Where do you pray?

Where do you pray?

I attended a retreat recently where the participants were asked this question.  The answers were all over the place (literally!):

• I pray before meals, so I guess I pray at the table a lot. 
• I have a long commute so I turn on my Rosary app and pray in the car sometimes.
• I pray in Church (duh). 
• I sit at my kitchen island and pray with my coffee in the morning.
• I curl up in a comfy chair with a blanket and pray.
• I go for walks and pray as I am walking.
• I always pray by the side of my bed.

I had to think for a little bit about this question. Do I have a favorite place?  I have some favorite spots to go, but when it comes to daily prayer, I guess there's one place that is constantly a reminder to me that I need to check in with God: my bed. More specifically: on my pillow! 

It was kind of an unconscious thing for most of my life. I must have heard and resonated with the psalm I heard as a young person : "I think of you upon my bed, I remember you through the watches of the night" Psalm 63:7. For some reason I never really thought about, going to bed was a time to remember and think of God.  

What about you?  What is your favorite place to pray?  What about your children?  If you don't have one yet, what place could you make into your own "prayer place"?

Take the Elevator

I don't know about you, but after 40 Lenten days of sort-of tackling penances and prayer exercises, sometimes I wonder if I've made any progress at all up that "rough stair of perfection" we call the spiritual life. I feel like each stair is 6' tall, and I can't seem to clear one of them.  Worse, sometimes in my failings, I think I don't even WANT to climb up.

The much-loved St. Therese of Lisieux could relate. She lived in a time when the "lift" or elevator was just being invented.  Being of a weaker physical build, and often sick as a child, she was definitely someone who would take advantage of that elevator instead of opting for the stairs. 

Her ponderings on this subject led her to wonder if there were such a thing as an elevator for the spiritual life!  There has to be,she thought, because Jesus knows how little I am and how there is no way I can climb up that rough stair! Her famous "little way of perfection" is one that is perfect for all the little souls out there (of any size).  Her "elevator" is simply the arms of Jesus. 

In our "Don't be a wimp! Take the stairs!" culture, it can be hard for some of us to feel like it is right to do this.  Here's a story about a girl who didn't take the elevator: Out of love for Jesus, she climbed each rough and broad stair. She called on Jesus for help, but she definitely wanted to finish on her own. (Parents--can you hear your young stubborn toddler saying, "I do it!"??)

When this girl arrived at the top of the stairs, her virtues were shining and she had such love in her heart. She was able to offer Jesus her sufferings and a lifetime of effort.  Jesus welcomed her in to heaven, and she was so happy.  But she looked up ahead and saw saints who just glowed with love.  They were as close to the throne as they could possibly get.  "Who are these, Lord? Who are so happy and so exalted here in heaven with you?"  His answer, "These are the saints of the Little Way."  

She was not troubled, but puzzled. She asked God why this should be so.  She felt that her hard work for the love of Jesus, her "I do it!" attitude, and her perseverance should have been most pleasing to the Lord. She did not expect that she was a great saint, but she expected "great saints" to be closest to God. It surprised her that these who took the "elevator" would have been so highly exalted in heaven.

His response: "You held me at an arm's length while you climbed the stair. Your heart loved me, but you did not trust me to love you until you were more perfect.  We lost so much time in your life that we could have been close because of this.  These little ones came into my arms in trust FIRST.  Their virtues were developed in my arms and close to my heart, not just in my service."

We can't really forget the stairs.  Our efforts are still important and worthwhile. They just aren't going to get us very far, very fast. St. Therese discovered that building the virtue of trust first made everything else fall into place.  

Maybe we can make this our prayer this Easter season: 

"Jesus, I trust in you!  And I'm taking the elevator!"

Science: Get to the Bottom of the Glass

"The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you." Werner Heisenberg, quantum physicist and Nobel Laureate. 

I was watching an interesting interview recently with a famous astrophysicist by an equally, maybe even more famous, comedian.  As the best comedians do, the interviewer asked the humorously simple, yet deeply profound question to the scientist: "Is it better to know or not to know?"

If you think about it, is really a question that all Christians must grapple with. God's great universe stands out there, greater than we ever really imagined, but all of the stuff we find out there or even right under our feet can have a very unfortunate and unnecessary response from Christians: fear, or worse, crippling doubt.

But why is this so? Science is merely a tool and a method to discover the great mysteries that God has prepared for us. Granted: we can discuss the wisdom that humans use when they make these discoveries (i.e. the atomic bomb), but must we worry about faith/reason really contradicting each other? 

It is a logical fallacy to say that Science has led one away from God.  If anything, the discoveries of elegant, beautiful, and simply amazing realities such as pi and the theory of relativity should lead us to deeper reflection on the majesty and order of the universe God created. There are many who would argue that Science and Faith need not talk to one another; that Reason and Faith need not, and indeed cannot, agree.  But as Catholics, we have a long and beautiful tradition of both/and.  You can be assured that you will not be obliged as a Catholic to believe anything that is contrary to reason. But you also must be prepared to seek the knowledge and ask the question, "why"? As that famous astrophysicist stated, "To dismiss scientific discovery out of hand is the same as accepting it blindly."  Our faith is the same way-we cannot simply accept it blindly OR dismiss it out of hand.  Simply put, we can't give up the pursuit of Faith OR Reason.  We need both to get to the bottom of the glass, where God is waiting.

Precious Pearl

After an awesome weekend at the YOUTH 2000 Eucharistic Retreat, I was trying to decide what I could write about this week, when this email from a parent showed up in my inbox. We are blessed and privileged to collaborate with parents in forming the faith of their children. Occasionally we get to hear a story like this one:
Hi Mandie.  I am constantly amazed and awed by the ways that CGS has affected and shaped my children's spiritual life. Something happened last night that brought such joy to my heart, I want to share it with you, and any of the other catechists that you think would like to hear it. 

Last night, I was drying my six-year-old's hair during our bedtime routine.  She was super-talkative, as always at bedtime (I know, hard to imagine- she never opens her mouth in public), and she had a particular story she was excited to share with me. My husband went to the men's conference yesterday, and he had shared with her the story of the male model, Mario St. Francis.  Her translation went something like this:

"So Dad said there was this guy who was a model.  He was rich and he had everything you could want.  But one day, he realized that Jesus was more important, so he gave all that up so that he could follow him.  And mom, it made me think of the story Jesus told, about the merchant and the pearl?  He sold everything he had so he could get the precious pearl, which of course, is the kingdom of God.  So this guy gave everything up because he realized that God was more important!  He has the kingdom of God too!"  

I am sure there is much more to the real story of this model, but because of CGS, she keyed into the most important part.  And she had a real reference point so that when she heard of a story of someone who loves God and understands what is truly of value in this world, she made the connection and got excited about recognizing the truth in it.  What more can we ask for as parents? Her eyes were shining with joy for the man that he had "figured it out" too.

I thank God frequently for my "chance" meeting with you and All Saints.  I am so grateful for all the hard work you and everyone in the program puts into it every day in every way.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, from the bottom of my heart; and never ever doubt that you are doing the work of The Holy Spirit!

Love and Peace,

Michelle 

DeVries Family Meeting

Faith Formation Begins At Home

DeVries Family Meeting This Lent, All Saints has provided copies of Matthew Kelly's amazing book, Four Signs of a Dymanic Catholic to parishioners and guests. The Four Signs: prayer, study, generosity, and evangelization, were all things that the most engaged and dynamic Catholics had in common to some extent.  When you read the book, it is impossible not to be challenged to actually buckle down and become what Matthew Kelly calls "the-best-version-of-yourself!" Well, after reading the chapter on generosity, I called a DeVries Family Meeting. (This is a fancy word for holding everyone hostage before they are excused from the table).  There was one line in that chapter that hung with me over the week and I wanted to talk about it: "If it doesn't get measured, it doesn't get done." A retired businessman in our Friday morning book study noted that this is common maxim in the business world, too. If you aren't measuring the change you want, it probably isn't going to happen.  Matthew Kelly also put it this way: "You don't just FALL into good habits. You have to work at it!" So, with these thoughts on my mind, I called together the troops and told them that I'd read a good "God" book (no, not the Bible) that had me thinking about this question:   How much does our family pray? "You mean, like, in minutes?" A conversation ensued about how many waking minutes we are gifted with each day: Say 720 per person for 12 waking hours. Now we have 7 people in our family, so that's 5040 minutes that God gives our family each day.  OK. So--how many minutes do we spend each day actively talking to God who is actively giving us life? We added up our mealtime prayers (times seven), and our most-of-the-time morning perusal of the daily readings, and a few people added in their regular bedtime prayers, until we came up with what we think is a pretty good daily average.  Sundays throw the total way up since Mass is an hour. But as we looked at our total, a collective feeling of awkwardness shrouded our meeting.  It wasn't a very high number. I simply asked the girls: do you think we are being generous with our time of prayer to God?  What do you think we should be offering to him as a family and how can we do better? My 6 year old had a great idea: "How about we all pray the same number of minutes as our age?"  As the chronologically advanced members of the family exchanged a pensive look, the ten year old threw out another idea, "Maybe every time we pass by the crucifix at the top of the stairs, we could say a Hail Mary?" After a few more minutes of brainstorming, we all left the table just thinking a little bit more about how we should think about God just a little bit more in our day.  My 6 year old brought me a Rosary a few minutes later and asked if I would pray with her.  She said if I prayed with her our prayer time would get doubled.  So I did. Sometimes I think that my husband and I are the spiritual leaders of our family, but usually we just need to call a DeVries Family Meeting to discover how the spiritual gifts of our children are really leading and challenging us to grow.  I began the meeting with the idea of how we could measure and improve our family in one area: prayer.  I came out with a new respect for my children.  Time is their love language, and it isn't all that hard for them to fall into prayer, because for them it is like falling in love. May the children in our lives lead us all to grow in prayer, in patience, and in a more generous giving of love.