Category: Teach Us To Pray

Teach Us To Pray

Believe to Understand 

Smitten With Goodness
Season of neediness in prayer

We need to pray for the right order of things in our life. Many of the Saints lived a life of simplicity which helped them focus on what was important to pass through the narrow gate of God. 

It has been said that we do not seek to understand, but need to believe in order to understand.  Faith and reason are important partners but to walk the path of transformation and change, we must believe and then Gods grace through the Holy Spirit allows us to hear, see and understand. Our hearts are receptive to what they need to hear. 

Lord, I pray for the faithfulness to believe in your constant presence and goodness in all of creation. May all your creation wake up and participate in the circle of life according to Your will, in love. Amen

Teach Us To Pray

Need A New Song?

Smitten With Goodness
Season of neediness in prayer

At various points in our lives we find ourselves needing to sing a new song. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I need an attitude adjustment, a change of mindset, in how I see the world and those around me. I need to sing a song of salvation rather than one of fear, doubt and despair.

As believers, we look forward to God’s coming reign. This isn’t just a future reality, it’s a present one. Every prayer, word or action can be a note of song. God gathers the world in mercy and love and everything sings together in response – the sea, the earth and everyone on it. What a beautiful vision of beauty and hope. Let’s remember this and be a part of God’s new song today! 

God of Salvation, 

The entire earth sings of your creative and saving presence in human history. We lift our voices to you in praise and thanksgiving. Grant that your power animates our thoughts, words, and deeds drawing us to sing Your healing and merciful song today!

Amen

Teach Us To Pray

Loving God

Smitten With Goodness
Season of neediness in prayer

This is our final nod to St. Catherine of Siena who the church celebrates this week. Her quotes are relevant to us today and Meredith Frediani shares her perspective on this final quote.

We are of such value to God that he came to live among us … and to guide us home. He will go to any length to seek us, even to being lifted high upon the cross to draw us back to himself. We can only respond by loving God for his love.

When I think about a person who hurt me, Would I be willing to suffer torture and death so that I could be with him forever? Probably not. I prefer that we not have any contact. I have hurt Jesus many times and he was willing to endure unimaginable horror so that I can be forgiven and be with him for eternity in heaven. By human standards, I would not blame him for giving up on me. He does not. He loves us so much. He has a well of forgiveness that never runs dry. He thinks we are awesome. How can I respond to this love? As St. Catherine said, I can respond by loving him. He has abundant, extravagant love for me and I can love him back.

Thank you Lord for loving us first so we can know how to love. Amen

Teach Us To Pray

Appreciating Myself 

Smitten With Goodness
Season of neediness in prayer

The Church celebrates St. Catherine of Siena this week and quotes from her writings are relevant to us today. Meredith Frediani shares her perspective on one of her popular quotes.

What is it you want to change? Your hair, your face, your body? Why? For God is in love with all those things and he might weep when they are gone.

I sometimes look at myself with dismay. My nose is more prominent than I think is attractive and my hair has weird straight sections mixed in with the curly. I have a beautiful friend from college and I wonder what it must be like to see that face each day in the mirror. 

Then I read a quote like this one and it reminds me that I am the way I am because this is how God made me. He loves me like this. The things that I think are goofy, he finds charming. I do not have to make anything different because I am fine the way I am. So I pray for the grace to accept myself this way: flawed, a little crooked and far from perfect. (I also pray for those straight sections of hair to get curly because that is just aggravating.) 

Lord, help me appreciate myself as God appreciates me and rejoice in the creation that I am: his beloved daughter. Amen 

Teach Us To Pray

Closer than You Think

Smitten With Goodness
Season of neediness in prayer

The Church celebrates St. Catherine of Siena this week and quotes from her writings are relevant to us today. Meredith Frediani shares her perspective on one of her popular quotes.

The soul is in God and God is in the soul.  God is closer to us than water is to a fish.

He is with us. He is within us. When we cry, he showers love down on us. When we rejoice, he dances too. He created us to desire him. We are restless without him. He knows us better than we know us. He created us with purpose and intent. When we doubt, when we fear, when we do not know what to do, we can call to him and he will remind us that he never left. A fish pulls oxygen out of water to breathe. God is closer. God is our breath. He sustains us. 

Lord, thank you for always being close to us, closer than we can possibly imagine. Help me be steadfast in knowing You sustain us and our soul rests in You. Amen

Teach Us To Pray

Wonderfully Made

Smitten With Goodness
Season of neediness in prayer

The Church celebrates St. Catherine of Siena this week and quotes from her writings are relevant to us today. Meredith Frediani shares her perspective on one of her popular quotes.

“These tiny ants have proceeded from his thoughts just as much as I. It caused him just as much trouble to create the angels as these animals and the flowers on the trees.”

When I wake up at night for no good reason, I reflect on God’s creation. When I look up at the stars I don’t feel small. I feel awe. I feel amazed that I get to be part of all of this.

God had a big pile of nothing and from it he created everything. All of it fits together perfectly. Everything has a purpose and it is vast beyond our ability to comprehend. There are giant planets and huge rocks flying through space. And if I imagine a big funnel I can think about that enormity gradually becoming smaller: our planet, the oceans, the land, the animals, the people, the ants. 

The same God who made Jupiter made bugs, and both are necessary and needed in his plan. I don’t understand why it is important for there to be centipedes. They only serve to startle me as they dash across my bathroom floor but God made them. The oceans are miles deep and contain creatures we do not even know about yet. The forests are full of flora and fauna of an endless variety. There is weather! Why? Why can’t it always be sunny and 75 degrees? I don’t know, but that’s what God wanted. 

And we get to live here with all of it because he created us too. 

Lord, I am wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14) and I praise You for that. I praise You for Your generosity in giving us this beautiful place to live. Amen 

Teach Us To Pray

Achieving Greatness 

Smitten With Goodness
Season of neediness in prayer

The Church celebrates St. Catherine of Siena this week and quotes from her writings are relevant to us today. Meredith Frediani shares her perspective on one of her popular quotes about achieving greatness.

“Nothing great is ever achieved without much enduring.”

We often tell our kids this. When they grouse about going to school or the amount of homework they get, we remind them we value that which we work for. St. Catherine knew this. All of us have endured. Not one of us has skated through life with constant joy and sunshine. It’s comforting to know that God is with us in our enduring. Whether it is slogging through a chemistry class or working a job we don’t like, he is a constant presence.

Sometimes it becomes demoralizing when challenges come up as we work toward our goals. It would be nice if it were easy all the time. But when I look back, I feel best about accomplishments that I worked at. I value that song I learned to play with several measures that seemed impossible and the project I undertook that seemed it might do me in. Living a life of witness to Christ is not easy but in the end it will lead to something great. 

Lord, let us draw upon Your strength to run the race of this life. Help us endure the challenges before us and see them as an opportunity for growth. Let our hearts know that You are always with us to carry the current cross we bear and let our eyes rest in Your loving gaze filling our hearts with Your hope. Amen 

Teach Us To Pray

Speak Truth

Smitten With Goodness
Season of neediness in prayer

The Church celebrates St. Catherine of Siena today and quotes from her writings are relevant to us today. Meredith Frediani shares her perspective on one of her popular quotes.

“Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through fear”

There is good reason to be afraid to speak of faith these days. It makes people uncomfortable to hear the truths proclaimed by the Catholic Church and more and more our society is uncomfortable with being uncomfortable. Since relativism and “you do you, I’ll do me” is the mantra of the day, it would be easy to keep silent. It would be safe. But Jesus didn’t ask us to be quiet and hang out in the background. He asked us to make disciples and to do that, we need to talk. 

There is a quote, wrongly attributed to St. Francis, to preach the gospel always and if necessary use words. My first response to this was, “Yes! I can just try to live a good life. I do not need to say anything. Actions speak louder than words after all.”  Except … that’s not what Jesus did. Jesus used lots of words; sometimes the same ones over and over. And it‘s a safe bet that I am not living so holy a life that my actions are enough. St. Francis was a holy man whose actions reflected the Lord’s love but he didn’t shy away from speaking about the gospel. 

So I need to speak and I often do not know what to say, but I know that I will be given the words. When we ask, God gives us what we need to build his kingdom. We can speak in love, with a humble heart and be confident that the Holy Spirit will arrive like the cavalry to our aid. I will not let fear stop me.

Lord, Help me speak Your truth allowing me to help build up Your kingdom. Amen

Teach Us To Pray

Set the World on Fire

Smitten With Goodness
Season of neediness in prayer

We all need great role models. The Saints provide us with holy examples of how we can live today.  St. Catherine of Siena was born in 1347 in Italy. She became a third order Dominican, learned to read and write, and was known for her service to the poor and her involvement in politics. She worked for the unity of the Church and was loyal to the pope. She died April 29, 1380 at the age of thirty-three and was later proclaimed a Doctor of the Church. Her best known spiritual writing is The Dialogue. Her quotes, though over six hundred years old, are still relevant today and can be a launching pad for our personal prayer. The Church celebrates her this week, we will explore several quotes from St. Catherine of Siena by Meredith Frediani and we will start with one of my favorites. 

“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”

We all have to discern our path in life. For some it is easier than others. When I see what others get to do in order to be part of building God’s kingdom and compare it to my task, I feel like maybe what I am doing does not matter. I have not published a bestseller that inspires people to pray, and I am not on the speaking circuit revving up young adults. I am here, doing my thing. I have faith that it is what God desires from me and for that reason alone it is important. St. Catherine reminds me that even though it may seem insignificant, it is helping set the world on fire for God. 

Lord, Help me today to be who you created me to be so I can set the world on fire with Your love. Amen

Teach Us To Pray

Prayer to Love, Myself

Smitten With Goodness
Season of neediness in prayer

We can’t give what we do not have.  To grow in love is to open ourselves to God, the all-consuming Ocean of Love, and allow him to heal us and bring us into relationship with him through the sacraments, through the teachings of the Church and through prayer.  Each of us has been given unique gifts and abilities that God wants us to share with others and yet we are loved not for what we do, but for who we are in Christ. We are the beloved of God! 

Lord, teach me to love myself.

You gave me this life. You blessed me with this temperament.

You formed me, and I am loved by you unconditionally.

In my eyes, I have many faults.

I am constantly beating myself up about something.

I question the purchase I made, the work I’ve chosen, the clothes I wear.

Lord, help me to rise above myself, doubt.

In reality, your love is all that matters, and you love me as I am.

Bless me with the gift of loving myself as you love me… as I am.

From Talking to God, Julie Dortch Cragon