When I was in college, I heard a priest preach about the importance of daily prayer. He said that the Catholic whose interaction with God was limited to attendance at Sunday Mass and nothing more the rest of the week was living on “spiritual life support.” His point was that, while Sunday Mass is foundational, the cultivation of a relationship with the Lord outside of Mass is vitally necessary. We do that through our lives of prayer and works of mercy. Based on conversations I’ve had with people, I’ve found that many desire to have a prayer life, but they don’t know what to do or where to begin. It is consoling to know that the desire to pray is itself a gift from God and a sign of His desire for us to enter into conversation with Him.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen described prayer as “the lifting of our soul to God unto the end of perfectly corresponding to His holy will.” Authentic prayer changes us. It liberates us from a life of self-will and selfishness. It makes us desire what God desires because we have become intimate friends with Him through time spent in prayer. During his life, Sheen encouraged Catholics to spend an hour each day “meditating on God and our eternal salvation.” This can seem intimidating. We might wonder what we’re supposed to do to fill all that time. Sheen tells us that we do two things: 1) We speak to God, and 2) We let God speak to us.
This week there will be some special opportunities to pray in our parish, when the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage makes an overnight stop at St. Cecilia Church, beginning Tuesday evening, 5/21. As I mentioned in this space a few weeks ago, Bishop Caggiano will begin with an hour of Eucharistic Adoration at 8pm, which will be followed around 9:15/30 by an hour of praise & worship music with a reflection by Fr. Justin Cinnante on the healing power of the Eucharist. Both the Bishop and Fr. Justin are wonderful preachers, and they will give us lots of things to think about during these periods of prayer.
At around 10:30/45, I will be leading a Holy Hour during which I will try to give those in attendance guidance on what to do while sitting quietly in the presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. I am no spiritual master, but my hope is to share some helpful techniques that I have learned over the years that others can bring into their own experiences of prayer. These techniques serve to make us more aware of God’s presence and its significance. They also help us to know how to share with Him what’s happening in our hearts and to consider what He might be saying to us through the words of Sacred Scripture. As in any relationship, we must spend time with the Lord both speaking and listening, revealing ourselves to Him as He reveals Himself to us, if we are to truly know Him as He is. There is so much life to receive from Him that, once we develop a taste for prayer, we will not be satisfied with the bare minimum but find we desire the infinite more.
posted 5/18/24
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 