Pray always

Jesus exhorts His disciples to pray always without becoming weary. In order to avoid the weariness that often accompanies the experience of praying always, we do well to consider several dispositions that can assist us in our resolve to follow the Lord’s exhortation.

First, we must realize what prayer is. The saints can assist us in forming a reliable definition. Bl. Teresa of Calcutta used to say that prayer is to the soul what air is to the body. If we take away prayer, the soul suffocates, just as a body deprived of air perishes. St. Teresa of Avila once remarked that prayer is turning to the One who looks upon us with love. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes prayer as “the raising of one’s mind and heart to God, or the petition of good things from him in accord with his will. It is always the gift of God who comes to encounter man.” In effect, prayer is the personal and living encounter with God. It is a gift from God rooted in love. When we truly love another person, it is difficult to grow weary of him. In fact, we always look forward to our next encounter with him and when we are with him, we do not want to be apart from him because we desire to love and to be loved. Hence, prayer is relational.

Second, we must avoid reducing prayer to mere supplication. Among the general categories of prayer, supplication is the last of the four types of prayer. Adoration, contrition and thanksgiving are the first three forms. Even when we make our petitions, the Catechism’s definition clarifies how this ought to be done. We are to ask good things from God if they be in accord with His will. Many people become discouraged in prayer when they are led to believe that their prayers are not answered. They believe that God does not listen to them because He does not give them what they ask. The reality may be that God does listen to our prayers — it is the answer that we may not like. We can transform the third petition in the Our Father to, “Thy will be done, my way, on earth as it is in heaven.” Thus, petitioning God, we ought to pray for the grace to cooperate with whatever He wants to bestow upon us, regardless of our preferences.Third, we must learn to pray in Faith. With great concern, Jesus asks that when He returns in glory, “Will he find faith on earth?” Faith is not a feeling. Rather, it is an act of the intellect, moved by the will in charity to an objective reality (God) beyond ourselves. The Catechism explains that faith is the first of the three theological virtues, which resides in the intellect, by which we “believe in God and all that he has revealed to us and that the Church proposes for our belief because God is Truth itself. By faith, the human person freely commits himself to God.” Our faith in God must be more than a mere intellectual grasp of doctrine. Rather, it must be a living and personal encounter with the Lord whereby we freely submit our intellect and our will to the One who gazes upon us with love and invites to respond to Him in the same way. Jesus is not seeking persons who can simply make sense of the doctrines of the Church. Instead, He seeks true believers because believers are lovers of God.

With the aforementioned dispositions, we may be able to persevere in prayer, realizing that authentic prayer implies an authentic relationship with the One who loves us more than we love ourselves and who gently moves us to a more frequent and perfect raising of our minds and hearts to Him, who is Love.

( written by Fr. Magat is parochial vicar of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Arlington. )

Halloween's positive messages

Among many Christians, there has been concern that things have gotten out of hand. After all, doesn’t Halloween glorify evil? Is it right to send our children out as devils and vampires, or is it better to emphasize the saints, whose nearly forgotten feast day is the reason for Halloween? Hallow is the same word for "holy" that we find in the Lord’s Prayer, and e’en is a contraction of "evening." The word Halloween itself is a shortened form of "All Hallows Eve", the day before All Saints Day. In this Update we’ll consider how Catholics can "redeem" Halloween. This holiday, properly understood and celebrated with all of its fun trappings, can be a way for us to deepen our understanding of our faith. The key to this understanding is close at hand for Catholics in our love of the communion of saints.

Halloween and its back-to-back feast days mean more than talking about our favorite saints who lived in another time, another place. It’s also an opportunity to talk about what’s needed for holiness now (perhaps even martyrdom now, sad to say).
In addition we have a chance to face up to differences that still divide Catholics and Protestants, maybe even a chance to evangelize. "I believe...in the communion of saints," we say every Sunday in the Creed. How many of us know what this doctrine really means?

Do we "worship" or "adore" our beloved saints, as some non-Catholics think? Not at all. We honor them and learn from their example; adoration belongs to God alone. We ask the saints to pray for us the same way we might ask a good friend to pray. A favorite quotation about prayer begins, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name" (Matthew 18:20). The "two or three" aren’t necessarily limited to the living. It’s comforting to have friends always available to pray with you, a whole "cloud of witnesses," in fact! (see Hebrews 12:1).

Halloween also invites us to talk openly about death in a culture that labors mightily to deny it. Seventy-five percent of Americans do not have a valid will, much less a Living Will or an organ donor card. "If I die..." people say, instead of, "when I die." Do we think death is optional? Death is a fact of life. When St. Francis of Assisi lay dying he said, "Welcome, Sister Death," recognizing that death was just another creaturely thing in a world that would one day pass away.

Occasionally we must push the "pause" button in our busy lives to consider our own mortality with all its spiritual and practical consequences. The Church gives us two feasts and the whole month of November to do this.
Halloween is like our Mardi Gras before a very serious Lent. We should be able to laugh at the dark side and dress up in costumes and have parties. Let’s reclaim our heritage with all the story power, creativity and joyous good fun that we can. Let’s use it to help us become the saints we are each called to be.
Halloween is a victory celebration, after all!

( written by by Page McKean Zyromski )

One great song for all passing through

Come, now is the time to worship.
Come, now is the time to give your heart.
Come, just as you are, to worship.
Come, just as you are, before your God.
Come.
One day every tounge will confess
You are God.
One day every knee will bow.
Still the greatest treasure remains for those
Who gladly choose you now.
Come, now is the time to worship.
Come, now is the time to give your heart.
Oh, come.Just as you are to worship.
Come just as you are before your God.
Come.
One day every tounge will confess
You our God.
One day every knee will bow.
Still the greatest treasure remains for those
who gladly choose you now.
Come, now is the time to worship.
Come, now is the time to give your heart.
Come, just as you are to worship.
Come, just as you are before your God.
Come.
Oh, come.Oh, come.Oh, come.
Worship the Lord.Oh, come.
Come, come, come...

( Phillips Craig and Dean - Come Now Is The Time To Worship )