Tag Archives: prayer

Lectio Divina

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For most of the school year, I’ve been leading Religious Education for our middle school (6th-8th grades) kids. We went through Mark Hart’s T3 Bible Timeline (which is admittedly a bit mature for this age group, but they still seemed to learn from it), finishing it last week. In the last lesson, Mark briefly touched on Lectio Divina, and there was a section in the student workbook on how to do Lectio.

Last night, I led the kids in the steps of Lectio, trying to explain how to do it, and they seemed to pick it up. They were even quiet! It was a good reminder for me about this beautiful and powerful prayer form, which I had learned at Mount Angel Seminary thanks to the Benedictine monks there.

For those not familiar, Lectio Divina is a 4-step immersion into hearing God speak to us through the Scriptures:

  1. Lectio – Reading: Slowly reading the Scripture passage, not skimming or rushing, but speaking the words out loud and intentionally listening to them.
  2. Meditatio – Meditation: Choosing a word or phrase that stands out in the reading, and chewing on it in your mind and heart.
  3. Oratio – Prayer: Speaking with God about the passages that stood out and your meditation on those passages
  4. Contemplatio – Contemplation: Entering deeply into God’s love and simply being in His presence

Lectio Divina is fairly simple to get the pattern, but difficult to master. Contemplatio is really something that develops over the course of a lifetime, and is a grace given by God Himself to those who seek Him. This doesn’t mean that the other 3 steps can’t bring His grace, however. Much fruit can be gained through the process of Lectio, Meditatio, and Oratio, especially for those called to the ministries of teaching and preaching.

I highly recommend all Christians explore and use Lectio Divina as a way to better understand the Scriptures and what God is saying to us each individually through them. It is an ancient, venerable form of prayer that is just as necessary today, if not more so due to the lack of silence, as it was over a thousand years ago. Much richness can be mined from the Scriptures, and deeper relationships with God the Father and His Son, the Word of God, can develop through the working of the Holy Spirit.

Homily for the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Far too many of us, myself included, are not good at being persistent on what matters. Sure, we might persist in doing something we absolutely have to do, such as an assignment for school or some requirement for our job, and we’re pretty good about being persistent in those things we enjoy, like sports or recreational activities. How many of us put the same persistence into our spiritual lives that we put towards other, less important aspects of our lives?

Jesus tells us in our Gospel today that we need to be persistent in the practice of our faith. He doesn’t say that the widow would approach the judge once in a while, like once a week or once a month, but that she persisted in her requests for the just judgment. We need to be just as persistent in our spiritual lives. If we are persistent in living our lives as Christian disciples, our faith will grow stronger, but if we become lax in our discipleship, not allowing our discipleship to influence how we live our lives, our faith becomes stagnant and eventually dies.

There is no level ground in the spiritual realm. We either continue our climb towards God or will slide back away from Him. When my family and I were living in Williston, ND, during my elementary school years, there was a gravel plant close to my house. My friends and I would go and play on the piles of gravel during the weekends when no one was working at the plant. To climb these piles of gravel, we had to climb as hard as we could without stopping. To stop meant either to sink in a little ways, which made it harder to start again, or slide backwards down the loose slope.

The spiritual life is very much like climbing that gravel pile. If we are persistent in the practice of our Christian discipleship, we will continue up that slope. We need to regularly engage in the practices of prayer and Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. We need to be involved in spiritual activities, which include reception of the Sacraments of Holy Communion and Confession and devotions like the Rosary, Divine Mercy Chaplet, and Eucharistic Adoration.

It’s also essential that we persist in learning more about the faith which has been passed on to us. While Religion classes at Catholic school or CCD programs at parishes pass on the basics of what we believe, there is far more to what has been revealed by Christ. A geologist can learn a lot about a mountain from a few small samples of rock, but there is still far more to learn by studying the mountain itself. In the same way, our CCD or Religion classes were just the start of learning about this great and wonderful mountain we call the Christian faith.

There is often a comparison made between the persistence needed to succeed in sports and the persistence required to live a Christian life, and with good reason. Some of the best-known athletes in the history of professional sports haven’t been those with natural talent for whom the sport came easy. Instead, the most admired athletes are those who persisted despite some adversity or difficulty in their lives, and succeeded in a way no one imagined they ever could.

Those who are held up as the great spiritual masters are also not those for whom the spiritual life has been easy, but rather those for whom it has been difficult. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta was said to have spent much of her life without any consolation in prayer, not receiving any feeling or emotion from her prayer, yet lived a long life as an example of Christian discipleship. St. Monica spent many years in anguish, praying for her son who had left the practice of the Catholic faith, only to see him return 6 months before she died. Her son, St. Augustine, is now known as one of the great teachers and theologians of the Catholic Church, much to the credit of St. Monica’s persistence in prayer on his behalf.

These saints, and many more like them, are examples for us in persisting in our Christian discipleship. Like us, they were busy. Like us, they had many cares and concerns that filled their lives, some similar to what we face and some different, but their lives were not less difficult than ours. The difference between the saints and us is the desire to be the best disciples of Our Lord Jesus Christ they could be.

We too should strive with every breath to be the best Christians we can be. We might fail on occasion, but we will succeed with persistence. Our Lord asks in today’s Gospel, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on Earth?” (Lk 18:8)  Our persistent answer should be “Yes, come Lord Jesus! Amen. Alleluia!”

Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Listen to the Homily

Last week, I spoke about the necessity for us as Christians to regularly spend time before the Blessed Sacrament, before Our Lord Jesus Christ present in the most unique and powerful way that He is present to us. This week, we are shown why we need to persist in praying before Our Lord and entering into prayer on a regular basis.

To truly be a follower of Christ, which is what it means to be a Christian, we need to emulate Our Lord and follow His command. Today’s Gospel reading opens with Jesus engaged in prayer, an action we see Our Lord performing repeatedly throughout the Gospels. Prayer is so important to Our Lord that He would regularly involve His disciples and even taught them how to pray.

If prayer is that important to Our Lord, it must be that important to us who claim to follow Him. Not only should we listen to what Jesus taught His disciples to say, but we should also look at how He prayed. In many places throughout the Gospels, Jesus would go to a secluded place and devote His whole attention to prayer. Note that no where does it say that he did some other activity, like fishing, while he prayed. Prayer was His sole focus at those times.

There must be times in our lives in which we focus only on praying to God. Prayer is an activity that must involve our whole attention to be effective. Now, it is very important and laudable to “pray always” by saying short exclamations of praise and thanksgiving to God throughout the day, but that must not be our only form of prayer. We must take time everyday to set aside everything in our lives for prayer.

To truly enter into prayer, there must be silence in our part. This silence is not merely a lack of speech, but also an active listening. Prayer is a conversation with God, not a monologue from us to Him, and requires listening on our part. If we want to have a good conversation with someone, we need to listen to them and focus our attention on what they have to say. Likewise, we have to focus our attention on God and listen to what He has to say if we want our prayer to be effective.

As I said last week, if we truly desire to get to know Our Lord, we need to spend time in His presence here in front of the tabernacle. By regularly and persistently coming before Him in prayer, focusing on Him, we will develop an openness: and openness to the Gifts of the Holy Spirit; an openness to the will of God; an openness to the salvation promised by Christ. It is this openness that will bring us into eternal life in Heaven. Just being a good person is not enough. We need to fully and consciously enter into prayer daily, and persist in prayer, now. Not next week, next month, or next year; now.

As Christians, we need to devote ourselves to prayer and follow Jesus’ example. Through dedication and persistence in prayer, we will be opened by God to His salvation.

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Homily for the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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How often do we pray? Do we pray just once a week at Sunday Mass? Do we enter into prayer once or twice a day when blessing our meals? How about several times throughout the day with devotions and short prayers? Is prayer something we just fit into our schedules whenever we can?

Yet, we should follow the example of Our Lord who sought to pray always. The Gospels show us Our Lord frequently at prayer before He made any major decision or undertook a journey. Throughout the Gospel of Luke, we see Our Lord at prayer; today’s reading is no exception to the rule. Before speaking to His disciples, Our Lord is praying in solitude. Jesus sought to be always at prayer, to be always in union with Our Heavenly Father. This should be our desire as well. We should also desire to be in union with Our Lord, in union with God our Father.

We might ask: Why do we need to pray? Isn’t it good enough to come to Mass? As Christians, we know that following Our Lord is not easy. In fact, Our Lord tells us that we need to “deny ourselves and take up our cross daily and follow him.” To truly follow Our Lord is not a simple thing, and we need help. We need to seek help from Our Lord, we need His assistance to follow Him.

We have a promise which has been given to us from the Prophet Zechariah that God our Heavenly Father will “pour out […] a spirit of grace and petition.” As Christians, we received that spirit when we were baptized, the fulfillment of the other promise God made through Zechariah, that God will “open […] a fountain to purify from sin and uncleanness.”

Through our baptism, our sins were cleansed, and we received the grace of the Holy Spirit poured down upon us, which allows us to pray to God. St. Paul tells us that we “who were baptized unto Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” By doing this, we became “children of God in Christ Jesus.” As children of God, we need to be emulating Jesus during His life on earth when he regularly spent time in prayer.

Through prayer, we gain the assistance from God we need, so I ask you again, how often do you pray? Do we take time throughout the day to pray a Rosary or Divine Mercy Chaplet? Do we take time throughout our day, doesn’t have to be much more than a few seconds, to say a brief prayer of praise and thanksgiving for the gift of life and everything God gives us throughout our lives? When we reach a moment of difficulty in our lives, do we turn it over to Our Lord, or do we first become angry, frustrated or annoyed?

Some may find prayer difficult, but we been given the tools to pray. We have the devotions, like the Rosary or Divine Mercy Chaplet, the Litanies, or one of the thousands of prayers which have given to us throughout the history of the Church. The greatest devotion is daily adoration of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, spending even just a few minutes before Our Lord in the tabernacle here within the church. Even better is daily Mass, being able to receive Our Lord daily in Holy Communion, but if that’s not possible, we do well to spend some time in adoration.

Do we take advantage of sacramentals, those objects which have been given to us by the Church to aid us in prayer, draw us closer to Our Lord and the Sacraments He gave us? We have Holy Water, which reminds us of our baptism, medals of the saints to remind us of their lives and place us under their intercession, scapulars of Our Lady that place us under her protection, and so many more. Do we take advantage of these tools to help us grow in grace and draw closer to Our Lord?

We are daily called to pick up our cross and follow Jesus. Though following Him will be difficult, we have been given the tools to undertake the journey. May we this day and every day for the rest of our lives use these tools to draw closer to Him.