theROCK

The Habit of Prayer

At the start of the confirmation process, I sit down with each of the candidates. One of the first things I ask them to do is lead us in prayer.
I often get a blank stare or a “I don’t know what to say.” I assure them that there is no wrong way to pray, as long as it’s in God or Jesus’ name. Many of us pray daily, some occasionally, and we know from the recent parish survey that many parishioners rarely pray. Why is this? I know for me, my struggles with prayer are rooted in being taught prayers when younger, but not being taught how to talk with God.

The droughts I have had in my faith have resulted in not knowing how to talk with and listen to God. While traditional prayers can be powerful, they need to be part of a larger prayer habit that includes sharing our joys and struggles with God.

This Lent, Fr. Dennis challenged us to daily intentional prayer during Lent. This might seem a little frightening for some of us, so as we prepare for Lent starting this Wednesday, we wanted to share some ways to begin creating a habit of prayer.

Here are a few acronyms that can help give structure to your conversation with God:

• A.C.T.S. (Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, and Supplication)
• P.R.A.Y. (Praise, Repent, Access, and Yield)
• A.L.T.A.R. (Adore, Love, Thank, Ask, and Receive)

You can look each of these up online to learn these specific prayer structures. Below is a simple process that encompasses all of these prayer methods.

1. Start by recognizing who God is to you. Whether that is Father, Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier, Lord, Divine Physician, or some combination in your own words. This part of our prayer should express our wonder and awe of the Lord.
2. After we praise and adore God, we should admit that we are not God. This means acknowledging the moments that we have tried to be a god or pushed God aside, and ask for God’s forgiveness and perseverance.
3. Next is to give thanks to God for the blessings He continues to shower upon us. After all, everything is a gift from God. Take a few moments to express what you are thankful for today. What went well in your life today? Who was there to help guide you?
4. Now that we have thanked God for how He is blessing us, we can entrust Him with our intentions. What are you struggling with and need God’s assistance? Remember, God already knows what’s on your heart, but like a friend, He desires for you to share and entrust Him with it. This is also the time to pray for others. Whom do you need to pray for, a friend, a co-worker? Pray for them by name and be specific about the intention.
5. Finally, spend some time just to be with God. At first, you will be bombarded with distractions, so it will take some time to learn to block those out. But after dedicating time daily to this habit, over a few months or years, you will be able to embrace the silence. We know from Scripture (Elijah) and the Saints (St. Therese of Avila) that it is in this quiet that we can hear God speak to us. You can close your time of prayer with a Hail Mary, Our Father, Glory Be, or other favorite prayer.

Our Challenge for you this week is to start creating the habit of daily prayer. If you do not really pray daily, try just five minutes of prayer. If you already pray daily, are you using that time to intentionally speak to God?

-Andrew Schueller, M.A.T.L.

Gaudette! Joy!

Gaudette! Joy! During the third week of Advent, we are so close to the return of Jesus at Christmas that we are to be joyful. When Jesus is present, peace will reign. That is why the fourth week of Advent, typically the week that Christmas occurs, is to be one of peace. If we do Advent “right,” there should be a calm in our hearts and in our heads to celebrate Christmas well. I pray you all find that joy and peace in these coming days as Christmas draws closer.

Heavenly Father, you have given us a model of life in the Holy Family of Nazareth. Help us, O loving Father, to make our family another Nazareth where love, peace, and joy reign. May it be deeply contemplative, intensely Eucharistic, and vibrant with joy. Help us to stay together in joy and sorrow through family prayer. Teach us to see Jesus in the members of our family, especially in their distressing disguise. May the Eucharistic heart of Jesus make our hearts meek and humble like his and help us to carry out our family duties in a holy way. May we love one another as God loves each one of us more and more each day, and forgive each others faults as you forgive our sins. Help us, O loving Father, to take whatever you give and to give whatever you take with a big smile.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, cause of our joy, pray for us.
St. Joseph, pray for us.
Holy Guardian Angels, be always with us, guide and protect us. Amen
- St. Therese of Calcutta

Suffering the Sleepless Nights of Motherhood

Recently, a notification popped up on my phone’s calendar app: A year ago on that day, my youngest child slept 6.25 hours. High five! 

She would have been just two weeks old at that point, and that would be the best that any of my children have ever slept in the first year of their lives. Looking back, it seems her awesome sleep performance peaked that day. In fact, between molars and learning a bunch of new skills at once, from walking to talking to making the most adorable kissy noises, my littlest one hasn’t sleep in, ohhhh, six weeks, give or take.

Growing up, my mother advised me never to think too much about anything while you’re tired. Sage advice. Except what do you do when there’s no sleep in sight? No one really prepared me for that, and the suffering that I’ve felt by being chronically tired has been both immense and intense.

Suffering is a topic that has driven many a person away from God. They wonder how an all-loving God could allow the big awful things to happen, the sudden deaths, the horrible medical diagnoses, the car accidents. But suffering pervades our earthly lives in tiny ways, too. In fact, it’s mostly in these ways that we experience suffering - the irritating comment made by a family member, the engine refusing to turn over when you’re already late to an appointment, the excruciatingly slow pace children suddenly take on whenever it’s time to leave to go anywhere, a debilitating lack of sleep. 

It becomes crucial, then, to understand why God allows suffering, or at least to understand as much as we can and trust in the mystery of it, and then, of course, to let God in to help.

To say it briefly, we can’t know why God lets this suffering happen or this amount of pain to exist. That belongs to His grand beautiful exquisite and extraordinarily complex plan. But we can trust that God is a loving, merciful Father who allows some amount of suffering so long as an even greater good can come of it. We can picture it easily if we envision a parent taking a child to the doctor for an inoculation. Yes the child will suffer, but the parent knows, while the child can’t quite understand, that in allowing the pain of the needle’s prick and the next day’s sore muscle, greater suffering is avoided and the child will be more likely to enjoy better health. Apply this to Almighty God and we can begin to accept why we are allowed to feel the pain that we do.

And pain we certainly will feel. On both the macro and micro level, we and the world at large are broken and sinful. An unfortunate and continuing side effect of this reality is suffering. Mothers know this acutely, interiorly and in the suffering we feel by proxy with the sensitivities we naturally assume towards our children and our spouse.

One of the greater goods that can come from allowing pain in our lives is an increase in creaturely dependence, that is, the dependence we develop, creature-to-creature, as well as creature-to-God. 

During these sleepless weeks, I’ve had to rely more on friends and family to help. A friend has babysat for me so I could run errands without so many extra people to shuffle in and out of stores. I’ve said yes to the imperfectly completed chores that my husband has offered to do. It has been good for me to rely on them, and it has been good for them to be allowed to help me. It fosters better community, better relationships, better understanding of charity and mercy. 

I’ve also depended more on God. The prayers have been ongoing and constant. “Help!” “Please” and “Thank you” have been dispersed among rosaries and novenas. I continue to pray for the intercession of the saints. St. Jude and St. Rita, patrons of impossible causes, have put me at ease. St. Gianna Molla has walked alongside me.

The suffering will continue. Once the baby begins to sleep again, there will be another kind of suffering. After that subsides, another. God didn’t promise us complete and total happiness in this life. That, He saved for eternity with Him in the Beatific Vision, but in the meantime, I can embrace the suffering He allows, trusting there is some greater good that will come from it, even if I can’t see it through bleary, tired eyes.