benedictine Spirituality Christ Gaudete Lectio Divina Liturgy Prayer Scripture

With Joyful Hearts.

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Today we’re celebrating Gaudete Sunday, the day in Advent when we pause to that remember that even in dark and uncertain times we are called to be people of joy and hope. In the darkest and most challenging of times we are called to bring Christ’s light to the world, even if that’s only in the smallest glimmers.

There have been years when that seems easy, perhaps even when we been able to take it for granted. But it seems to me that this is not the case in the times we are currently living through. Whichever direction we turn in there is so much to concern us that it almost overwhelms.

A great deal of what we see and hear around us could crush the hope out of us. Yet, the message of today’s readings is clear, whatever we are living through, we are called to rejoice and hope. The prophet Zephaniah proclaims:

“Shout for joy, daughter of Zion, Israel, shout aloud! Rejoice, exult with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem!”

St Paul offers us a way to move towards that joy, however hard our times are. Writing to the Philippians he said:

“If there is anything you need, pray for it, asking God for it with prayer and thanksgiving, and that peace of God, which is so much greater than we can understand, will guard your hearts and your thoughts, in Christ Jesus.”

His words remind me that whatever we face Christ will be there with us. That is the source of our hope and our joy. It is by keeping focused firstly on Christ, by being committed to a life of prayer that we will discover the ways our troubled world needs us to bring those glimmers of light of Christ into it.

This Gaudete Sunday where is Christ enabling you to find joy and light?

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Out of our comfort zones

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Our times seem to be getting ever more challenging and disturbing. In such times it’s always tempting to close in on ourselves. Our instinct is to do whatever we can to protect ourselves and our loved ones. We have less energy to care about the needs of others, or to reach out to them. We can become less open, more suspicious of those we perceive as outsiders. All of this is a perfectly natural human response when life is hard. Yet, as I reflected on today’s readings I was struck by how they call us to a completely different way of being.

In the first reading Elijah travels to Sidon which is in the grip of a serious drought. He meets a widow gathering some sticks and asks her for something to eat and drink. The woman has very little left, only enough for one last meal for herself and her son. Yet, she doesn’t turn him away, instead she shares the little she and her son have with Elijah, trusting the promise that he has made her:

“Jar of meal shall not be spent, jug of oil shall not be emptied, before the day when the Lord sends rain on the face of the earth.”’

Her generosity is echoed by the story of the poor widow that Jesus tells in the gospel. As he watches her put all she has to live on into the Temple treasury he says to hid disciples:

‘I tell you solemnly, this poor widow has put more in than all who have contributed to the treasury; for they have all put in money they had over, but she from the little she had has put in everything she possessed, all she had to live on.’

The courageous actions of these two widows are a reminder that when life gets hard we are called, not to retreat from one another, but to reach out to others. We are called to override our instincts and to reach out to the stranger, to welcome the other, to share from our resources however limited they might be.

Where is Christ challenging you to risk sharing in these challenging times?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Monastic Life Prayer Rule of St Benedict Scripture Uncategorized

The goodness of the Lord.

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Today, as we’re celebrating the dedication of our Oratory I’m reposting this from our archives. The scripture reading at the vigil was from the first letter of St Peter:

“Be sure you are never spiteful, or deceitful, or hypocritical, or envious and critical of each other. You are new born, and, like babies, you should be hungry for nothing but milk – the spiritual honesty which will help you grow up to salvation – now that you have tasted the goodness of the Lord.”

Several things resonate with me in in. It’s reminder of how we are called to behave and to treat one another seems especially important just now. Living through stressful and challenging times can give us all a short fuse and doesn’t always bring out the best in us. St Peter reminds us that, whatever challenges and uncertainties we face we are called not to give into the temptation to spitefulness and criticism. The call is still to become more Christlike whatever we face.

He goes on to tell us that as we have tasted the goodness of the Lord already our desire and long should be for those things that will help us grow into our salvation. This brings to mind a favourite psalm, psalm 34, “taste and see that the Lord is good”, and I’m reminded to keep seeking the goodness of the Lord in whatever challenges and uncertainties life is currently throwing at us.

Where are you tasting the Lord’s goodness in these challenging times?

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Finding the way.

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As Jesus moved through the towns and villages on his way to Jerusalem someone asked him a question:

“Sir, will there be only a few saved?”

We don’t know who asked the question, Luke doesn’t even tell us whether it a man or a woman. Jesus’ response was not a direct answer, instead he leaves us much to ponder and reflect on:

“Try your best to enter by the narrow door, because, I tell you, many will try to enter and will not succeed.”

As is so often the case his words carry promise, invitation and challenge. We live in a world that seem full of possibilities. We are led to believe that we can have or become everything we choose if we just try hard enough. We know in our hearts that this isn’t the case, yet it is a beguiling, attractive and powerful myth.

Jesus shows us a more honest and realistic way. He is very clear that we can’t follow him and “have it all”. If we are serious about discipleship, we need to be prepared to leave some things behind. We need to let go of other options and possibilities to focus our attention on the call of the kingdom.

To find our way through this narrow door we need to be willing to accept boundaries and to limit our personal desires and needs for the greater good. In a time that highly prizes individual rights and freedoms that is a huge challenge. Yet, it is this narrow road that will lead us to the promises of the kingdom and the joy of resurrection.

What narrow door is Christ inviting you to go through today?