Tips for praying the rosary

Tips for praying the rosary

General tips in praying the rosary
1. Expect it to be somewhat dry as you are learning the prayers. Think of all the other things that you have learned how to do and how they were at times tedious as you learned them. But eventually you mastered them if you persevered. Then it became more satisfying.

2. You have an attentive audience to your prayers. God the Holy Trinity and the Blessed Virgin Mary are listening to your prayers even as you are learning them. You are not just saying words that don’t matter. You are praying, even if somewhat clumsily. They want you to succeed because they know it will help you to draw near to them and they will in turn draw near to you. They are present. And that is a promise. James 4:8a, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” NABRE So pray with expectation they are there even if you don’t feel them. Your attitude and faith make a big difference in how satisfying prayer will be. If you are just saying words into the air, not thinking you are connecting with anyone, then why pray? Prayer then becomes a dead thing and God is probably saying, “are you talking to me?” By the way, just so we are clear Mary is not God but she can be present as can the saints and angels

3. There is nothing wrong using a booklet or a list to help you remember the prayers and mysteries or eventually in your mediations on the mysteries after you get the Hail Marys down enough to begin to multi-task. If you find you just can’t meditate while praying the Hail Marys, then meditate on the mysteries at the beginning when you state the mystery.

4. The Catholic Church considers the creeds to be prayers so when I am praying the rosary alone I pray the Apostles Creed like this to more clearly address it to God. I also drop the archaic English to make more like I am just talking to God declaring my faith in Him and His plan of salvation.

I believe in You, God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. And in You, Lord Jesus Christ, His Only Son, Our Lord. You were conceived by the Holy Spirit. You were born of the Virgin Mary. You suffered under Pontius Pilate. You were crucified, died and were buried. You descended into hell. The third day you rose again from the dead. You ascended into heaven and are seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence shall You come to judge the living and the dead.  I believe in You, Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen

5. I drop the archaic English from the Our Father.

Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Amen.

6. I drop archaic English from the rest of the prayers and replace it with current English.
7. I also recite the prayers in archaic English occasionally so I am prepared for group prayer sessions which usually use the archaic English.
8. You don’t have to drop the archaic English if you don’t need or want to.

How many prayers do you have to learn to pray the rosary? Not many and I bet you already know some of them by heart.

1. The Sign of the Cross
2. The Apostles Creed
3. The Our Father (Lord’s Prayer)
4. The Hail Mary
5. The Glory Be
6. The extra Fatima prayer, Oh my Jesus, which is optional but I always pray it after the Glory Be. David doesn’t use it.
7. The Hail Holy Queen after you finish praying the decades. That prayer will seem strange to newbies from Protestantism but it grows on you as Mary becomes dear to you. Now I love it.
8. There are other awesome prayers you can add at the end but those are optional. Some prayer books have them and some don’t.

That’s it.

Then you just have to put them together into the introductory prayers to the rosary and the 5 mysteries/decades for the day. There are plenty of examples/lists/brochures of the structure so I won’t include that here.

You can add your prayers to the rosary at any point as they come to mind or you are led. The various mysteries may jog your mind and spur your heart to pray about similar situations you or others you know are going through. Even if you don’t add any of your prayers, God is sifting through your heart changing things and bringing them to the surface. Or He may give you insights into the mysteries that leave you awestruck, singing praises and thanking Him. Sometimes He may interrupt your rosary to work through something with you or redirect your prayers. And you may never get back to the rosary for the day. That’s His prerogative. Let Him.

If you wrestle with anxiety, the rosary will keep you in God the Holy Trinity and Mary’s presence to bring them to the surface and offer them up. You will probably find your trust in God, peace and tranquility growing. Sometimes since your anxieties are being handled by God, you will find yourself having fewer anxieties to bring to Him and you will focus more on others, having greater empathy and compassion.

Sometimes you will find that you have drifted and can’t remember where you left off exactly. I just go back to the last place I can remember praying and start from there unless I feel it was a God redirection.

Where to start
With the mysteries for that day of the week. Again, there are lists that are available so I won’t reproduce them here.

If praying all five mysteries for the day with the related decades of the Hail Marys is too much to start with then pray one of them. The next day those mysteries come up then pray the next one in line.

The main thing to remember is that you are loved by God the Holy Trinity and by Mary. They are pleased by your efforts to draw near. Even if you don’t pray any other prayers but the rosary prayers, you are praying for you and for others. God is working in your heart and their hearts and the world is being changed and His kingdom is being advanced. Mary is interceding for us. You will start to see things happen.

If you need links to the lists and structure, let me know.

May God bless you as you start to pray the rosary. It has revolutionized my life.

The Priority of Abiding in Jesus

The Priority of Abiding in Jesus

Revelation 2

1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus, write this: 

The one who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks in the midst of the seven gold lampstands says this:

2 I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate the wicked; you have tested those who call themselves apostles but are not, and discovered that they are impostors.

3 Moreover, you have endurance and have suffered for my name, and you have not grown weary.

4 Yet I hold this against you: you have lost the love you had at first.

5 Realize how far you have fallen. Repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

6 But you have this in your favor: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

7 Whoever has ears ought to hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the victor I will give the right to eat from the tree of life that is in the garden of God.”

As Jesus begins His letter to the church in Ephesus, it sounds like a very good church.  But by the end of the letter, He is threatening to yank their lampstand which we know is their designation as a church because in Revelation 1:20 Jesus revealed that the lampstands are the churches.  So that is a pretty severe penalty!

What is the reason for such drastic course of action? “You have lost the love you had at first. Realize how far you have fallen. Repent, and do the works you did at first.”  Notice that this lost love even affected the quality of their works.  They were no longer what they were at first.

Evidently their love had grown cold.  How did that happen?  What causes people to fall away?  And what can we do to prevent this calamity from happening to us?  What is the antidote for this dreaded disease?

This type of scenario comes up a lot in the forum and in the Journey Home program in people’s own journeys, churches, families and circles of friends.  It is a major source of concern and heartbreak and the subject of many prayer requests.

A frequent suggestion is that better catechesis (teaching) was or is needed.  If they just had been provided with better, more accurate biblical and theological information, then they wouldn’t have wandered away, left the church, drifted into heresy or whatever.

But that is not what Jesus, the Bible or the Catechism says.  Knowledge and understanding are very important and helpful but there is something more important still that is often missing in peoples’ lives and that is frequently overlooked.  They’ve either lost it like the knowledgeable Ephesians (Revelation 2:2b) or they never really had it, which is perhaps the problem of the Pharisees in John 5:39-40, who were also very knowledgeable in the Scriptures.  Jesus told the Pharisees, “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me; yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” RSVCE

What is this missing and/or lost element which makes people more susceptible to wandering away?  It is having a real love relationship with Jesus.

The Apostle Paul prays for us in this regard in Ephesians 3:14-19.

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,  15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,  16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man,  17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,  18 may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,  19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.  RSVCE

Note that love is what roots and grounds us and keeps us from being shiftless wanderers.  And that the love of Christ surpasses knowledge even though knowledge is very important.

Often we put knowledge before love and forget to pursue the love relationship. 

We can also put action and service before love as Martha did in Luke 10:38-42 and as the Ephesians were doing in the Revelation 2 passage.

38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a village; and a woman named Martha received him into her house.  39 And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching.  40 But Martha was distracted with much serving; and she went to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.”  41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things;  42 one thing is needful.  Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.” RSVCE

I always find it interesting how people bristle and come to the defense of Martha and seek to negate what Jesus is saying to Martha in this passage.  I think Jesus is touching a sore spot in their lives.

I am guilty of having done both of these things, putting knowledge and action/service before a love relationship with Jesus.

So how do we develop this love relationship with Jesus?

Well, the first step is to be honest ourselves and with God and admit that we have a problem. 

Jesus told the Pharisees, you need to come to me in order to have the life you are seeking to find in the Scriptures.  He told the Ephesians, “You have lost the love you had at first.  Realize how far you have fallen. Repent, and do the works you did at first.”  And he told Martha, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful.  Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.”

Which story matches best with where we are at?

I think I was more like the Pharisees.  I never really had it in the first place.  Even though I was raised in the Presbyterian Church from birth through age 14, had a “born again” experience where I asked Jesus into my life as Lord and Savior when I was 20, prayed extemporaneously on occasion, studied the Bible, theology and church history and became a Bible teacher and lay preacher, I had never really developed a love relationship of trust with Jesus.  He was more of an acquaintance to me.  I knew I needed to develop a closer walk with Him but I couldn’t seem to do it.  I prayed for the Holy Spirit to fall on me in prayer and praise and worship songs.  I looked at the various Protestant traditions, movements and spiritualties but nothing changed.  I looked at Anglicanism and Eastern Orthodoxy on my way to the Catholic Church but still nothing lasting and consistent.

So what was the game changer for me?  Well, Jesus led me to His Church, the Catholic Church with its myriad of devotional helps and channels of grace like the Sacraments, prayer books, holy cards, rosary beads, crucifixes, statues, paintings, liturgy and rites, smells and bells.  Most of all He led me to the Rosary so I could learn to spend time in His presence, meditating on twenty events/mysteries of both His and His mother Mary’s life while asking for her help as I do so.

You see, in order to become close to someone and learn to love and trust that person, you have to spend time with him or her.  That’s why it is so important to pray to God, the Holy Trinity.  The Catechism goes so far as to say in paragraph 2558.

"Great is the mystery of the faith!" The Church professes this mystery in the Apostles' Creed (Part One) and celebrates it in the sacramental liturgy (Part Two), so that the life of the faithful may be conformed to Christ in the Holy Spirit to the glory of God the Father (Part Three). This mystery, then, requires that the faithful believe in it, that they celebrate it, and that they live from it in a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. This relationship is prayer.

It is also important to bear our hearts to God for the Apostle Peter exhorts in 1 Peter 5:6 and 7.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time he may exalt you.  Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you.

Often we do not have words for what is in our hearts, but prayers like the Rosary, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and the Liturgy of the Hours keep us in prayer long enough so that God can begin to deal with our hearts and draw the things that trouble and hinder us to the surface.  The written/memorized prayers are also a rich resource for additional ideas about what to pray with God about.

So what is my motive for starting this topic?  It is simply this.  I spent many years knowing a lot about God but not really knowing, trusting and experiencing Him on a daily basis in prayer.  Evangelical Christianity is highly intellectual.  It focuses on knowledge.  Prayer is mentioned and even urged but at least in most of the churches I attended hardly any instruction in prayer was ever given.  Extemporaneous prayer was all that was needed and intercessory prayer was the main focus.

I have listened to and read hundreds of conversion stories because I love to hear them.  Many of them center on discovering the truth and authority of the Catholic Church as reasons for conversion.  Often the Eucharist and other Sacraments are mentioned but I would say to a lesser degree.  They are all good reasons.  But prayer is not mentioned very often as a reason for conversion.

Now maybe people are more reticent to talk about the state of their prayer lives and so that is the reason it isn’t mentioned very often.  Kind of like lovers talking about their love lives, perhaps.  Or perhaps they haven’t yet discovered and dived into the vast ocean of grace and mercy to be found in Catholic spirituality and prayer.  If the latter is the case, then I desire for them to find what I have found after long searching and almost despairing of life.

Jesus wants that love relationship with us.  I will close with an excerpt from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Prayer as God's gift

2559 "Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God." But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or "out of the depths" of a humble and contrite heart? He who humbles himself will be exalted; humility is the foundation of prayer, Only when we humbly acknowledge that "we do not know how to pray as we ought," are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. "Man is a beggar before God."

2560 "If you knew the gift of God!" The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God's desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.

2561 "You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." Paradoxically our prayer of petition is a response to the plea of the living God: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water!" Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God.

The Third Sunday of Easter- April 15, 2018

The Third Sunday of Easter- April 15, 2018

First Reading: Acts 3:13-15, 17-19

Psalm: Psalm 4:2, 4, 7-8, 9.  (7a)

Second Reading: 1 John  2:1-5a

Alleluia: cf Luke 24:32

Gospel: Luke 24:35-48

Today’s readings are about God’s constant desire for us to turn to Him and enter into or resume a relationship of forgiveness, restoration, love and trust with Him.  A relationship in which He will hear and answer when we call and do wonders in our lives, grant us faith, understanding and courage and put gladness in our hearts as we carry out the mission of being His witnesses of His Gospel to the world in which we live.  And it is Jesus who has made all of this possible through His death and resurrection which we are currently celebrating in this Easter season.  That is good news indeed which is true even in the midst of fear, pain, suffering, persecution and loss if we keep our eyes on Him.  This wondrous offer is always open to believer and unbeliever alike as we shall see in today’s readings.

The context for the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles is that Pentecost has come filling the new Church with bold and joyous power, prayer, proclamation and living.  Peter and John have gone up to the temple at the hour of prayer and encountered a lame beggar at the Beautiful Gate.  Peter looked at the beggar who asked him for alms.  Peter responded that he had neither silver or gold but that he would give him what he had, Jesus.  And so Peter took his hand and commanded him to rise and walk in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.  And the beggar was able to stand, walk and leap, praising God.  The beggar was well known by all the temple goers being a daily sight as they entered the temple.  His healing caused a great commotion as the people in the temple were filled with wonder and amazement at seeing him healed.  And all the people ran together around Peter, John and the beggar in Solomon’s Portico.  When Peter saw the crowd he assured them that it wasn’t  the power or piety of Peter and John that healed the beggar but rather it was Jesus, His name and the faith provided through Jesus that had made the beggar strong and well.

And so Peter begins to address the crowd in the first reading, to carry out his mission as a witness on which Jesus sends him in today’s Gospel reading.

As you can see, Peter immediately confronted the crowd with their responsibility for handing over Jesus to Pilate to be crucified in spite of Pilate’s assessment that Jesus was innocent of any wrongdoing and demanding the release of a murderer instead.  They had denied that Jesus was who He said He was.

Then Peter softened the blow by acknowledging that they and their leaders had acted in ignorance and that the whole incident was part of God’s plan foretold by all the prophets that his Christ would suffer.

And then Peter made them the offer.  Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.

It is important to note that this exchange is just the beginning of a salvation history lesson that lasts for the rest of chapter 3 and is interrupted by the arrest of Peter and John in chapter 4 by the temple captain and the Sadducees.

The responsorial Psalm provides additional context for what we see happening in Acts, God providing relief in distress doing wonders for his faithful ones, shining His face upon us, putting gladness in our heart and granting us peaceful sleep because in His presence we may dwell secure, even if we don’t feel His presence, even if our circumstances are anything but secure.

In the second reading from the first epistle of John, John declares the purpose of his epistle is so that they may avoid the pitfalls of sin.  And then he reassures his readers that forgiveness and removal of sin are still available in and through Jesus for everyone.  The offer Peter made in Acts is still good for believers who have fallen into sin and unbelievers who are still outside the Faith alike.

Then he gives his readers a litmus test so they can make sure they know Jesus.  Are you ready?  We can know we know Jesus if we keep His commandments.  If we don’t keep His commandments but we say we know Him, we are liars and the truth is not in us.  Simple?  It seems so.  But we almost invariably start thinking about the fact that we keep committing sins and we start getting alarmed that maybe we are kidding ourselves and we really don’t know Jesus.  And then we start trying really hard to stop sinning so we can prove to ourselves and the world that we really do know Jesus.

And then we read the last verse.  But whoever keeps His word, the love of God is truly perfected in him.  So then we add trying to love God really hard to our to-do list showing up at the adoration chapel, adding extra prayers.  And of course, we can’t keep it up and so eventually we get discouraged and we start to slide into sloth and indifference, going through the motions or not.

Does this chain of events sound familiar to anyone?

Yeah, well, the first thing we may have forgotten is that confessing our sins is one of His commandments.  So by continually confessing our sins on a regular basis we are keeping His commandments and we will begin to experience healing.  In fact, in the same epistle John says that if we say that we have no sin, present tense, the truth is not in us.  Jesus already knows that we are going to fail in our trust in Him.  He knows what it is like to live in this world because He has already been here, done that, remember?

The second thing we may have forgotten is that John also says in his epistle that we love because God first loved us.  So we have to begin to know and experience God’s love for us before we can grow in our ability to love Him and others.  How do we do this?  By hanging out with God in prayer and spiritual reading, being still and knowing that He is God.  Did you know that you can pray while doing stuff?  So being still doesn’t always mean inactive, although some inactivity time before God is important.  Then we begin to live life out of this knowing and guess what?  His commandments and word start to take root in us and become precious to us and we start keeping them more and more out of our relationship with Him as His love flows in and through us.  He becomes our true love.

In the Alleluia, we ask for Jesus to help us to learn His word and adore Him.

And in the Gospel, we see Jesus doing just that with His disciples.

Amen

Did you know that Jesus thirsts for you?

I didn’t either until over a decade ago when I was reading about prayer in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  Thirst is a strong word and a strong desire.  It can be used to describe our desperate longings for water, God, people and things.  Some of my favorite Psalms spoke of thirsting for God. 

Like Psalm 42:1 which says, “As a hart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.  When shall I come and behold the face of God?”

And like Psalm 63:1 which says, “O God, thou art my God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee, as in a dry and weary land where no water is.”

Those Psalms really resonated with me because I was longing for and seeking a close connection with God through prayer.

But could Jesus really be thirsting for me like I was thirsting for Him?

Well, that is what the Catechism says in the section on Christian Prayer in paragraphs 2559 through 2561.  I quote it here.

2559 "Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God." But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or "out of the depths" of a humble and contrite heart? He who humbles himself will be exalted; humility is the foundation of prayer, Only when we humbly acknowledge that "we do not know how to pray as we ought," are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. "Man is a beggar before God."

2560 "If you knew the gift of God!" The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God's desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.

2561 "You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." Paradoxically our prayer of petition is a response to the plea of the living God: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water!" Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God.

The quotes at the beginning of paragraphs 2560 and 2561 come from John 4:10 where Jesus had to go through Samaria (which Jews at that time normally wouldn’t do) to meet a Samaritan woman who had been trying to satisfy her thirst for God with men.  The woman is representative of us who seek to fill our thirst for God with all manner of things rather than coming to God Himself in prayer and satisfying His thirst for us and our thirst for Him.

God the Son, Jesus, and God the Father thirst for each of us like Jesus thirsted for the Samaritan woman to turn to Him so that she might have living water!  Wow!  When I first read that a wave of God’s love washed over me and I was lost in the wonder of it, lying on the floor for over two hours as He ministered to my parched soul.

Did you know that Jesus thirsts for you and longs to give you His living water?  He is waiting by the well for you.  Yes, you personally, not the crowd, not someone else, but you.

The Jesus Prayer

In Revelation 12, we see the great dragon, that ancient serpent who is also called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, the accuser, who accuses us day and night. He tries to kill Mary and Jesus but is unsuccessful and in verse 17, he goes off to make war on the rest of her offspring, those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus, in other words us.

One of the reasons I needed to become a Catholic is I needed the written... prayers of the Church to memorize and pray when the Accuser is coming after me. He often was able to silence my own prayers by intimidation and his accusations. He made me speechless. He also took away my ability to concentrate on the Scriptures.

But even though I couldn’t muster any of my own words, I could pray the prayers of the Church that I had memorized when I wasn’t under attack. One of the prayers I picked up along the way was the Jesus Prayer.

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

There was a period of a couple of months when the Accuser would assault me nightly. This was several years before I came into the Church, maybe more. My own words failed me as did my knowledge of the Scriptures. But I prayed this prayer over and over because I knew Jesus came into the world to save sinners like me. And He in his mercy would come to my aid as I called out to Him with this prayer. And He did which is why I am still here.

I have many more prayers and other channels of grace such as the Sacraments which Jesus is providing through His Church, the Body of Christ. I hope this prayer will help some of you as it did me. May God be with you all.

So you want to be a saint?

Saint Pope John Paul II in keeping with the example of his risen Lord was always telling people to “be not afraid” in a variety of ways.

As he began his pontificate, he began it by his own admission in his inaugural homily with a sense of his own unworthiness, with fear and trepidation. But trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, he entered into it anyway.

And then he turned to us in his homily and said, “Brothers and sisters, do not be afraid to welcome Christ and accept his power. Help the Pope and all those who wish to serve Christ and with Christ’s power to serve the human person and the whole of mankind. Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of States, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and development. Do not be afraid. Christ knows “what is in man”. He alone knows it.”

Throughout his pontificate he was telling us to be not afraid to be holy, to be saints, to do what is right and just.

The Catholic Church exists to make us saints, an instrument to conform us to the image of Christ. The Church is our mother, feeding us, teaching us, encouraging us, comforting us, disciplining and correcting us.

And often the Church itself is the source of the suffering which forms and shapes as we hopefully recovering sinners inflict damage on each other through our pride, our sin and our lack of forgiveness, faith, love, hope, trust, humility, you name it. Saint John of the Cross was kept prisoner in a cell by his brother monks and taken out once a day to be beaten and allowed to eat a meal. He eventually managed to escape by climbing down the wall of the monastery. But he didn’t leave the Church or rail against it. He just accepted the source of the problem, his brother monks’ sin, and accepted the suffering as God’s will and grew from it. The Apostle Paul mentions such suffering from sources within the Church in his epistles.

The Catholic Church also helps us to become saints by not allowing us to have things our way. She normally doesn’t allow us to take the shortcuts we would like. Although sometimes we can pressure our human priests to grant us “special, secret dispensations for our special cases”. Unfortunately, I have friends for whom this has been done. And I can’t say that it has generally aided in their holiness. I am not sure we ever become holy by having our own way.

Jesus did and didn’t want to go to the cross. He asked the Father to let the cup pass from him if He was willing. But Jesus already knew the answer and so He prayed, “Not my will, but Yours be done.” He chose the way of the cross for us. And God strengthened Him for the task by sending Him ministering angels.

Before I became a Catholic Christian, I had Christianity my way. And I can’t say that it made me very holy. For one thing, it didn’t provide a clear path. So many interpretations, opinions and options.

When I became a Catholic, I submitted to the Church’s teachings, processes and timing. I received her Sacraments, prayed her prayers, participated in her liturgies, looked to the examples of her saints and adopted her ways of the spiritual life. And I have received grace upon grace. I am growing in prayer, patience, humility, love, compassion, peace, joy, thankfulness, trust, understanding and forgiveness to name a few. Have there been losses, crosses, opposition, loneliness and suffering? Sure. Do or did they hurt? Yeah, if they didn’t, it wouldn’t be suffering. But I have all those saints and witnesses to look to learn how to handle them with God and the prayers to sustain me.

So do you still want to be a saint?  Then why don’t we walk the path together with Jesus and His Church?

Third Sunday in Lent – March 19, 2017

First Reading: Exodus 17:3-7
Psalm: Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9
Second Reading: Romans 5:1-2, 5-8
Alleluia: John 4:42, 15
Gospel: John 4:5-42

The readings for the Third Sunday in Lent are a progressive call to us to move from an aloof distrust of God’s faithful presence, of Him as our Rock and our supply of life-giving water to a rock solid faith in which we entrust ourselves to Him who has loved us and given Himself for us, believing in His presence and His being our Rock of Salvation and asking Him to provide that which we need for life, the living water of the Holy Spirit.

The readings begin with the Israelites grumbling against Moses because they were thirsty and didn’t see where the next drink was going to come from. Instead of turning to God themselves in prayers of petition for the water, trusting in His presence with them, they turn to God’s representative in the flesh, Moses, threatening him if he doesn’t come through what they want and need. So Moses turns to God himself and presents the problem to Him. God assures Moses that He will be present on the rock that Moses is to strike with his staff and God will provide the water that they will need.
The responsorial psalm then exhorts us to repent of our hard hearts and draw near to God in praise and adoration, proclaiming Him to be the Rock of our salvation and recognizing Him as our creator, shepherd and guide.

The Apostle Paul then assures us of our reconciliation with God and access to His grace which His Son, Jesus, has provided for us through faith or trust in Him. We can trust God, live in the hope of His glory, receiving His overflowing love through the indwelling Holy Spirit. We can entrust ourselves to God’s love because Jesus, His Son, died for us while we were still God’s enemies, holding ourselves far from His heart.

Finally, in the Gospel reading, we hear the story of Jesus waiting by a well in Samaria for a Samaritan woman who was an outcast even among her own people who were themselves considered outcasts by the Jews. John 4:4 says Jesus had to pass through Samaria. Actually, there was a longer bypass around Samaria that Jews normally took, because they didn’t want to have any dealings with the Samaritans. So why did Jesus have to go through Samaria? Because Jesus had an appointment with this woman and through her with the rest of the people in her village to bring His salvation to them.

At this point, I am going to take you to the beginning of Part 4, Section 1 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which touches upon this story. While I was still a Protestant desperately seeking to help in drawing near to God in prayer, I read this section where I discovered that Jesus loves me so much that he thirsts for me to draw near to Him in prayer. I had my first ecstatic experience of God’s love which lasted for a couple of hours. I was lost in the wonder of His love for me and the adoration of Him.

Feel free to check out the rest of that story and add your insights to this study. But here is the reading from the Catechism.

PART FOUR

CHRISTIAN PRAYER

SECTION ONE

PRAYER IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

2558 “Great is the mystery of the faith!” The Church professes this mystery in the Apostles’ Creed (Part One) and celebrates it in the sacramental liturgy (Part Two), so that the life of the faithful may be conformed to Christ in the Holy Spirit to the glory of God the Father (Part Three). This mystery, then, requires that the faithful believe in it, that they celebrate it, and that they live from it in a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. This relationship is prayer.

WHAT IS PRAYER?

For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy. (St. Therese of Lisieux)

Prayer as God’s gift

2559 “Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God.” (St. John Damascene) But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or “out of the depths” of a humble and contrite heart? (Psalm 130:1) He who humbles himself will be exalted; (Luke 18:9-14) humility is the foundation of prayer, Only when we humbly acknowledge that “we do not know how to pray as we ought,” (Romans 8:26) are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. “Man is a beggar before God.” (St. Augustine)

2560 “If you knew the gift of God!” (John 4:10) The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God’s desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him. (St. Augustine)

2561 “You would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” (John 4:10) Paradoxically our prayer of petition is a response to the plea of the living God: “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water!” (Jeremiah 2:13) Prayer is the response of faith to the free promise of salvation and also a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God. (John7:37-39; 19:28; Isaiah 12:3; 51:1; Zechariah 12:10; 13:1)