Sunday, April 30, 2017
Coffee with Jesus
One thing I've noticed about most Catholics is that they don't usually talk much about their personal prayer lives. How do you guys say prayers? I mostly follow the Ignatian colloquy - a conversation with Jesus. Sacred Space (the Irish Jesuits) describes it this way ...
"Imagine you see Jesus sitting close to you. In doing this you are putting your imagination at the service of your faith. Jesus isn't here in the way you are imagining him, but he certainly is here, and your imagination helps to make you aware of this. Now, speak to Jesus .... if no one is around, speak out in a soft voice .... Listen to what Jesus says to you in reply, or what you imagine him to say .... That is the difference between thinking and praying. When we think, we generally talk to ourselves. When we pray, we talk to God." - Anthony de Mello SJ
I try to do a good job of it but often turns out like this ;) ...
The books that have helped me most with prayer are those by Jesuit William Barry, especially God and You: Prayer As a Personal Relationship and The Practice of Spiritual Direction
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I start the day with Lauds from the Liturgy of the Hours. Other than that I practice a form of centering prayer. The book I found most helpful for that is "The Practice of the Presence of God", online version here. It is a slim volume, only 60 pages. It is a collection of letters and conversations of Brother Lawrence, a Carmelite brother who lived in the 17th century. It actually doesn't deal with centering prayer by name, but focuses for centering one's life on the presence of God, which is really the essence of centering prayer. And I try to keep in mind the four ends of prayer by means of the acronym ACTS, that is, adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication.
ReplyDeleteI have a very superstitious idea that talking about prayer jinxes it.
ReplyDeleteI will say that I have a very vivid imagination, and there are a handful of obscure saints I consider my friends in heaven, whom I ask to pray with and for me.
I use Catholic devotions more than Anglican ones now. But I still keep the Book of Common Prayer next to my bed.
I usually have a novena going for someone in need.
YouTube has many prayers and devotions in Latin and English, but I admit to my shame that I often use them as sleep aids.
I wouldn't say I follow any particular prayer regime, but I like to think I am in a state of readiness, always, to pray when nudged. Which is usually many times a day.
ReplyDeleteI may also be a pagan at heart, but there are so many beauties of nature here in rural Michigan that prayers of appreciation are often feelings or responses rather than words.
The video...squirmingly accurate sometimes!
ReplyDeleteHaha. My coat has fuzzies and I need a new one. My prayers are sometimes of the Ian Shoals (that guy on the radio) variety: Jesus, this person is a mess, and I can't do anything so watch him or her, OK? I gotta go.
DeleteI've tried centering prayer - I think Thomas Keating is one of the big wigs of that type. It's a bit like meditation?
ReplyDeleteYeah,, being out in nature is when I feel the awe and wonder that is a prayer. I've never really felt comfortable with the prayers from church or with the saints - maybe because I didn't grow up as a Catholic.
I'm so glad I came upon Ignatius' style of prayer. He has the "rules of discernment" too which are a method to help people figure out if what they're doing ts leading them closer to God or in the other direction. I'm not sure how accurate it all is but it seems to fit my personality better than other stuff I've tried.
I found Thomas Keating dry as dust. Liked Basil Pennington better. But I just kind of do my own version.
DeleteAnd finding the presence of God in nature, I'm totally on board with that. I don't think it seems pagan at all.
The Church does an utterly lousy job of teaching its flock how to pray. Any Evangelical can rise and thank Fadagod for this or that and praise Fadagod and ask Fadagod to "just" cure Tiffany's cancer. Catholics sit mute and, if pushed, say, "Hail Mary full of..." or, if they remember they are in mixed company, "Our Father who art in heaven..."
ReplyDeleteYet the Church recommends that we pray always. So a friend of mine -- who, lets just say, has never read Thomas Merton and is not likely to -- goes to a priest we know and asks him to recommend a good book on prayer. And the priest's suggestion for a starter book is The Dark Night of the Soul.
Sigh.
I love Brother Lawrence, but he is promoting turning your life into a prayer, which I don't think is where Crystal is going with her question.
Tom, I think a lot of Catholics find it hard to talk about their prayer life because they find it deeply personal and hard to share about. What Jean said a while ago about jinxing it. Or maybe it's just me because I'm an introvert. Doesn't Scripture say something about us not knowing how we ought to pray, but the Spirit prays for us with inexpressible groanings?
DeleteI should have said that's why they find it hard to pray extemporaneously in public and resort to a Hail Mary or a Glory Be.
DeleteI think the great thing about Ignatius' way of praying is that it's just like a friend talking to a friend about what ever is on their mind.
DeleteI don't understand about the jinxing - what do you guys mean? Novenas seem almost like magic spells - is it that one thinks if they talk about it it won't work?
Not speaking for Jean here, just myself, I didn't mean jinx in the literal sense. There is an admonition in Scripture not to do your praying so that others can admire you. Or as my mom used to say, "Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back." One should be sure that one is sharing for the right reason.
DeleteAbout novenas, there is nothing magic about them. I read once that the original "novena" was the 9 days between the Ascension and Pentecost, when the disciples prayed for an outpouring of the Spirit. So the 9 days of novenas are in remembrance of that. They are a way to be perseverant in prayer.
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DeleteIf a novena isn't someone's thing, fine by me. But I certainly do NOT see it as a magic spell. It's a way to keep someone or some issue in front of you for a longer period that may lead to action and understanding on your part.
DeleteI had a novena going to Blessed Matt Talbot, patron saint of alcoholics partly because I wanted to contemplate what would best help someone, and partly because I wanted to get over some anger. The novena included a period of reflection between the opening and closing prayer which included imagining that person's struggle.
I think the minute you tell somebody you're praying for them, you have nixed/jinxed your prayer. The purpose is that the prayer will help you show God's love to others. Just saying you are praying is like bragging. It's also a way to shut down communication: My mom is sick. Oh, I'll pray for her, gosh look at the time.
Our prayers of contrition, thanks, and praise are offered before we can even articulate them. But I think God likes us to try anyway because doing so can make us more sensitive and aware.
No idea if that makes sense to anyone else. Just me.
I do think there are times when telling someone we are praying for them can be reassuring, showing them that they are not alone. It depends on the context.
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DeleteYes, I understand about not wanting to tell someone you are praying for them. I thought you meant it was a bad idea to talk about prayer in general.
DeleteDidn't mean to offend about the novena. I don't know much about them - they were never mentioned in the RCIA class. All I'd heard of them has sounded kind of exotic.
No, they really don't talk about prayer in RCIA, do they? Most of us "graduate" out of that knowing less about the prayers and parts of the Mass than a seven-year-old at first communion. If you want to know about this stuff, you have to look it up.
DeleteOn days when I am cynical, I feel that the Church uses RCIA to pull you about halfway in so it can get your kids.
First confession was awful. The priest told me to say the act of contrition. Say an act? I thought that the act was the penance. The Church Ladies just gave us a confusing card and shoved us one by one inside the confessional and told us not to take more than five minutes.
"Now don't you feel CLEAN?" they beamed when we came out. Um, no. Just humiliated.
That was my first - and only - time of confession too. It was right at the end of RCIA and cured me of ever wanting to go again.
DeleteIt was fine the second and subsequent times. But it seems like a very sad little sacrament. I understand that some priests are better at it than just, "Ten Hail Marys for the souls in Purgatory. Next."
DeleteMy first confession (at age 8) was not a good experience, either. They knew how to put the fear of God in you in parochial school back in the '50s (umm, telling a kid they are committing a mortal sin of sacrilege if they hold anything back?). I pretty much hated it all through grade school. I am grateful to an understanding priest for helping me straighten out my thinking in my early teens. It took a long time, but I can honestly say it's a joyful, grace-filled experience now. Might be worth a post sometime.
DeleteI think it's too late for me now. I don't believe in the idea anymore - that the church is right about what's a sin, that a priest can stand in for God and forgive you. I try to just do it myself now in prayer and hope for the best.
DeleteKind of sad - all the stuff I thought was so exotic and romantic and neat about Catholicism before I joined up - like celibate male priests and confession and saints, etc. seem kind of problematic now that I actually am a Catholic.
The church has one universal place that provides a clue to how to get into prayer, the Collect at the start of Mass. Unfortunately the Collect prayers were recently turned into Latglish, and you really have to sit down and puzzle them out instead of praying them. I don't know if any priests ever thought of the Collects as giving good example, and nowadays, half the congregation doesn't show up until it's over.
ReplyDeleteHaving gotten all that off my chest, I'll answer Crystal's question.
ReplyDeleteI rise at 4:50 a.m. (which I could never have done before I retired) and say the Morning Offering, ending with my intentions, which are pretty standard. At best, they start as petitions and go off as thanksgiving. Then I pray the abriged version of Lauds for Dummies in Give Us This Day and follow the day's readings in the book while I listen to them read on the USCC's Web Site. Then I check out the fervorinos in the book and on the USCC site, and I am ready for meditation, sometimes with Sacred Space and sometimes without, or Lectio Divina, which amounts to pretty much the same thing. That whole section of my morning hour is influenced by SJs I have known. Then I usually have 10 minutes or so for spiritual reading before making our frugal breakfast at 6. At 8 we go to daily Mass (on Sunday, it's noon because I usher). I used to use a lot of music, old and new, in the morning, but my laptop no longer interacts with my good speakers and the laptop alone is an affront to the ears.
Thanks, Tom.
ReplyDeleteI like Sacred Space too. I usually check out the reading at Creighton University's Daily Reflections page or sometimes visit the British Jesuits' pray-as-you-go which also has music.
I wasn't raised in a church but my grandmother was a Presbyterian so we kids said our prayers every night before bed - Our Father and intercessory stuff. And this one -
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray to Lord my soul to keep,
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
I think it's true that Protestants are much more comfortable than Catholics with praying, and they are direct and go straight to the top - if you're going to pray, then talk to Jesus/God and speak your mind. That's why I like Ignatius' way of praying.
Crystal, You raise almost a whole other theme: To whom do you pray? The question was raised at a men's group I hang out with, and the answers were all over the lot. When I was young, I prayed to the Father; since my 30s it has been to Jesus. When I get really good at it, I hope to be able to address the Spirit.
DeleteI think some happy clappy Protestants are more comfortable with extemporaneous prayer led by the family patriarch(s). My Amish in-laws go on and on in German. Women are not allowed to pray aloud. They may participate in remembrances, where the family goes to the cemetery and tells stories about the dead. In my Baptist in-laws' church, a pastor comes in to lead a prayer before women's meetings and Bible study. Not that way in other denominations, though.
DeleteTom - yeah. I think many Protestants, and me too, are a bit creeped out by the thought that Catholics seem to pray to saints instead of to Jesus or God. Fr. Martin has said they don't pray "to" saints but "with" them, but I don't really understand that impulse either.
DeleteSorry everyone - don't mean to offend - but becoming a Catholic as an adult has left me with a lot of gaps in the belief system :)
What a delight to come upon this thread on this Sunday evening. I love having this glimpse into the varied prayer practices of all the commenters; such a beautiful bouquet of styles and heartening to see. Can relate to all of them, having practiced almost all of these "methods" at one time or another. Different modes correspond to different seasons of our lives, it seems to me, just as different retreat formats do.
ReplyDeleteHave to respond to the remark that "Protestants are much more comfortable than Catholics with praying...". It's true that our Protestant friends are so talented in verbalizing extemporaneous prayers that can be heartfelt, eloquent and full of good theology to boot! And, ironically, I note that the Carmelite, Brother Lawrence, is popular in Protestant circles, as well as Catholic ones. His focusing on God's presence amid the pots and pans (so easy to relate to him!) echoes the guidance of his founder, St Teresa, who said "I tried as hard as I could to have Jesus Christ our God and our Lord present within me, that was my way of prayer". And in being present to him faithfully she was taken into deeper and deeper intimacy with God - and, as we know, was called to write about that journey of growth in union. She was dedicated to profound prayer - but not in the verbal and sometimes eloquent way of our Protestant brothers and sisters necessarily. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned the prayer of apprehending the beauty of nature, without words; this form of presence is also communication with God.
One of our Carmelite friars advised us to refrain from asking our newcomers HOW they pray, but to encourage them TO pray in whatever way God leads. Each soul is unique and we know God communicates "according to the mode of the receiver". So consoling to realize that... I love the way Jean explained her particular focusing of the novena , Crystal relishing the Ignatian way with its lavish inclusion of scripture, Tom's rich morning regime (4:50?? wow!), and the disciplines Katherine enumerated, which provide such a sturdy foundation upon which the Spirit can expand.
It continually amazes and thrills me to realize that we humans, "children of Eve", are given this privilege to walk with God, to commune and communicate, to glean or discern something of God's "voice" within, that we are given access to this "mysterious Someone" Who can draw forth so much love from our little, human hearts, to immerse us in Love, actually, which is prayer. An endless reason for awe and gratitude, and my favorite thing, obviously!
Thanks for all the comments! What's that saying? Pray as you can, not as you can't. :)
ReplyDeleteWhat I was thinking of, as far as Protestants praying, and us too, was about interior prayer, not praying at church. I don't go to church anymore and I guess even when I did, the prayers there were not personal, if that makes sense. The early Jesuits were notable for emphasizing interior or mental prayer. John O'Malley SJ wrote about this in his book The First Jesuits. He quotes Nadal (friend of Ignatius) saying ...
"Public prayer consists principally in the mass, which has supreme efficacy as sacrament and sacrifice. It also consists in other prayers commonly held in churches, like litanies and similar things. Private prayer is the prayer that each one does in his room, and it ... should always take order and priority over public prayer because of its power, and it especially befits us [Jesuits] because we do not celebrate public prayer in common -- we do not have choir. This means that for the Jesuit his room becomes his choir."
Beautiful quote from the O'Malley book, Crystal. Brings back memories of learning so much about praying because of the opportunity provided for us layfolk to occupy one of those Jesuit cells for a week or so. Looks like nothing is going on but so much happens in the stillness. For starters, we bossy, pushy moderns learn to wait for and on God's initiatives and that we are not the generators of "consolation". Oh, the gratitude when "it comes". Then we can take a more awakened heart to the public prayer. They complement each other.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Crystal, for a great post. The diversity of prayer which is evident in the comments was also present in the 1980s when I was a member of the mostly voluntary pastoral staff in a parish in Toledo.
ReplyDeleteWe had a diversity of talent: an accountant, a skilled mechanic who organized parish maintenance, an African American primary school teacher honored by state wide awards as a social justice minister , a union shop steward as youth minister, etc.
The diversity of our spirituality was even more important. Our woman’s group leader had been spiritually transformed by the suicide of her daughter. Our RENEW leaders gave marriage encounters. Others had experience in the Cursillo and charismatic movements.
We spent about fifteen minutes in prayer at the beginning of each meeting, rotating the leadership of the prayer for each meeting so that we got a deep appreciation of each other’s spirituality and prayer life.
For a while the accountant declined to take his turn saying that he did not know how to pray. Finally we said he had to take his turn. Several minutes into his description of his inability to pray, the rest of us began to look at each other with the same thought: We were seeing a repeat of the story of the Pharisee and the Publican. Joe's inability to pray was the best prayer.
Once we hosted on a weekday the monthly diocesan Charismatic Mass. Several of our "charismatic" staff invited me to join as part of the prayer leaders even though I had never been to one before. I enjoyed helping people as they got slain with the holy spirit. I decide not to try out the experience myself.
What I did really like was the speaking (actually more like chanting) in tongues which took place at various times, after the Gloria, the Sanctus the Lord's Prayer, etc. I have quite a lot of Latin, Greek and other Oriental music. I began to wonder if I could memorize the Aramaic Sanctus, and Lord's Prayer, and maybe the Greek Gloria I just might be able to fit in.
I experienced the slain-in-the-Spirit phenomena once. I still don't know what I think about it. I believe the power of suggestion has a lot to do with it. But that doesn't mean it wasn't spiritual or that I am dismissive of it. God can work with our mind and emotions also.
DeleteI've heard of RENEW but I didn't know about it when I was going to church. What is it about?
ReplyDeleteI once went with a friend to a traveling charismatic revival meeting - they used to call it the sawdust trail - where people were asked to come up and be slain by the spirit. There was something attractive about it but I was too chicken to try it, though.
I don't know if Renew is still going or not. We were in a Renew group in the 1980s. I think the purpose was to try and break the parish down into smaller groups where it was easier to meet others and support one another's faith, and also do some social action projects. There was a discussion lesson for each meeting. It was helpful, because at that time we were newcomers in a large parish in Colorado, and it helped us become more a part of the parish.
DeleteRENEW is still in existence: http://www.renewintl.org/
ReplyDeleteRENEW in Toledo was run as a diocesan program, i.e. all parishes did it at the same time supported by a diocesan office.
In Cleveland individual parishes do it; our parish has done it twice.
The typical program consisted of six seasons (Fall, Spring; Fall Spring; Fall) of six weeks each with small group meeting weekly and some large parish events.
In our parish a group met in my house; I called it "RENEW for music lovers" since I shared my music collection.
Basically the program introduces the idea of small faith sharing groups into the parish.
Our parish has a very talented young priest who has been developing some prayer materials.
ReplyDeleteHere is his forty day Lenten introduction to six different forms of prayer. I think you can still sign into it even though Lent is over. Try out the app on your computer. I found it was good to have both the app and the book ($25)
http://www.theprodigalfather.org/pray40days/
He also has another app on the Jesuit examine. You might want to try it also.
http://www.theprodigalfather.org/examen/
Jack, thanks for sharing the program initiated in your parish by the young priest. Wonderful. For whatever reason, I haven't seen much initiative taken in parishes by the official leadership. Thankfully, there are lots of para-parish ministries that can fulfill some of the need for teaching and comradeship in this journey of personal prayer, and some archdioceses are richer in resources than others. Not everyone has the time and ability to do the searching or even pay for a formal retreat nowadays (the prices are high, usually). It would be great to see more resources for personal prayer provided for Catholics at the parish level. Praying for that -- and most grateful for the corporate/sacramental worship that the parishes do provide, of course!
ReplyDelete