Category: Teach Us To Pray

Jesus is remarkable in that he knew the violence, the nervousness that dwells within us. He also knew of the deeper truth waiting to be born. This broken, anxious world is oozing with God. To encounter this God can be as gentle as an awkward embrace, but it can be as wild as finally realizing and being grateful that our lives do not belong to us.

Faith is more than a magical formula to conquer the worry, regret, shame and resentments that cloud our visions and make us jaded and tired. Having faith does not remove every trace of self-absorption and doubt. Those things are part of the human condition. 

Faith is what brings us into the deepest truth of our lives. 

It is a buried truth that says we are in the image of an unlimited, unrestricted, unimaginable love. And when we forget that, as Jesus reminded the religious authorities of his day, then religion does become a shield, a crutch, a closed refuge instead of a way to boldly throw ourselves into a harsh world, knowing that is precisely where we discover a generous God.

by Fr. Patrick Malone, SJ wrote this when he experienced a recurrence of leukemia after battling the disease and undergoing a successful bone marrow transplant. 

Most high, all-powerful, all good, Lord
All praise is yours, all glory, all honor
And all blessing.
To you, alone, Most High, do they belong.
No mortal lips are worthy
To pronounce your name.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through all that you have made,
And first my lord Brother Sun,
Who brings the day; and light you give to us through him.
How beautiful is he, how radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Moon and Stars;
In the heavens you have made them, bright
And precious and fair.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
And fair and stormy, all the weather’s moods,
By which you cherish all that you have made.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
Through whom you brighten up the night.
How beautiful is he, how merry! Full of power and strength.
All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Earth, our Mother,
Who feeds us in her sovereignty and produces
Various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through those who grant pardon
For love of you; through those who endure
Sickness and trial.
Happy those who endure in peace,
By you, Most High, they will be crowned.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Death,
From whose embrace no mortal can escape.
How dreadful for those who die in sin!
How lovely for those found in Your Most Holy Will.
The second death can do them no harm.
Praise and bless my Lord, and give him thanks,
And serve him with great humility.

By St. Francis of Assisi

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient 

in everything to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown,

something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—

and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;

your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,

let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on,

as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)

will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.

Give Our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.

By Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

An interpretation from the Aramaic

O Creative breath,

ebbing and flowing through all forms,

soften the ground of our being

and hollow a place for the planting of your presence.

Moving to the heartbeat of your purpose,

make us the embodiment of your compassion.

Fill us with your creativity

that we might bear the fruit of your vision.

Give us the wisdom to produce and share

what each one needs to grow and flourish.

Untie the tangled webs of destiny that bind us

as we release others from the entanglements of past mistakes.

And let us not be seduced

by that which would divert us from our true purpose,

but illuminate the path before us.

For you are the ground of the fruitful vision,

the birthing power, and the fulfillment,

as all is gathered and made whole once again.

Psalms for Praying – Psalm 1:

Blessed are those

   who walk hand in hand

  with goodness,

   who stand beside virtue, 

   who sit in the seat of truth;

For their delight is in the Spirit of Love,

    and in Love’s heart they dwell

day and night.

They are like trees planted by

streams of water,

     that yield fruit in due season,

and their leaves flourish;

And in all that they do, they give life.

The unloving are not so;

    they are like dandelions which 

the wind blows away.

Turning from the Heart of Love

    they will know suffering and pain.

They will be isolated from wisdom;

    for Love knows the way of truth,

    the way of ignorance will perish

    As Love’s penetrating Light

breaks through hearts

filled with illusions:

forgiveness is the way.

-by Nan C. Merrill

We are already in union with God. Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022), a saint and mystic revered to this day by Eastern Christians, wrote some words that point beautifully to this “force field” that we call the Body of Christ. It is a living organism created by those who live in love, much more than any mere religious organization.

Symeon describes this cosmic embodiment created by God’s grace and our response, naming the divine union that all the Bible is forever inviting and edging us toward. He is sharing his own experience of his divine embodiment. Here, in Symeon’s hymn, scripture has become spirituality. This prayer, religious verse, in its twenty-seven mystical lines honestly say it all.

We awaken in Christ’s body

as Christ awakens our bodies,

and my poor hand is Christ.  He enters

my foot, and is infinitely me.

I move my hand, and wonderfully

My hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him

(for God is indivisibly 

Whole, seamless in His Godhood).

I move my foot, and at once

He appears in a flash of lightning.

Do my words seem blasphemous? 

Then

Open your heart to him,

We wake up inside Christ’s body

Where all our body, allover,

Every most hidden part of it,

 Is realized in joy as Him,

And He makes us utterly real,

And everything that is hurt, everything

That seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,

Maimed, ugly, irreparably

Damaged, is in Him transformed

And recognized as whole, as lovely,

And radiant in His light.

We awaken as the Beloved

In every last part of our body.

-by Symeon the New Theologian