Prayer is also about listening for answers

Mark Kelly, Rep. Giffords' husband, speaks at the National Prayer Breakfast about the shooting, fate and the importance of prayer.

"Prayer isn't just asking," he says. "It's also about listening for answers..."

My prayers, and I'm sure my readers' prayers, are with Rep. Giffords and her family.

Praying isn't like a Christmas list

As we grow in our faith, we learn that praying isn't like a Christmas list where we tell God what we want or demand a certain result by a certain deadline. But when times are tough, as it's been for some of the folks who read this blog, it's pretty difficult not to have solutions in mind when you pray or to remember that it's about God's will and not our own.

Yet the truth is, if you prayed and suddenly an angel appeared out of nowhere offering to solve all your problems, you'd find that pretty unsettling.



This has been a tough year for some folks. Some face health issues or financial problems. Others may feel as if their faith is being tested. It's important to remember that the swelling music that heralds the arrival of instant help is just a Hollywood trick and that if you don't hear it, it doesn't mean you're not a "good man" (or woman). It doesn't mean that all is lost or that your prayer hasn't been heard. It also doesn't mean that you "prayed the wrong way" or you don't have enough faith.

Christmas is a time when we are reminded how much God loves us, yet we forget that and often place expectations upon ourselves and others that are impossible to meet. Those lists we make of things to do, things to buy, people to write cards to or call or visit can and do distract us from the real meaning of Christmas. Celebrating Christmas can and does include being in prayer with God as we mark this holiest of times. No matter what your circumstances, you can celebrate Christmas, knowing that its most precious gift is the gift of love, freely given to all of us equally.

"Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world - stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death - and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas."
-- Henry Van Dyke

I wish everyone a happy and holy Christmas.

International Day of Disabled Persons 2009

It's past midnight here in the U.S. and I wanted to write a post that would be up in the morning today, December 3, 2009 because it's an important day. It's a day that's set aside by the UN to bring attention to issues facing those living with disabilities, to celebrate progress and achievements and to mark the work that still needs to be done.

I found this article out of Sri Lanka, which is entitled 'Today is a good day to stand before the mirror'. It speaks about the ways in which all of us have feet of clay, are utterly incapable of understanding, have short memory spans, are hard of hearing and are unable to see things. And it ends with:

Today is International Day of Disabled Persons. An appropriate day I believe to self-indulge in a different way, to reflect on our disabilities, revisit the choices we’ve made, cast our gaze at that which our eyes avoided, listen to things we don’t really like to hear, speak the inconvenient truths that might cost us something, walk in directions we’ve dared not walk, raise our hands to the right thing and not that which is profitable. Appropriate too, to employ our minds to understand who we really are as an ungainly composite of ability and disability.

The theme for this year is "Realigning the Millennium Development Goals for All: Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities and their Communities Around the World,’’ stresses the need to develop programs that raise the profile of disability issues in both the developed and developing world and identify existing needs and priorities, and calls for greater efforts to find solutions which are suited to the technological and economic conditions of the disabled. These actions require people with disabilities to be visible and to be given a voice that will qualify them to be adequately represented in decision making."

From Malaysia, the writer speaks about acquiring his disability and being a father of a son with Down Syndrome and Malaysia's new law the Persons with Disabilities Act 2007, noting that disability is color coded there.

"For the disabled, they have to produce their respective 'Orang Kurang Upaya' OKU identity cards for verification if they wish to obtain assistance from the JKM as well as the other government and private agencies.

This card can be obtained upon registration with the respective district JKM office. The OKU identity card issued by the JKM helps the disabled to deal with the respective authorities.

The respective cards bear six different colour codes where blue denotes the vision disability, purple (hearing), green (physical), red (cerebral palsy), yellow (learning disability) and orange (other disabilities)."


In New Zealand, those who care for people with disabilities are being praised by the Minister of Disability Issues. "My personal connection with disability comes through my brother who was tetraplegic. I remember the experiences so vividly and wished that he could enjoy the pleasures of life, to be able to participate in the way he determined, and to feel that nothing was beyond him.

"I am passionate about the right of families to care for family members in their own homes, with flexible support that allows them to have greater choice and control of their lives. "And this is an area that I will be focussing on as the Minister of Disability Issues."

A female teacher in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, is dedicated to her deaf-mute pupils. Huang Hui has worked there for five years.

In the UK, contributions made by people with disabilities are being celebrated this week.

There is much, much more going on today around the world to mark this important event. Here are some facts from the World Health Organization:

• At least 10% of the world's population, or 650 million people, live with a disability (1).
• 20% of the worlds poor are disabled (2).
• The percentage of children with disabilities not attending school is extremely variable and is between 65 - 85% in some African countries (3).
• Mortality for children with disabilities may be as high as 80% in countries where under-five mortality as a whole has decreased to below 20% (4).
• In many low-income and middle -income countries, only 5-15% of disabled people who require assistive devices and technology have access to them (5).

Please join me today in celebrating the achievements of many people with disabilities as well as praying for and working toward the empowerment of those around the world who still lack basic rights and necessities, our brothers and our sisters who, like us, are a "composite of ability and disability".

How The Prayer of St Francis can help us through difficult times

I was just on Twitter and saw @TheUrbanAbbey saying morning prayer, which included part of the Prayer of St. Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

I remember being at a retreat years ago. A couple attended, with the wife staying all weekend and her husband stopping by for Mass on Sunday, since he had to watch their small children. The wife had a recent disability and they were struggling with some of the adjustments. There were frequent arguments and outbursts, after which they would both have many regrets. Things were said that couldn't be taken back and, worse yet, the children were hearing all of this.

At the time I was dating someone who had a disability who also became ill. We said this prayer together whenever we had to face difficult decisions or issues. So when I spoke to the couple, I suggested this prayer to them, because I found it so helpful in keeping a perspective in relationships.

The first part of the prayer is a good reminder that there are opportunities every day, no matter how small, to sow peace, love, pardon, faith, hope, light and joy. All of us without exception can do it with our loved ones, our friends, family and each person we encounter and receive the peace and blessing that giving provides.

It is at the toughest moments when the second part of this prayer is most useful to me. It's far too easy in the midst of a difficult time to forget to ask God for help in what I seek. It is also easy to forget that we can still practice the first part of the prayer even in tough times. In fact, it is at those times when it seems to me that God gives me the most opportunities to do so!

This prayer is a wonderful reminder to seek God's will and make my decisions accordingly. God's grace is all around us all through our day. We are never alone with our problems or difficulties and when someone we love hurts, we can help them best by keeping our own spiritual life intact. Taking the time to find a spiritual perspective is crucial in those situations.

This prayer can be a wonderful way to remind ourselves that what we see as overwhelming may indeed be an opportunity to deepen our relationship with God and others.

A prayer for those who feel burdened

May those who are seen as burdens know that the love of an all knowing, all seeing God will sustain them and His arms embrace them.

May those who feel burdened find respite in knowing that they, too, are interdependent in this world, and can ask for help.

May we seek God to lift our burdens, rather than judge the most vulnerable among us. May we be accountable in our thoughts, words and deeds to the Lord who knows what we think, say and do at all times.

May everyone find room in their heart for the forgiveness that our human failings requires, both now and in the hereafter.

Amen

A Franciscan Benediction

May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our hearts.

May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done.

Praying 24/7 since 1878: The Francisan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration

Sister Constance Walton talks with ABC affiliate, WXOW TV 19, about the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration prayer request process. The sisters and their partners in prayer have been praying 24/7 since 1878. The news story was picked up by CNN headline news and aired across the globe. For more information, visit http://www.fspa.org/Prayer/index.html or go directly here.

Happy Easter!

Resurrection is a daily celebration over fear; man's greatest and most powerful enemy. Fear of tomorrow, fear of our yesterdays, fear of what shall become of our young our old our unborn. Resurrection is replacing fear with physical action.

This alone, the most touching and profound of Your signs that fear is dead and belief in You brings, not just hope but life.

from the Easter Morning Prayer

Henri Nouwen's Good Friday prayers

Henri Nouwen's Good Friday prayers, (a shorter version online here), refer to Christ's broken heart:
Your heart is broken, the heart that did not know hatred, revenge, resentment, jealousy or envy but only love, love so deep and so wide that it embraces your Father in heaven as well as all humanity in time and space. Your broken heart is the source of my salvation, the foundation of my hope, the cause of my love. It is the sacred place where all that was, is and ever shall be is held in unity. There all suffering has been suffered, all anguish lived, all loneliness endured, all abandonment felt and all agony cried out. There, human and divine love have kissed, and there God and all men and women of history are reconciled. All the tears of the human race have been cried there, all pain understood and all despair touched.

In Show me the Way: Daily Lenten Readings, Nouwen writes:

...with my minds’ eye I saw large crowds of isolate, agonizing individuals walking away from the cross together, bound by the love they had seen with their own eyes and touched with their own lips. The cross of horror became the cross of hope, the tortured body became the body that gives new life; the gaping wound became the source of forgiveness, healing and reconciliation.

And, finally, a prayer for Lent by Henri Nouwen:

How often have I lived through these weeks without paying much attention to penance, fasting, and prayer? How often have I missed the spiritual fruits of the season without even being aware of it? But how can I ever really celebrate Easter without observing Lent? How can I rejoice fully in your Resurrection when I have avoided participating in your death?

Yes, Lord, I have to die — with you, through you, and in you — and thus become ready to recognize you when you appear to me in your Resurrection. There is so much in me that needs to die: false attachments, greed and anger, impatience and stinginess.... I see clearly now how little I have died with you, really gone your way and been faithful to it.

O Lord, make this Lenten season different from the other ones. Let me find you again.

Amen.

Inauguration prayers

As we prayerfully await the inauguration of our next President, it is a good time to consider the inaugural prayers said through history,compiled over at beliefnet. Here is an excerpt from the 1961 Inauguration of John F. Kennedy, given by Richard Cardinal Cushing, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston who prayed for us:

To enlarge our vision of the common good;

To implement with personal sacrifice the objectives of our national purpose;

To revere in every man that divine spark which makes him our brother --that human spark which can make him our friend -- and that personal spark which makes him himself;

To learn to ask ourselves sincerely in every community effort, not what we can get out of it, but what we can put into it.

To defend my right to be myself; to defend my neighbor's right to be himself, and to defend America's duty to respect the rights of all men.

Strengthen our resolve, oh Lord, to transform this recognition of others into a principle of cooperation.

Inspire us to practice this principle of cooperation both in ideal and action in these most dangerous, but soul-stretching times.
...

Give us the strength to further Thy creation by our responsible and dedicated work -- for to labor is to pray;

Give us the charity to further Thy creation by our brotherly cooperation -- for to care is to love.

He didn't go out much

My mother's roomie in the hospital told me when I visited that her late husband had a disability and used a scooter. She also told me that he didn't go out much because he was "one of those people who didn't want others to see his disability". She added that, as much as he loved her, he wouldn't have visited her in the hospital.

And with that remark, a look of profound sadness crossed her face and she went back to her bed.

It was a poignant moment.

As we near the end of 2008, I have a few prayers I've added to my repertoire.

I pray that more people with disabilities will have the right to mobility, that having the equipment or guide dog or TTYT machine they need to communicate will be considered a right, not a privilege.

I pray that there will be more physical access and that attitudes will improve, that the stereotypes and misperceptions about disability will fade and disappear.

I pray that we will see both the gifts and talents that people with disabilities have and the love they bring to the world.

I pray that there will be more caregivers who are reliable and kind. I pray that we begin to acknowledge they deserve a fair and just wage for their work and that they deserve respite and support.

I pray that those who raise their voices on behalf of our brothers and sisters with disabilities be given strength and encouragement, but also discernment and wisdom.

I pray that the doors of institutions open and people with disabilities take their place in our communities, with dignity and joy.

I pray that services be provided to avoid neglect and abuse of people with disabilities, not out of charity, but brotherly and sisterly love.

I pray that children no longer ask what's wrong with a person with a disability, because they grow up with a family friend or neighbor who has a disability and see disability as part of being human.

I pray for those with invisible disabilities, who may journey through life feeling alone. May they find the support they need.

I pray for those who are bullied because their disabilities are visible, remembering those who died this year as a result of unnamed hate crimes.

I pray for the souls of those who did not go out much and hope that, in memory of them, all of us will vow to work toward a kinder and gentler world.

It's Sunday in Galveston....

and, according to ministers, priests, rabbis and other faith leaders, they are experiencing a variety of emotions themselves as hurricane Ike survivors, who still are not allowed to return, try to heal.

Rev. John Bostock, who rode out the storm, said he is angry at those who locked up their churches and aren't there for people. Another is giving a message to those who had to relocate about finding spiritual meaning in that reality.

The sign of the cross, quad style

There are times when I pass the church in town and the bells go off. Often I stop to make the sign of the cross and pray and because of my hand and arm impairment, I suppose it's not clear to people what I'm doing.

I don't care. God knows what I'm doing. However it does lead to some humorous incidents.

One passerby thought I was trying to get something off my glasses and offered to help. Since my glasses were dirty, I took her up on it. Another asked if I'd lost my keys. And , no, I wasn't even wearing a lanyard.

Today I stopped and made the sign of the cross, quad style. A woman passing by smiled. I smiled back. "What a wonderful idea," she said.

I was thrilled that she could figure out what I was doing. "Yes," I said. "I make the sign of the cross and say a prayer whenever I'm passing by and the bells ring."

"Oh," she said, her face falling. "I thought you were sitting there charging your chair up and were trying to plug it in."

I have no idea where she got that from, but she was right about one thing - I do find those moments of prayer charge me up spiritually.

Memorial Day pieces

Two links for Memorial Day:

Please visit A Concord Pastor Comments, where there is a beautiful Memorial Day prayer and post up.

And a piece at Godspy :Meeting the War Wearied With Christ
when members of the Catholic clergy meet an Iraqi woman whose brother told her to find them if she needed help.
[visual image: A section of Arlington cemetery, where soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried. There are rows of graves and the one in the forefront has an American flag in front of it.]

Loveliness of Rosaries ...

..is now up at Just Another Catholic Pondering.

Sarah has written a beautiful post including perspectives and thoughts on the rosary by many contributors for a loveliness fair on the rosaries. Here's what it's about:

Praying the rosary is that moment when we encounter our Sweet Mother on the journey and share a quiet conversation with her. In the month of Our Lady, let's share our stories of her rosary and how it has shaped and formed us on our journey. And let's share the simple loveliness of rosaries themselves.

Check it out. (And Barb has been kind enough to donate a beautiful rosary for some lucky person who leaves a comment.)

Rosary Hands...

We met in the tiny chapel at the retreat center to say the rosary together, an assorted group of women Catholics- some living with terminal illness, others with disability, others there to support them as nurses, clergy members, family members and loved ones at the Genessaret Retreat.

I was there as a staff member. The woman next to me shared her rosary when she realized I couldn't hold one due to my quadriplegia. We exchanged a smile.

Around the room, I saw womens' hands holding rosaries -
hands that
welcomed everyone to the retreat,
put together bags containing prayers and cards,
cut up food for others ,
stroked the cheeks of those who wept,
reached out to dance at the party,
and now

held rosary beads, fingers gliding over each bead as a voice raised in prayer was followed in unison.

They were the most beautiful hands I'd ever seen. Hands used in service, reaching out like the hand of the Lord to those in need of comfort, reassurance. Hands that rarely stopped moving, except now to pause in prayer.

It was the first time I really had a chance to see those hands still. It was a Martha/Mary moment.

And, perhaps, the first time I truly understood the difference.

Thanksgiving table prayers

Are you looking for Catholic prayers for Thanksgiving? Even though it's not a holy day of obligation, many families gather to pray and celebrate their blessings.

My favorite Thanksgiving day prayers have always been when we asked the youngest child to say one before dinner. This can lead to some eye opening lists of gratitude - including one year when a friend's child blurted out "Thank God Mommy got the last pumpkin pie in the store!"

But if you're looking for a more formal approach, Thanksgiving table prayers can be found here.

Prayer Marathon at ASU

Christian students at Arizona State University are holding a 24 hour a day, 21 day prayer marathon. Groups of students are praying - not for any particular topic or cause. They are finding that students who join in and intend to pray for ten minutes sometimes stay for hours in the quiet spiritual environment.

"The patch of lawn next to the Danforth Meditation Chapel has informal stations where poster board and pens allow students to write down what they are praying for, or who they are forgiving, or Bible verses that have resonance for them.

...

One afternoon, during the worst of the Southern California fires, Richie Romero stepped hesitantly toward a group of praying students. He was asked immediately if there was anything for which he needed prayer. Romero told the group that he had family in the area where the fires were burning houses.

The students asked God to spare Romero's family, for the winds to stop and for the safety of the firefighters. When the prayers were over, Romero thanked them and walked away.

"It always feels good to pray. Some people need that comfort sometimes," Romero said on his way to class. "I pray every day but by myself."

via USA Today

This is a great reminder, as the students point out, how often the "busyness" of life separates us from prayer - and each other.

A prayer when your back up aide cancels

Via the Curt Jester a prayer from Bishop Vasa

I thought this was a perfect prayer for many occasions, as I sit here waiting to hear if they can now assign me an aide from the emergency list:

"Lord, I give this day entirely to You -- I retain none of it for myself. It is Yours. If on this, Your day, You send me joy -- I thank you. If on this, Your day, You send me loneliness -- I will draw closer to You. If on this, Your day, You send me sorrow -- I accept it. If on this, Your day, You send me peace -- I will share it with the anxious. If on this, Your day, You send me pain -- I will suffer it with You. If I accept good things from You, should I not also accept unpleasant? Since this is Your day, which You graciously have given to me, and which I now in intention return to You, help me to live it well; not to waste what You have given on idleness but to use it as You have designed. Help me to remember how well the day goes when it is given to You. I trust that You will give to me this day all that I need and that all that is given or withheld is for my good. With all this in mind, help me to live this day with You in joy. Amen."

In Prayer, Never Let Go

In this recent post from Sr. Edith over at Monastic Musings, she writes about St. Jeanne Francoise de Chantal, who offered this advice about praying:

""If you are told, as was the Canaanite woman, that you do not deserve the grace for which you are asking, then reply like her that you are not asking unusual favors, but are hoping only to eat the crumbs which fall from the divine table."

I wanted to share this over here because I receive so many emails from readers who are feeling discouraged by what they're going through and experience a 'dark night of the soul', where it becomes difficult to keep praying. Please click above to go read this very special post.