WORSHIP: NOON, soup meal follows; 7 PM, soup meal at 6 PM.
Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:16
"Rejoice always, pray constantly, and give thanks for everything."
There is a rabbinic story that goes as follows:
A rabbi entered a room where his son was praying. The baby was crying in
his crib. "Son, can't you hear that there is a baby crying in this room?"
"I'm sorry, Father, but I was praying and I was lost in God." The rabbi
replied, "Son, one who is lost in God can see the very fly crawling up the
wall."
Prayer is not about escape from the world. We are advised to pray
with one eye open. It is not about just God and me or just Jesus and me.
Prayer drives us, naked and vulnerable, into an encounter with both the
Holy and the world, where we encounter not only God, but our own true
self. Prayer is not just silence, not just words, not just mantras, not
just centering. It is all of these and more. It is a letting go of
control, a falling into the steadfast love of God. It is action. It is
life. Frederick Douglass, escaped slave and statesman, wrote: "I prayed
for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs."
A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE BOOK ON PRAYER IS SR. JOAN CHITTISTER'S THE
BREATH OF THE SOUL: REFLECTIONS ON PRAYER (TWENTY-THIRD PUBLICATIONS).
TRY PRAYING THE ORTHODOX JESUS PRAYER THROUGHOUT THE DAY: "LORD
JESUS CHRIST, SON OF GOD, HAVE MERCY ON ME, A SINNER."
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