Some thoughts on Prayer

To clasp one’s hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world. - Karl Barth

The effect of prayer is union with God, and if someone is with God, he is separated from the enemy. Through prayer we guard our chastity, control our temper, and rid ourselves of vanity. It makes us forget injuries, overcomes envy, defeats injustice, and makes amends for sin. Through prayer we obtain physical well-being, a happy home, and a strong, well-ordered society. Prayer shields the wayfarer, protects the sleeper, and gives courage to those who keep vigil. It will refresh you when you are weary and comfort you when you are sorrowful. Prayer is the delight of the joyful as well as the solace of the afflicted. Prayer is intimacy with God and contemplation of the invisible. It is joy in things of the present, and the substance of things to come. - Gregory of Nyssa

Prayer at an early hour decides over the day. Wasted time of which we are later ashamed; temptations we yield to; weaknesses; lethargy in our work; disorder and lack of discipline in our thoughts and in our interaction with others—all these frequently have their root in neglecting prayer in the morning. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Young man, be not forgetful of prayer. Remember, every day and whenever you can, to repeat to yourself, “Lord, have mercy on all who appear before Thee today.” For every hour and every moment thousands of men leave life on this earth, and their souls appear before God. And how many of them depart in solitude; unknown, sad, dejected because no one mourns for them or even knows whether they have lived or not? Behold, from the other end of the earth, perhaps, your prayer for their rest will rise up to God, though you knew them not nor they you. How must it feel to a soul standing in dread before the Lord to sense at such an instant that for him too there is one to pray, that there is a fellow creature left on earth to love him too? God will look on you both more graciously, for if you have had pity on him, how much more will He have pity, who is infinitely more loving and merciful than you? And He will forgive him for your sake. - Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Pray, even if you feel nothing, see nothing. For when you are dry, empty, sick, or weak, at such a time is your prayer most pleasing to God, even though you may find little joy in it. This is true of all believing prayer. - Dame Julian of Norwich

The Two Sides of One Faith

Our faith in God who sent his Son to become God-with-us and who, with his Son, sent his Spirit to become God-within-us cannot be real without our faith in the Church. The Church is that unlikely body of people through whom God chooses to reveal God's love for us. Just as it seems unlikely to us that God chose to become human in a young girl living in a small, not very respected town in the Middle East nearly two thousand years ago, it seems unlikely that God chose to continue his work of salvation in a community of people constantly torn apart by arguments, prejudices, authority conflicts, and power games.
Still, believing in Jesus and believing in the Church are two sides of one faith. It is unlikely but divine!

- Henri Nouwen

On The Journey To Caring for Others

On a CitiHope International relief mission in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina, I was approached with a request: On our way home, could our Angel Flight East jet fly to Houston to pick up a displaced minor and take him to a family member in Rhode Island? We did some calculations: Houston would require another hour's flight time at a cost of $2,000 for fuel, maintenance, and the two pilots. We decided to do it.
At a private airport in Houston, we met our thirteen-year-old passenger, Jerry (not his real name). When he saw the jet, Jerry asked, "You mean I get to fly in this?" The pilots told him "You bet!" After signing the necessary paperwork, I heard myself say to Jerry: "Listen, we flew all the way here to pick you up for one reason: Because you are special!"
During the three-hour flight, Jerry's story came out in bits and pieces. He has a fifteen-year-old brother who had decided not to join him. He also has two younger sisters, who live with "Auntie." "My father and grandmother raised us," Jerry said. "I never knew my mother." Their grandmother died a couple years ago. "We made it through the hurricane okay," he explained, "but when the levees broke, our apartment was flooded. My cousin and I crossed the street in water up to our necks. I stepped in a hole, and he had to pull me up. I don't know how to swim."
They waded across the street to gather food at the closest grocery store. Unable to return to their lower-level apartment, they climbed to the roof of the complex, where they joined about thirty-five neighbours. The third day after the storm, a helicopter found them and flew them out of the city. Jerry's brother and his cousin were with him, but the transfer buses went on to different shelters, and the boys were separated. Jerry ended up alone at the Houston Astrodome, where he stayed for nearly two weeks. His father had disappeared and his mother, we were told, had drowned.
Soon we reached our destination. We took pictures and said goodbye. I arrived back home at 12:30 a.m., exhausted from my eighteen-hour day. Yet it was a sweet exhaustion of mission accomplished: a million dollars' worth of medicine delivered and a missing boy transported to his new guardian.
Was it worth the $2,000 to pick him up in a private jet rather than purchase a coach-class ticket on Continental? Through the generosity of the owners of the Saber 65 and the mission of Angel Flight, I had the means to give Jerry this trip, and the privilege to tell him: "Listen, we flew all the way here to pick you up for one reason: Because you are special!"
I can still see Jerry's winning smile and wide eyes when he got on the plane. This poor kid from New Orleans flying in a corporate jet was worth every dollar spent. Sometimes it takes extravagant efforts to show people they are special and loved.

- Michael J. Christensen

Our Greatest Wealth

To bless in the biblical sense means to ask for God's blessing, we're not asking for more of what we could get ourselves. We're crying out for the wonderful, unlimited goodness that only God has power to know about or give us. This kind of richness is what the writer was referring to in Proverbs: "The Lord's blessing is our greatest wealth; all our work adds nothing to it." (Proverbs 10:22 TLB)

- Bruce Wilkinson in "The Prayer of Jabez"

Unless You Become a Child...

One thing children certainly accomplish, and that is that they love and wonder at the people and the universe around them. They live in the midst of squalour and confusion and see it now. They see people at the moment and love them and admire them. They forgive and they go on loving. They may look at the most vicious person, and if he is at that moment good and kind and doing something that they can be interested in or admire, there they are, pouring out their hearts to him. Oh, I can write with authority. I have my own little grandchildren with me right now, and they see only the beauty and the joy of other people. There is no criticism in their minds and hearts of those around them.

- Dorothy Day

God's Unconditional Love

Why is it so hard for us to believe that God's love really is unconditional and that we should imitate God's love not only for others, but also for ourselves?
Perhaps we have regarded self-centred behaviour too harshly. We are unwilling or unable to give ourselves the same gentle grace that God offers us and that we believe should be offered to others. Leap from doubt to belief and remember that God loves you, delights in you, and yearns for your response.

- Rueben P. Job & Norman Shawchuck in "A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God"

Believing in the Church

The Church is an object of faith. In the Apostles' Creed we pray: "I believe in God, the Father, ... in Jesus Christ, his only Son and in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting." We must believe in the Church! The Apostles' Creed does not say that the Church is an organisation that helps us to believe in God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. No, we are called to believe in the Church with the same faith we believe in God.
Often it seems harder to believe in the Church than to believe in God. But whenever we separate our belief in God from our belief in the Church, we become unbelievers. God has given us the Church as the place where God becomes God-with-us.

- Henri Nouwen

If This Grace Were Ours

It is the rare person who, looking back over his life and seeing what he has done to it, hasn't sighed for a chance to redeem what he has cheaply used or carelessly ruined. If only somehow, somewhere, there was a way to live again the days we have darkened with our blind haste - the innumerable occasions when our indifference trod on all the pearls of God’s graciousness; the times when our pride, or our fear, or our meanness poured the acid of contempt over the fair countenance of another’s soul! If this grace were ours, how we would leap to the chance!

- Samuel Howard Miller

The Difficulty of Resisting Temptation

No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means.
This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting it, not by giving in. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later.
That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it.

- C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Light In The Darkness

One day, a young minister who had not been at his new church very long decided it was the darkest, most cheerless church he had ever seen. Even on a sunny day it was more of shadows than of sunshine. And when it was cloudy or night had fallen it was downright dismal. Therefore, at the next officers' meeting he requested that they vote to buy a large chandelier to be hung high and proper in the sanctuary. He was left speechless by their reply. "Can't do it. First of all, we can't afford it. Second, no one can spell it. Third, we wouldn't know where to put it. And fourth, what we really need in the sanctuary is some more light."

The Church, Spotless and Tainted

The Church is holy and sinful, spotless and tainted. The Church is the bride of Christ, who washed her in cleansing water and took her to himself "with no speck or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and faultless" (Ephesians 5:26-27). The Church too is a group of sinful, confused, anguished people constantly tempted by the powers of lust and greed and always entangled in rivalry and competition.
When we say that the Church is a body, we refer not only to the holy and faultless body made Christ-like through baptism and Eucharist but also to the broken bodies of all the people who are its members. Only when we keep both these ways of thinking and speaking together can we live in the Church as true followers of Jesus.

- Henri Nouwen

Too Big to Put Behind

Disappointment and loss are a part of every life. Many times we can put them behind us and get on with the rest of our lives. But not everything is amenable to this approach. Some things are too big or too deep to do this, and we will have to leave important parts of ourselves behind if we treat them in this way. These are the places where wisdom begins to grow in us. It begins with suffering that we do not avoid or rationalize or put behind us. It starts with the realization that our loss, whatever it is, has become a part of us and has altered our lives so profoundly that we cannot go back to the way it was before.
The thing about the many strategies we use to shelter ourselves from feeling loss is that none of them leads to healing. Although denial, rationalization, substitution, avoidance, and the like may numb the pain of loss, every one of them hurts us in some far more fundamental ways. None is respectful toward life or toward process. None acknowledges our capacity for finding meaning or wisdom.

- Rachel Naomi Remen

Called out of Slavery

The Church is the people of God. The Latin word for "church," ecclesia, comes from the Greek ek, which means "out," and kaleo, which means "to call." The Church is the people of God called out of slavery to freedom, sin to salvation, despair to hope, darkness to light, an existence centered on death to an existence focused on life.
When we think of Church we have to think of a body of people, travelling together. We have to envision women, men, and children of all ages, races, and societies supporting one another on their long and often tiresome journeys to their final home.

- Henri Nouwen

The Pillars of the Church

The two main sacraments, baptism and the Eucharist, are the spiritual pillars of the Church. They are not simply instruments by which the Church exercises its ministry. They are not just means by which we become and remain members of the Church but belong to the essence of the Church. Without these sacraments there is no Church. The Church is the body of Christ fashioned by baptism and the Eucharist. When people are baptised in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and when they gather around the table of Christ and receive his Body and Blood, they become the people of God, called the Church.

- Henri Nouwen

Really Present

Where is Jesus today? Jesus is where those who believe in him and express that belief in baptism and the Eucharist become one body. As long as we think about the body of believers as a group of people who share a common faith in Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus remains an inspirational historical figure. But when we realise that the body Jesus fashions in the Eucharist is his body, we can start to see what real presence is. Jesus, who is present in the gifts of his Body and Blood, becomes present in the body of believers that is formed by these gifts. We who receive the Body of Christ become the living Christ.

- Henri Nouwen

Whatever Happens to You

My child, flee from all evil and from everything resembling it. Do not get angry, for anger leads to murder. My child, do not grumble, for this leads to blasphemy; be gentle-minded, for those of a gentle mind shall possess the earth. Be patient and have a loving heart.
Do not be one who stretches out his hands to receive but closes them when it comes to giving. If you have earned something by the work of your hands, pass it on as a ransom for your sins. Do not turn away from those who are in need, but share all things in common with your brother.
Your heart shall not cling to the high and mighty, but turn to the good and humble folk. Accept as good whatever happens to you or affects you, knowing that nothing happens without God.

- The Didache

The Rain

One rainy afternoon I was driving along one of the main streets of town, taking those extra precautions necessary when the roads are wet and slick.
Suddenly, my daughter, Aspen, spoke up from her relaxed position in her seat. "Dad, I'm thinking of something."
This announcement usually meant she had been pondering some fact for a while, and was now ready to expound all that her six-year-old mind had discovered. I was eager to hear.
"What are you thinking?" I asked.
"The rain! ;" she began, "is like sin, and the windshield wipers are like God wiping our sins away."
After the chill bumps raced up my arms I was able to respond.
"That's really good, Aspen."
Then my curiosity broke in. How far would this little girl take this revelation? So I asked... "Do you notice how the rain keeps on coming? What does that tell you?"
Aspen didn't hesitate one moment with her answer:
"We keep on sinning, and God just keeps on forgiving us."
I will always remember this whenever I turn my wipers on.

- source unknown

Becoming the Mystical Body of Christ

As we gather around the Eucharistic table and make the death and resurrection of Jesus our own by sharing in the "bread of life" and the "cup of salvation," we become together the living body of Christ.
The Eucharist is the sacrament by which we become one body. Becoming one body is not becoming a team or a group or even a fellowship. Becoming one body is becoming the body of Christ. It is becoming the living Lord, visibly present in the world. It is - as often has been said - becoming the mystical Body of Christ. But mystical and real are the same in the realm of the Spirit.

- Henri Nouwen

All Things in Common

Simplicity - poverty for the sake of Christ - was like an article of faith with us. How could we, who wanted to share the suffering of the masses, keep anything for ourselves? That is why we shared everything in common, giving away all we had to those who wanted to serve the same spirit of love with us.

- Emmy Arnold

Deepening the Passage of Baptism

In and through the celebration of the Eucharist, Jesus' death and resurrection become a reality for us here and now. As we eat and drink from the Body and Blood of Christ, our mortal bodies become united with the risen Christ. Thus our deaths, like Jesus' death, means not destruction but passage to new life.
In this way the Eucharist deepens and strengthens in us the passage that we first made through baptism. The Eucharist is the sacrament that allows us to appropriate fully our baptismal grace.

- Henri Nouwen

On The Journey Toward Celebrating Life

One evening when our family went with parishioners to serve dinner at a shelter for persons who are homeless, our youngest son, Nicholas, who was five at the time, wandered around the large room of people at tables and seemed to soak in the experience.
The next morning Nicholas came to me and asked, "Mum, does God choose people's eye colour and skin colour?" I easily responded, "Yes." Nicholas continued, "Does God choose the clothes that people wear?" I did not reply right away, trying to think of a good approach for a response. Nicholas then asked, "Does God make people poor or do we make people poor?"
I was taken aback by this profound question and gathered my thoughts to sit down and talk with Nicholas. We talked about God's love for all people and our responsibility to see that all people are able to celebrate life fully, with all their basic needs met. No, God does not make people poor, human decisions and human structures do. Our decisions to act in loving response to others is a channel of God's love for all. Together we can celebrate life more fully!

- Andrea Shappel

Something Larger

The ideal life is in our blood and never will be still. Sad will be the day for any man when he becomes contented with the thoughts he is thinking and the deeds he is doing, - where there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do.

- Phillips Brooks

Divine Initiative

The archetype of one who takes initiative is God Himself. He created the heavens and the earth, spinning into motion the tiny sphere that is our planet. He filled its waters and skies with fish and fowl and scattered all manner of living creatures across its mountains, valleys and plains. Then He lovingly spoke humankind into being, calling man and woman to name the animals, to tend to the garden sprawled at their feet and to live in loving community with one another.
But then He watched as man and woman disobeyed Him, dishonoured themselves and destroyed each other with hatred and lies and murder. He watched His creation spiral deeper and deeper into sin; He felt the searing pain as those made in His very image pulled away from Him, breaking the bonds of live that had bound creature to Creator. How easy it would have been for Him to yield to despair and to close His eyes to the ugly ruin His creation had become.
But what did He do? He responded with love and with a plan. He provided an option. He took the initiative in breaching the gap between Himself and His wayward creation. "For God so loved the world" -- and longed to have it reconciled to Himself -- "that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16).
God could have sat idly by and watched the world go to hell. But love demanded that He take the initiative to redeem it instead. Se He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, as a sin sacrifice for your foul-ups and mine, thereby making forgiveness available as a free gift. We need only to humble ourselves enough to receive it.

- Bill Hybels in "Making Life Work: Putting God's Wisdom into Action"

Knowing One Another in Christ

Often we think that we first have to know and understand one another before we gather around the Eucharistic table. Although it is good if those who share in the Body and Blood of Christ know one another personally, coming together regularly for the Eucharist can create a spiritual unity that goes far beyond the various levels of "knowing one another" in human ways. As we enter together into the sacred mysteries of the death and resurrection of Jesus by participating in the Eucharist, we gradually become one body. We truly come to know one another in Christ.

- Henri Nouwen

As We Love Ourselves

Jesus took the command to love our neighbour as we love ourselves, and pushed the definition of who is our neighbor, out, out, and still further out, until it reached to the ends of the earth and included all of humanity - all of God’s children.
Because Jesus' teachings are so challenging and radical, it is much more comfortable to focus on a quiet, private, personal relationship with him than it is to follow his teachings that call for a public prophetic witness.

- Alvin Alexsi Currier

Breaking Through the Boundaries

The sacrament of the Eucharist, as the sacrament of the presence of Christ among and within us, has the unique power to unite us into one body, irrespective of age, colour, race or gender, emotional condition, economic status, or social background. The Eucharist breaks through all these boundaries and creates the one body of Christ, living in the world as a vibrant sign of unity and community.
Jesus prays fervently to his Father: "May they all be one, just as, Father, you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me" (John 17:21). The Eucharist is the sacrament of this divine unity lived out among all people.

- Henri Nouwen

Christ's Body, Our Body

When we gather for the Eucharist we gather in the Name of Jesus, who is calling us together to remember his death and resurrection in the breaking of the bread. There he is truly among us. "Where two or three meet in my name," he says, "I am there among them" (Matthew 18:20).
The presence of Jesus among us and in the gifts of bread and wine are the same presence. As we recognise Jesus in the breaking of the bread, we recognise him also in our brothers and sisters. As we give one another the bread, saying: "This is the Body of Christ," we give ourselves to each other saying: "We are the Body of Christ." It is one and the same giving, it is one and the same body, it is one and the same Christ.

- Henri Nouwen

Sacrament of Unity

The Eucharist is the sacrament of unity. It makes us into one body. The apostle Paul writes: "As there is one loaf, so we, although there are many of us, are one single body, for we all share in the one loaf" (1 Corinthians 10:17).
The Eucharist is much more than a place where we celebrate our unity in Christ. The Eucharist creates this unity. By eating from the same bread and drinking from the same cup, we become the body of Christ present in the world. Just as Christ becomes really present to us in the breaking of the bread, we become really present to one another as brothers and sisters of Christ, members of the same body. Thus the Eucharist not only signifies unity but also creates it.

- Henri Nouwen

Send Help!

While we cannot count on miracles to save us, we can be miraculous. We ourselves can do the things that change the world and reshape our own souls. Faith teaches us not that life will be easy, but that life's difficulties can yield beauty.
There is a story of a man who looked up at the heavens and said, "Dear God, there is so much pain and anguish in your world; why don't you send help?" And God answered, "I am sending help - I'm sending you."

Jesus Living Among Us

The Eucharist is the place where Jesus becomes most present to us because he becomes not only the Christ living within us but also the Christ living among us. Just as the disciples at Emmaus who had recognised Jesus in the breaking of the bread discovered a new intimacy between themselves and found the courage to return to their friends, we who have received the Body and Blood of Jesus will find a new unity among ourselves. As we realise that Christ lives within us, we also come to realise that Christ lives among us and makes us into a body of people witnessing together to the presence of Christ in the world.

- Henri Nouwen