Beware the “Little” Prayer

Our student small group coordinator booked me for an in-service to the small group leaders this week. They have two meetings to catch our twenty-five leaders, and they wanted me to speak on prayer, especially on the skill of leading prayer.

I enjoy the topic. I also enjoy having the opportunity to organize my thoughts for college student leaders and the obstacles and opportunities of leading prayer for their peers.

The plan is to pray lectio divina because you can’t just learn by talking. You have to do it. Being a Christian, being a disciple is about so much more than the absorption of knowledge. Apprenticeship means practice.

One of the highlight comments was offered by my staff colleague Emily. She warned people from the temptation to treat prayer too casually, criticizing the frequent request:

Let’s start with a little prayer.

Yes! I was thinking to myself. One of my pet peeves: in addition to relegating prayer at meetings to the periphery, we attach a rather apologetic adjective, “little.” Prayer, Emily said, must be big. It must be really important to what we do.

What would happen, do you suppose, if we started a church meeting with something unexpected.

Let’s start with a big prayer. Let’s start with a prayer so big, so important, that it opens us up to being changed and converted by Jesus Christ himself. Let’s start with a prayer that will be a springboard into an experience so amazing, so full of grace, that the whole world will be transformed–and us with it.

Because, really: if we’re not aiming for that, what on earth are we doing?

 

Catholics Schools Week

It’s been five years since I was in a parish with a school. So I feel far-removed from the concerns and culture of Catholic schools.

Indeed, not all Catholics are convinced of their value. To many hard-core conservatives, parish and diocesan schools are inadequate in passing down an “orthodox” faith. I’ve known several families over the years who prefer to homeschool, to make sure it gets done “right.”

Many parishioners resent the drain of resources for an effort that teaches religion or has direct activities in the faith just a percentage of the time–maybe 20%; maybe only 5.

Archbishop Wuerl spoke of the institutional and financial challenges here. Elements of faith, not so much.

I would like to offer one personal experience, and one concern I don’t see often addressed.

My own faith story began the first week I attended a Catholic school. I recall vividly the day we were lined up in our classrooms, marched down the hall and across the parking lot. My first experience inside of a church, and it was moving. I noticed the stained-glass windows. “Saint Joseph,” I thought. “I know him. Saint Athanasius? Who’s that?”

The pipe organ began playing and it seemed as if a cloud, a spiritual cloud was descending on us kids. I felt surrounded by the music. The priest read the Bible. And he talked about it. My Protestant mother had a few Bibles around the house, but she never talked about them.

Later on, I noticed that the kids up front were on the move. I asked my friend what was going on now. “Communion,” he said.

“Can anyone go?”

“Sure.”

An irregular and unorthodox First Communion, to be sure. But a product of a Catholic school experience: the care taken for the liturgy, including music. The kindly welcome of a new friend who must have thought I was from another Catholic school in the city. I was the first non-Catholic student in my grade.

One challenge of Catholic schools is that in the absence of a stronger Catholic culture, they tend to overwhelm the parish experience for kids and parents alike. It’s not that schools drain parish resources, as I’ve heard the complaint. It’s that the focus on academic achievement (high schools are more prep than Catholic), athletic accomplishment, and youth culture thirty to eighty hours a week tolerate no competition. And let’s face it: the two-hour-a-week parish cannot hope to triumph over the major time commitment of adolescents and the focus of many of their parents.

So, to my friends in education: have a happy week. We have a lot of good things going on, both in your sphere and in mine. Let’s hope we can find some way to work together and pull for a common goal.

 

She or We, Caesar or Serf?

One of my pet peeves is listening to an individual refer to herself or himself in the third person. Example, when LeBron James announced on tv he was ditching Cleveland for Miami:

I wanted to do what was best, you know, for LeBron James, and what LeBron James was gonna do to make him happy.

I don’t know why a person couldn’t come right out and say, “I’m going to make myself happy.” The ego-centeredness will be communicated just as clearly–this guy had a television show to announce it, for heaven’s sake.

Not to pick on athletes exclusively, but politicians have done it. Artists and other celebs too. I’m aware illeism has a more complicated history than how it surfaces in the modern culture.

It has a historical context, too, either from a sense of self-importance (as in Julius Caesar) or humility (the rejection of some or all of the self in relation to a superior).

When the Church self-references as “she,” which is it: Caesar or serf?

David Friel leads off his defense of MR3 with a spirited advocacy for the Church as “she.”

The Bible uses lots of imagery, and one of the most pervasive, overriding images of Scripture is the marriage of Christ with the Church.  The image begins in Genesis, and extends throughout all the prophets; it is mentioned in the Gospels, and it takes center stage as the wedding feast of the Lamb in the Book of Revelation.  Cover-to-cover, the Bible is the story of the marriage between Christ and his Church.  Just as in earthly marriage, this heavenly marriage necessitates the union of a man with a woman in an inseparable bond that is faithful, fruitful, and utterly free.  For this reason, the Church has always been regarded as a feminine entity.  Now, our English liturgical prayers reflect that great truth.

One problem in all this is that marriage is a partnership between equals. It hasn’t always been so. And the Biblical notion of marriage has included the idea of multiple wives, especially for the privileged patriarchs from Abraham to Solomon. That marriage metaphor is part of Christian tradition. But these days, it’s overused quite a bit. The city is the bride, but the Church is a lot of other things, too. Branches of a vine. Sheep of the shepherd. No longer no-people, but God’s people.

Is Fr Friel elevating us (or she) to some higher level of partnership with God? Are we the Caesar? Or the hierarchy that seems comfortable with this notion? Are we some sort of equal marital partner with Christ, or is this just some ancient arranged marriage, and this is all about a wedding day and its adornments? That final reunion with God in Revelation 21–that’s a particular metaphor with a context–it’s used on conjunction with the city Jerusalem. (See Gal 4:26)

Have we become like Cam Newton or LeBron James, referring to ourselves in the third person in these most important prayers? Or is it a humble act of supplication: the third-person reference of a child? Maybe it depends on the culture and context.

I don’t have a problem with an accurate self-reference as “we.” It acknowledges we are an organic community, not an individual. It doesn’t overstate the marital metaphor and strain the cultural references of most of the Christian West. It states a reality about which some of us might shudder: that like it or not, we’re all in this together, clergy and laity.

Most importantly, we stand as a community called by God. That’s Scriptural, too. Maybe “we” is better in that it covers more bases, more metaphors, and it avoids some awkward places if we reflect on the bride aspect too deeply.

 

Burdens

From Peter van Breemen, SJ:

We are all wounded people. Therefore, we are all a burden to ourselves and to others. … There is no getting around this. We simply must accept it. We must let ourselves be healed by others, and be open to healing, correction, and deeper self-knowledge. We must also accept others without condescension as wounded people, bear with them, and contribute to their healing.

Fr van Breemen channels Jean Vanier to provide the spine of his extended essay “Respect–the heart of love” in his book The God Who Won’t Let Go.

I’ve been dwelling on this chapter in the book for a few days now. For myself, it merits a closer personal look–mainly because of life circumstances. I’m not going to bore you with that. I have two places to explore with this concept. It will be sketchy, so if any reader would like to elaborate a bit . .. go for it.

First, more briefly, most of you are aware of Jean Vanier’s apostolate with developmentally disabled people. In that context, he realized that every human being is burdened with some kind of “disability.” Are we obviously limping on a leg? Maybe it’s a leg of self-esteem. Or addiction. Or something deeply hidden. But we all have something. Are all healed? Are all whole? I seriously doubt it.

Second, with more elaboration, how does this recognition of a common disability affect our worship? Some things are obvious. We depend on God, quite simply. Our efforts alone cannot make for perfect or even optimal liturgy. Great learning, doctrinal orthodoxy, the ability to follow a recipe: none of these are guarantees that our failings will not surface in some way during a particular Mass, or routinely in the liturgy because of a missed opportunity or misunderstanding. As much as we try to celebrate great liturgy–and I think we should always try–we achieve only a shallow representation of something far greater: the Son’s expression of adoration and affection for the Father, united by the love of the Holy Spirit.

And to be clear, our petty mistakes, errors, irreverent moments, and even our catastrophic blunders that border on (or dwell in) sacrilege do not burden or affect Christ’s action in the slightest. God absorbs these too. God accepts poor liturgy, disabled celebrants as wounded people. He bears with our poverty of worship. He even uses it to invite us to healing.

A deaf person is not excused from the obligation of listening, of communication, and of integration into society. Likewise, a person or community struggling with worship is not excused from the effort to get better. In worship, we have something of an advantage, in that we are all in the same boat. We can cooperate with the ways in which God invites us to be a source of healing, correction, and self-knowledge for one another.

Difficult, sure. But very much a reality on this plane of existence. How do you see the liturgy as a source of healing? How do others in your community help this?

 

On My Bookshelf: Loving Work

I started this great book by Mike Hayes before I went to bed Thursday night at the conference. I finished it on the plane home the next day.

Mike is well known in the blogosphere as the co-founder of Busted Halo. He has a great blog, Googling God. Now, like me, he’s a campus minister. He delivered an excellent presentation at his breakout session. He’s clearly a guy well at home with himself and in his role in the Church. That confidence provides the spirit of this book.

Mike brings an Ignatian education and sensibility to a straight-forward approach to uncovering just what we should be doing with this life God has given us. He peppers six chapters with personal stories of his own work history, and how he was led from a career in broadcasting, to the internet, and from there, to campus ministry and retreats.

If you know a young adult searching for direction along the lines of work, I can’t think of a better book. It will appeal to those who are deeply religious, but will also impact a person not so deeply churchy.

 

Pray For Us Now

Some Catholics get upset when traditional matters, especially ultimate traditional matters, are messed around with. So the rest of this post comes with a content advisory.

One of the things I’d like to do in 2013 is pray for people, especially those who have asked me to pray for them. That prayer doesn’t always fit into my lectio.

On the left, this is how I’ve prayed for people when I’m on retreat: placing their names on a post-it in the back of my Psalter.

These days, I’ve been inspired to add their name to an altered ending of a prayer:

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for N, now and all the days of her/his life.

A few friends are struggling with significant illnesses, even life-threatening. It struck as slightly creepy to ask the intercession now and at the hour of death. A more seemly way to pray was to pray for their lives.

So when it comes to mind to offer up a prayer for someone in particular, it seems easy to go back to the second prayer I uttered as a child. I suppose if I wanted to pray the rosary with particular people for intentions, I could pray for ten, or even fifty people.

Bah! I’m just happy to remember to pray for one person this day, this minute.

 

On My Bookshelf: The God Who Won’t Let Go

Readers may have noticed one or two quotes in recent posts from Father Peter van Breemen. His book The God Who Won’t Let Go is a distillation of a series of talks he gave at a Benedictine monastery in 1998. Ave Maria Press published the book a dozen years ago, but it’s been sitting on my shelf for those years. I’ve been enjoying the Dutch Jesuit’s reflections on God’s love as lensed through important passages from Scripture. I haven’t completed the volume yet, but I thought I would give it a big thumbs-up recommendation here.

The adaptation from retreat talk to book format is well done. I’ve been taking a chapter every few days at the end of my regular lectio. There’s a richness in the essays that stays with me for a day or two afterward. Chapter five, “We all need forgiveness” was particularly poignant for me this past week.

Each talk-turned-chapter is a coherent meditation on some aspect of God’s love. The author draws from all over Scripture, the writings of the saints, and ties everything together in a way that is understandable, thoughtful, and relevant to the life of a modern-day believer. From the conclusion to Chapter 1, “wait there for me,” summing up the example of Moses, in prayer on Mount Sinai, the go-between of his people and their God (Exodus 34):

Out of Moses’s solitary experience of God there emerges something of great importance for all the people. Similarly, we pray alone, insolitude and silence; but–and this is good to remember when prayer happens to be difficult–our solitary prayer bears fruit for many. We wait by ourselves, but our listening, our silence, our longing, and our prayer become a source of fruitfulness for others as well. This fruitfulness knows no bounds.

 

Using Holy Innocents

Somewhere today, some preacher is likely drawing some connection from the massacre of the young boys of Bethlehem and abortion. And Newtown. Probably not the infants who die from particular diseases, or from famine in places like Africa, or even Iraq.

The problem with going too deep into the Matthew 2:16-18 narrative and using it as a springboard into the political issues of the day is pretty basic. Politics on this level is about critique, if not revilement of the opponent. The Christian view is critique of the self. If we are going to look at ourselves, it can be helpful to consider the ways in which our jealousy, like the jealousy of Herod, gets the better of us. Envy and jealousy are my biggest trip points. And while I haven’t committed infanticide to further my life’s goals, I am obligated to look within for sin, rather than check off the list, “Nope, I haven’t assisted in the procurement of an abortion,” and move on to my neighbor.

There are two other Scriptures presented, and I believe they illustrate my point.

First, is the psalm refrain from verse 7 of the 124th:

Our soul has been rescued like a bird from the fowler’s snare.

The psalmist is talking about God’s redemption of the soul–not the body. Verse 5 speaks of the onrush of a flood:

The torrent would have swept over us;
over us then would have swept the raging waters.

I don’t know about your experience, but in mine, the inner surge of anger is well described here. It’s not always a flame. Sometimes I just want to take my arm and brush aside what stands in my way. A firehose would be more satisfactory than a flamethrower, as the flotsam of my obstacles would be pummeled away from my footsteps. I don’t want to be swept away by the torrent, and carried to a place in which I do not recognize myself.

Saint John gives believers the core message they can take away from Holy Innocents. Watch out for self-deception:

If we say, “We have fellowship with him,”
while we continue to walk in darkness,
we lie and do not act in truth.
But if we walk in the light as he is in the light,
then we have fellowship with one another,
and the Blood of his Son Jesus cleanses us from all sin.
If we say, “We are without sin,”
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just
and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing. (1 John 1:6-9)

And even if we have sin, even if we come to that shattering personal revelation, we also have the Lord.

My sense is that today’s feast is about self-deception, and placing a guard over ourselves, our intentions, our attitudes, and our spiritual lives. Christmas is just four days old, and we’ve already observed two red feasts. Stephen, the protomartyr. Plus the infant boys of Bethlehem. If we’re going to congratulate ourselves for personal suffering, and that we’re not the Newtown shooter or an abortion provider, perhaps we should take a closer look at what the Lord is nudging in our direction.

 

Seeds of Merton’s Verbs

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,
and that I think I am following your will
does not mean I am actually doing so.

But I believe the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all I am doing.

I hope I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know if I do this you will lead me by the right road
though I may know nothing about it.

I will trust you always
though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear,
for you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

From my discovery of this text in college, Thomas Merton’s Prayer of Abandonment has always and often been with me. How many times have I uttered that first line, “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.” I utter it slowly. Emphasizing every word. And I mean it.

I was looking at that prayer a while ago; it has been with me through a very dark Advent this past year. As the worries at work and at home have roosted in my heart, I was drawn to the verbs. I was noticing their progression, and how they form a beautiful heart of this prayer. They struck me as five powerful “seeds,” to use the term of this spiritual master. These five “seeds” follow a very human, a very natural progression. Check it out:

I have no idea
I do not see
I cannot know

In this first seed, the believer has hit bottom, coming to the reality that her life is not under her control. We have no other way to go. Nothing is coming to us. We are unable to proceed on our own power. In my own moment of truth, I remember clearly sitting in the shower stall of a retreat house at 6AM. I was in tears and I was confronted with the enormity of the utter powerlessness in my life in the face of the realities that had just hit me. It was the most powerful moment of contrition in my life. But it was not over yet.

I (don’t) really know
I think I am
does not mean I am

In the second “seed,” we are overwhelmed with doubts. In my own life, I pull back from the admission of powerlessness. Maybe there’s something I can do, some bit of cleverness to pull out of my hat. I think I can use my arms and legs to crawl out of the pit. But I realize that even though I think I am, I also have an enormous capacity for self-deception. So when I’m feeling good about my own diagnosis, maybe that’s a good time to return to God and admit that reasonable, reasonable doubt that just because I think something, it doesn’t mean that it is.

But I believe
And I hope

This third seed is the moment of faith. The believer returns to his God, and from the seed of belief, there is a small green shoot of hope. I think hope is essential in these dark nights. I don’t know about you, but I need a dose of hope now and then. I need to see that glimmer in the darkness. Maybe I don’t need the all-out lighted way. Just a glimpse to lift up my spirit and give my legs a bit of strength when they’re in revolt and wanting to just collapse.

I hope I will never do
I know if I do
you will lead

The human reality is that we sin, even after a conversion moment. Even after a hitting bottom moment. In Twelve Step wisdom, the recovering addict promptly recognizes new transgressions, and admits them. The believer, too, needs God’s grace in these moments, long after that first commitment. We all hope we will never sin. But we know that if we do, God will lead. The tricky part is that we have to want to be led. After the 6AM shower at Our Lady of Gethsemani, my life has not been perfect. But I have the pattern of reliance on God. I hope I don’t need to lean. But I know that if I do, God will lead.

I will trust you
I will not fear

This is the ultimate solution, this fifth seed.

You may wonder if this has any connection to Christmas and the season we celebrate these days. I think it does.

When encountering human beings, God and angels often open the conversation with “Don’t be afraid.” Ne timeas. I’ve explored that theme here six years ago and I’ve return to it often in my own prayer life. Fear is a driving and demonic force in our own culture. It is difficult to swim against the current of fear, which is far closer to the route of what ails us than the symptoms of gun gluttony, greed, sex, and the drive to stay young and strong.

There has to be a reason the first thing we hear from God or his divine messengers is “Don’t be afraid.” Mary at the Annunciation. Her husband Joseph in the dream. Shepherds of the night watch. God knows it is deeply ingrained in his children. Even believers like Mary and Joseph.

Thomas Merton’s last seed, “I will trust you. I will not fear.” seems the most elemental prayer we can utter. When other words fail us, when the situation overwhelms, the Father will surely hear the heartfelt prayer from the shadows and perils of our lives. He did twenty centuries ago, didn’t he?

 

Newt Joins Huck On The Godless Trail

Former House Speaker and relatively new Catholic Newt Gingrich has joined the Arkansas preacher and former governor on the meme that America’s not religious enough. Mr Gingrich:

When you have an anti-religious, secular bureaucracy and secular judiciary, seeking to drive God out of public life, something fills the vacuum.

Rev Huckabee earlier said:

And since we’ve ordered God out of our schools, and communities, the military and public conversations, you know we really shouldn’t act so surprised … when all hell breaks loose.

In terms of any measurable sense, the United States ranks very high among the world’s most Christian nations, but still behind Muslim nations, plus most of sub-Saharan Africa. It has ranked so in the past, but we didn’t avoid disasters like this factory fire. Evangelicals would probably suggest it was the fault of those Catholic and Jewish women who worked there. Someone’s always to blame, it seems. And some people seem eager enough to instill fear in others.

If Huck and Newt were up on their Bible, they would know that the Judeo-Christian tradition has always wrestled with the conundrum that the wicked prosper and the just suffer. The Psalmist offered up an entire composition on the question. I think you have to go far deeper than politicians are willing to wade to get at the core of the problem. A serious look will always find the sinner within one’s own skin. And a serious look will likely find a believer in the shoes of a person like Father Bob Weiss, who has distinguished himself for his service to grieving families.

 

It’s Called the Virtue of Prudence

The Vatican wants to shut down Sunday shopping in Italy. All of a sudden, that’s become a liberal cause: giving small businesses relief from the relentless push from corporations that can keep stores open 24/7. And crush any local competitors.

I wonder how they would weigh in on shipboard retreats during Lent.

I have a theory about that last one, hosted by two of Catholicism’s most “orthodox” bloggers. They couldn’t find a retreat house anywhere on the continent that would host such a thing. But a handful of Catholics among honeymooners, gamblers, and winter vacation-ites. That sounds like some seriously “new” evangelization to my ears. Some serious schism, too, among conservative internet Catholics.

I think you have retreats in retreat houses and at monasteries. I presume cruises are great fun–that’s what I hear from people who have gone on them. I think shopping is great, too. Maybe I’ll have to give some thought to foregoing the convenience of the Sunday economy. Giving up luxury for Lent, though–one would think that’s a given.

 

More Love Than We Deserve

After my lectio yesterday, I turned to another chapter in a book by the Jesuit Peter van Breemen, The God Who Won’t Let Go. You readers know I’ve been drawn into the orbit of many authors of the Ignatian tradition these days. This book has sat on my shelf for a decade. But this week it gets opened. It strikes me as timely for the season, as well as for my spiritual life.

Father van Breemen quotes the philosopher Jorg Splett for an extended essay:

Every person needs more love than he or she deserves.

Isn’t it the truth?

The author suggests that the difference in this equation, this gap between what we deserve and what we need is defined simply as grace. A parish pastor I knew several years ago defied what has been set up as conventional wisdom by some conservative Catholics. People are not more selfish, more self-absorbed, or more unrepentant today than before. This priest, ordained about thirty years, and based on his experiences hearing confessions, suggested instead that believers are more burdened than ever by feelings of inadequacy, low self-esteem, and paralyzing self-doubt. Too much fear; too little love. These fearful folk would seem to be very aware of that gap van Breemen explores. But they find it hard to see the grace.

The apostle John suggests a progression is in play, even for those who believe. We do not naturally embrace God’s love:

We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. (1 John 4:16a)

I think children need parents, or at the very least, stable adults, to come to what appears to be a natural realization of this. Somehow, we come to know God’s love. We have to experience it. Most often, this happens in human relationships with others. Saint John cites what has become a liturgical acclamation:

God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. (1 John 4:16b)

… and then continues with what seems to be an obvious reflection. It depends on us who believe:

In this is love brought to perfection among us, that we have confidence on the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world.There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:17-19)

God’s unconditional love for us seems so alien, so completely other-worldly. I see many young people who struggle with their own sense of unworthiness: no boyfriend or girlfriend, broken homes, forgot to study, too much alcohol. If the world were just, why wouldn’t they be drummed out of college and sent home to work on the farm? Or they see other lives topple into addiction, or even get snuffed out by a rifle before they even get started. Why wasn’t that me, they ask.

I don’t have the answer, except to suggest that for the one who is aware, it is incumbent on us to start on that journey to “come to know.” And the only way I see to do that is to love. We start by giving a hand up to someone else. And we do it first, before they get any sense that they have merited our helping hand.

For a believer, it is not about loving based on some sort of merit. If we are serious about the imitation of God’s love, the adoption of this alien God, we strive to love first. I don’t love a woman because she loved me first. I don’t love infants because they smiled at me first. I don’t love my team because they won a championship for me first. God’s love for us is totally independent of what we might do. God’s love is based on nothing. On nothing at all. And if that sounds strange, consider that we’re all a lot better off because of it.

Father van Breemen writes an illustration. Cartoonish, perhaps; but it captures the comic essence of sin and God’s persistent love, which is not based on our response. First he cites wisdom literature from the Bible:

For even if we sin, we are yours, and know your might; but we will not sin, knowing that we belong to you. (Wisdom 15:2)

And then he suggests that in denying God’s love through sin, it is as if believers saw off the tree branch on which they sit. Because of God’s love, we do not fall.

He concludes the chapter with a portion of a Christmas homily by Karl Rahner:

God has entrusted his last, deepest, and most beautiful word to the world, in the Word made flesh. This Word says: I love you world, man and woman. I am there. I am with you. I am your life. I am your time. I weep your tears. I am your joy. Do not be afraid. When you do not know how to go any further, I am with you. I am in your anguish, because I suffered it myself. I am in your need and your death, because today I began to live and to die with you. I am your life. I promise you: for you, too, life is waiting. For you, too, the gates will open.

 

Prayer Is Not A Bookend

We’ve been interviewing peer ministry candidates this week. We invite each candidate to lead prayer at the beginning.

Catholics naturally open prayers with the sign of the cross. But lately, I’ve been declining to close it off with a similar sign. Why segregate prayer? Pray at all times. I’m thinking it’s time to stop ending prayer. Better to just keep it going.

Besides, it’s finals week  in my university city. Those students need all the help they can get the next few days.

 

Are Bibles For Writing In?

Even when I was in college, I demurred highlighting my textbooks. My friends were well-equipped, it seemed, with fluorescent pens of all colors. And every used volume in the bookstore seemed filled with someone else’s study priorities.

One of my favorite spiritual writers is the Australian Trappist Michael Casey. In his book, Toward God, he offers some thoughts on lectio divina in chapter 7. I recommend the whole book, but the chapter on lectio all by itself is quite good. Fr Casey offers six “practical consequences” as the believer moves from reverence into an encounter with God’s Word. Number one is:

What is holy is our reading of the text, that is, welcoming it into a believing heart. The text itself possesses a sacredness too. No harm will be done by surrounding the book of the Bible with care and love. It helps to have as good an edition as our budget allows. We should respect and cherish our Bible–not scribbling on it–as if to impose our own poor thoughts upon the text–but reverencing it in its integrity.

I suspect my instinct for not writing in books is more nurture, not spiritual nature. But I do have in the back of my Psalter a place for a post-it note where I write the names of people to keep in prayer. It’s a tradition of which I could likely make better use.

 

A Thanksgiving Octave Assembles

Black Friday, then Small Business Saturday make a Triduum. Cyber Monday tacked on, and now a #Giving Tuesday. Naturally, the conservatives will be hopping all over this attempt to get charity out of government hands and into the people’s, where it belongs. If anything, the GOP will need to get way out in front of the 2016 buy-off, eh?

What else can be added to make a neat little octave heading into December?