Dear Friends,
For the past month, we have had parishioners talking at each of the Sunday Masses about their
experience of living discipleship through involvement in different ministries. Today, I will be offering you our
Annual Report. You can pick up copies at the entryways. Those of you who are registered will receive a copy in
the mail. Giving a report each year on the parish finances is required by universal church law, but I have always
thought of it as a chance to give you a brief overview of how we lived out our discipleship during the past year as
a parish. It is a kind of celebration. A “heart” checkup – with the heart in question being a spiritual one.
In addition to all that you heard the past month, I would also like to encourage you to practice one of the
essential parts of being a disciple of Jesus. To spend time in prayer. To connect your heart with the heart of
Jesus. There are many different ways to pray. None of them are better than another. The important thing is that
we do pray. Perhaps each of us needs a toolbox or a bag full of ideas for prayer so that we can choose a prayer
style that will work for us when we become bored with our prayer. For boredom in prayer happens to everyone.
It happens to monks and nuns quite frequently and they are professionals at prayer.
One of the most basic ways to pray is to read a passage from scripture and then talk with God about it.
The psalms have been used for prayer for thousands of years. Or you could take a passage from a gospel, read it
through a couple of times and then use your imagination to imagine being in the gospel setting, seeing and
hearing what is happening around you. At some point, the Holy Spirit may take over and lead your imagination
in ways you did not expect. Or you could take a passage from scripture, like “come to the water” and you could
meditate with the passage – repeating it over and over in your mind, letting it come in and out of you like your
breath, until you become one with the passage and it becomes one with you.
A famous Ignatian prayer form is the daily Examen. This is done in the evening and only takes a few
minutes. You invite God to help you look back over your day and see the places where God was acting during
the day. By practicing this prayer on a daily basis your actual awareness of the presence of God throughout the
day becomes ever sharper.
Some people like to pray by sitting quietly with God and not uttering a word. They simply want to sit in
the presence of the one they love. Other people like doing a rosary because it calms their busy minds through the
meditative repetition of words and allows their minds to float higher and think about the life of Jesus. Other
people like to sing their prayers and so they use the music they enjoy to praise God. Of course, you have to have
understanding house mates if you are going to play and sing music at a volume that affects others.
Other people connect best with God in nature, so they sit in their gardens, go for a walk in the woods,
bike along the trails, sit at a lake, or any of the other many places that God has created. Like studying a fine work
of art, one of the ways to get to know the artist is to contemplate the art.
Again, the important thing is to pray. For most of us, that means scheduling in a time every day to pray.
If it is in the schedule, then it is more likely to happen. If it is only when we have done everything else that needs
to be done, then it will probably never happen. My advice is to experiment. Take holy risks. Try different
practices for a set period of time and notice how they help you to align with God’s unforced rhythms of grace. If
they help, then add them to your bag of prayer forms. If they did not work, reflect a little on why and then feel
free to set the practice aside. No one can do every practice, but we all need to do something.
Peace,
Fr. Damian