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Tag Archives: prayers

What To Do?

07 Thursday May 2020

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coronavirus, pandemic, prayers, present moment, thank you, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, to do list

The sun is playing hide-and-seek outside and everything is still. No movement in the trees, hardly a peep from the birds. That’s how it feels inside too…I am wanting only to hold on to what feels like nothing. (How can that make sense?) I ask myself if that means I have moved to another stage of this new mode of living, settling into what will surely be called “pandemic mode” but just as surely could be named listlessness or exhaustion. When I knew we were going to spend more than weeks in “quarantine” (the “just stay home” order), I had a vision of clearing away all sorts of excess in my living space and lack of order in my spiritual and physical routines. Now after almost two months of this new kind of opportunity, I see little progress.

We don’t have any idea of what the future holds and can’t hold on to any past certainties so have been told repeatedly to “live the present moment.” Therein lies the rub on days like today when I have a list of tasks in my head but no sense of how to go about them.

So finally I picked up a little, lovely, home-made book of prayers that our friend Carolyn created a couple of years ago and sent as a gift. There I found near the end of her prayers a possible way to meet each hour of this day. Carolyn speaks:

Dear Jesus, I inhale your words and exhale doubt, fear, anger, judgment and despair so your breath may reach my heart whole, clean, unencumbered, pure, alive and joyous. Thank you.

And I say, “Thank you, Carolyn” for a way through this day, this collection of present moments that I can use as an offering that becomes my best gift of self today.

Thomas Merton, from the Desert

25 Monday Feb 2019

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abbas, ammas, desert, prayers, retreat, spiritual liberty, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, The Wisdom of the Desert, Thomas Merton, true self

It is 6:52 a.m. in Tucson, Arizona, and I am here to learn about those intrepid men and women known as the desert fathers and mothers (or Abbas and Ammas) of early Christianity (4th century), who left the cities to find their “true selves” in the  silence and solitude of the deserts of the Near East.

Later this morning I will set out and find a space in this desert place where I will be alone for just an hour without anything to distract me but my own thoughts. The rules are: no cellphone, no journal, no watch to tell when we should come back. “Watch the sky,” our teacher answered when that question came up. Just walk out, find a place and sit down. Simple? Not so much, since we are 21st century Americans.

Here’s what Thomas Merton said on the subject in his book, The Wisdom of the Desert:

“We cannot do exactly what they did. But we must be as thorough and as ruthless in our determination to break all spiritual chains, and cast off the domination of alien compulsions, to find out true selves, to discover and develop our inalienable spiritual liberty and use it to build, on earth, the Kingdom of God. This is not the place in which to speculate what our great and mysterious vocation might involve. That is still unknown. Let it suffice for me to say that we need to learn from these men [and women] of the fourth century how to ignore prejudice, defy compulsion and strike out fearlessly into the unknown.” (p.24)

This will obviously not be achieved any time soon but making a start seems important today. Prayers, please!

Audacity

11 Friday Jan 2019

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convictions, courage, God's willingness, healing, hear, help, Jesus, leper, Luke, prayers, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Every once in awhile we find someone in the Scriptures who isn’t afraid to take a risk in his/her approach to Jesus. The leper in today’s gospel is such a person. Upon seeing Jesus “in one of the towns where Jesus was,” this man took the dramatic step of prostrating himself before Jesus saying, “If you want to, you can make me clean.”

I have this image of the encounter. Jesus is either chatting with someone on a street corner or shopping for something that he or someone else needed. There is no crowd around; it’s early in the gospel of Luke (5:12-16) and the man was able to go right up to where Jesus was and, recognizing him somehow, declare his request without hesitation. Whether Jesus was taken aback or happy that the person in front of him was so direct and sure of him, his answer was just as straightforward. “Of course I want to (my favorite translation says), be clean!” And so it happened. Jesus stretched out his hand, touched the man and the leprosy left him immediately – just like that!

When I am feeling timid about the reasonableness of my prayers, I would do well to remember this man and summon up the courage of my convictions, remembering God’s willingness to hear me and help me. Confidence will win every time!

Step By Step

27 Wednesday Jun 2018

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Ancient Songs Sung Anew, heart, insights, law, lesson, messages, prayers, psalm 119, soul, teach, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, thought, treasure, truth, vision

astaircasePsalm 119, the longest in the book of 150 psalms, has 176 verses and can be the study of a lifetime. In a commentary this morning I read that the subject of these prayers is the hard learning one gains in light of a multitude of hardships and circumstances encountered on the spiritual path…Experiences are often repeated again and again. As we go over the same territory learning it in new ways, truth becomes grounded. Insights are gained from each spiral of ascending experience.

How true that seems to me! The great thing is that as we grow older and if we are paying attention it becomes easier to accede to what is being taught. Our resistance to the messages and thinking we are right all the time wanes and God’s voice becomes stronger – but only if we are listening deeply.

Today’s lectionary section is early in the psalm and sounds either like a young person who is full of enthusiasm for the journey, or someone who knows from experience the pitfalls and is ready to surrender to God’s dream. Either way, I find it a lovely morning offering.

Even now, O Lord, if you will but teach me, I shall keep as treasure all you say. Give me an understanding heart to grasp what lies alone in you, the outlines of your law, your thought; imprint them on my soul. My deep desire is for a heart whose compass-point is aimed at your true north and not some weaker pole. I desire eyes as well that do not wander but hold your vision fast for all eternity. (vs. 33-37, Ancient Songs Sung Anew)

 

 

 

 

 

 

St. Louise de Marillac

15 Thursday Mar 2018

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answers, prayers, slow work of God, spiritual path, St. Louise de Marillac, St. Vincent de Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

alouisedemarillacIt is said that behind every great man is a great woman and this is certainly obvious as one learns the story of Saint Louise de Marillac. Born on August 12, 1591 near the small town of Meux in the southwest of France, Louise had lost both her parents by the age of fifteen. Discouraged by her confessor from becoming a nun, she was married and had one son but soon became the longtime caregiver to her beloved husband until his death. Although she had wise council from two notable men – one a bishop and the other later declared a Saint (Francis de Sales), Louise’s vision of her spiritual path came from an “inner illumination.” In this way she understood that “she was to undertake a great work under the guidance of another person she had not yet met.” That person was St. Vincent de Paul. Vincent, busy with his “Confraternities of Charity” – aristocratic ladies who were helping him serve the poor and neglected children – was reluctant to become Louise’s confessor, but he soon realized that she, of the peasant class herself, could not only meet the poor as an equal but also was gifted in teaching and organizing helpers of their own class.

What stands out in the biography of Louise in “Saint of the Day” at http://www.franciscanmedia.org is what Teilhard de Chardin saw as the slow work of God. The long illness of her husband, the only periodic availability of counselors, the long time it took for Vincent DePaul to realize that she was the answer to his prayers and Vincent’s slowness in allowing the organization of what became the Daughters of Charity into a religious congregation all reads as a testament to the faith and trust and patience of this remarkable woman. Louise spent her life helping wherever needed and in her later years traveled throughout France, establishing her community members in hospitals, orphanages and other institutions. Louise died on March 15, 1660, and was finally named a saint of the Roman Catholic Church in 1934.

It has been my privilege to know and work with many of the Daughters of St. Louise de Marillac and I celebrate them today as a collective example of what one woman can accomplish and how her followers can change the world of needy people around the globe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prepare!

10 Sunday Dec 2017

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Advent, Christmas, consciousness, Incarnation, Jesus, Messiah, prayers, preparation, prepare ye the way of the Lord, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

anadventwreath2Three times in the readings for this second Sunday of Advent we hear the call to “Prepare the way of the Lord!” We are accustomed to this directive but I always question how it is that we are preparing. Is the rush to Christmas shopping the way? The thought of gift-giving is certainly part of the thinking about that activity but it has become such a frenzy in our culture that I wonder how many of us stop to think about the genesis of the custom. Here are some questions for us – me included – for today’s reflection about preparing.

  1. Do we really see this time of Advent as a true opportunity to go deeply into the mystery of the Incarnation – the entry of God’s promise into this realm of life?
  2. Will we understand on Christmas day what the coming of Christ might mean at this moment to our individual lives as well as to our world?
  3. What difference will our preparation make?
  4. Because Jesus did not “fit the bill” of the Messiah for those waiting for the throne of David to be restored, only the really astute ones, those who intuited who he was (like Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna), really noticed his coming. What about us? Do we recognize the possibility that exists in our day? The possibility that the times warrant a new kind of Christmas, a new coming of Christ into the world?
  5. Have we been preparing for the in-breaking of God to shake us up and create us anew? Is our consciousness, our recognition, such that we might recognize the Christ hidden in our neighbors? Our co-workers? Our families? Our church community?
  6. In our preparation, have we set aside some special time to pray, to ask for the Christ presence to be born in our hearts so that we might face the challenges that are so evident and in need of our care and attention?
  7. Do we expect our prayers to be answered?

Enough! Let us get about preparing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soup for Syria

03 Friday Nov 2017

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Barbara Abdeni Massaad, Peace, prayers, refugees, Soup For Syria, soup supper, Syria, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

soup-for-syria-coverDuring the final siege of Aleppo, Syria, in December of 2016, I found myself more distressed than I can ever remember when watching the evening news. Seeing the faces of the children hiding in bombed out buildings as they waited for rescue was heartbreaking. I have rarely felt so helpless in the face of innocence and those faces stayed with me calling me to do something in addition to my prayers for peace.

Some weeks later I heard a report on the evening news about a woman who was working to quell the effects of the Aleppo disaster by making soup! Barbara Abdeni-Massaad, a photographer and writer of cookbooks was living in Beirut, Lebanon and had begun thinking about the Syrian refugees one frigid night in her apartment when she herself could not seem to get warm. By 2015 there were an estimated 1.1 million refugee families in Lebanon. “I couldn’t sleep, thinking about those refugee families in the Bekaa sleeping in their tents. How were they able to beat the winter cold? I couldn’t go on with my life and ignore theirs.” She began to visit the camps bringing soup and eventually, after engaging other soup makers to companion her and cooks from around the world to send her recipes, she wrote a cookbook called Soup for Syria: Recipes to Celebrate Our Shared Humanity, published by Interlink Books. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the books sold in the United States go to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees.

“That’s it!” I said to myself. “That’s what I can do!!” Having soup suppers has become one way in which people like me are able to contribute to the care of refugees in a small way. Barbara Abdeni-Massaad is quoted as saying to the refugees, “Had I been a barber, I would have cut your hair for free. I am not a barber but a photographer and a food writer so I will take photos and write about food to help your cause and send a message to the world.” And to us, she says, “Each kind gesture toward another in need is a step forward for humanity. Use what you know to help others.”

I’m not a barber, not a food writer or a photographer, but tonight under the auspices of The Sophia Center for Spirituality, I will take photos and serve soup to anyone who stops in at the First Congregational Church in Binghamton, New York. I and my co-workers will sell the book Soup for Syria: Recipes to Celebrate Our Shared Humanity and speak of the genesis of this project, hoping to generate interest for soup-making and similar gatherings. And I will finally feel that I have taken that tiny first step that is possible for me toward alleviating suffering in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

Guardian Angels

02 Monday Oct 2017

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angel, attentiveness, comfort, faith, Guardian Angel, love, loving, personal, prayers, protection, safety, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

aguardianangelBefore I learned any of the prayers that are at the heart of my Church practice, I knew I had protection from heaven each night while I slept because of the simple prayer that helped me close my eyes in trust. You may have learned it too. In a sing-song voice to that matched the rhythm of the words, countless young people repeated night after night:

Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God’s love commits me here, ever this night be at my side to light and guard, to rule and guide.

Some of us repeated the prayer upon awakening, grateful for having survived the night and wanting to keep the protection going throughout the day. It was simple. Just one word (changing “night” to “day”) gave us continued peace and safety from harm.

These days there are workshops galore for people whose connection to the spirit realm has endured and deepened into adulthood. There are books written about angels, especially the “big three” archangels: Gabriel, Raphael and Michael, named in Scripture and revered for particular reasons: Michael for protection from evil, Gabriel as a messenger of Good News and Raphael, known for mercy and healing (esp. of Tobias’ blindness in the Book of Tobit). In a simpler and more elemental way, however, people still have confidence in God’s care, often manifested as a belief in a personal Guardian Angel.

This is what we celebrate today: faith in the kind protection of a God whose attentiveness to us is personal and loving. Today might be a day to reflect on those persons in our life who have been “angels” for us in God’s service and to thank God for what we cannot see with our human eyes but still perceive in our experience of comfort, protection and – best of all – love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out of the Depths

02 Sunday Apr 2017

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Ancient Songs Sung Anew, despair, Easter season, familiar, forgiveness, impact, Lent, Lynn Bauman, mercy, practices, prayers, presence, Psalm 30, responsibility, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

aforgivenessMy first thoughts on this fifth Sunday of Lent centered around my relatively low level of attention for what (in my experience anyway) was always called “the holy season of Lent.” I do not disparage that title; more Christians are likely aware of religious practice during these six weeks than at any other time in the year. It makes me wonder, however, why the fervor doesn’t often last throughout the fifty days of the Easter season. Perhaps we find it easier to do penance than to rejoice! If so, what does that have to say about our image of God? But I digress…

The tenor of my offerings over these last weeks comes, I think, from my conviction that although reminders of special times are important, it is our everyday devotion that will move us toward God, sort of a “one step at a time” approach, and I sometimes think that we become so familiar with certain prayers or practices that they can lose the impact of their meaning for us. Take Psalm 30, for instance. I can recite the whole thing and recognize that we are being called to repentance by the psalmist’s cry, but sometimes it sounds so dire – as if I am the worst sinner in the universe – that I refuse the import of what can be gained by reflection on the meaning and stop at the part about my guilt, thereby missing the resolution in the last verses. I miss both my responsibility to repair relationship and God’s willingness to allow it to happen. Maybe it’s because the psalmist is talking about the relationship of the nation of Israel to God rather than my person. Thus, I come to my point. I find in Lynn Bauman’s translation of Psalm 30 a recognition both of my responsibility for my unworthy actions and an acknowledgment of God’s willingness to hear my longing for the benevolent embrace of forgiveness and love. It only takes the effort of silence to recognize the possibility. Listen to this text below with your heart wide open.

Lord, I am calling to you again, from the depths; in this place of despair hear my voice. Listen, listen, if you will, for I am crying. If you were to note everything, all missteps and offenses, none of us could stand before you uncondemned. But always, always you forgive, and make us whole again, and so we stand in awe before you, waiting. My whole being waits for you, my God, listening for your presence. I long to hear your voice again, speaking. So like a watchman who anticipates the crack of dawn, my heart waits for the first-light of your word. Listen, listen, wait in silence listening for the One from whom all-mercy flows, who is the secret source of our redemption, and the healing of the wounds our sins have caused. (Ancient Songs Sung Anew, p. 334)

 

 

 

 

 

Angelic Doctor

28 Saturday Jan 2017

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Doctor of the Church, faith, harmony, hymns, natural truth, prayers, reason, St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, theologian, unity

anaquinasToday is the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), one of the most celebrated theologians of all times, held in the esteemed title of Doctor of the Church. Not only was he a theologian and philosopher but he was also a very devout man and priest who wrote beautiful prayers and hymns. Fr. Don Miller (Franciscan Media) captures the essence of his genius, I think, when he comments that “unity, harmony and continuity of faith and reason, of revealed and natural truth pervades his writing.”

The most striking insight of this brilliant man came, it seems, three months before his death. His last work, the Summa theologiae, a compendium of Catholic theology, was unfinished; he stopped writing after celebrating Mass on December 6, 1273. When asked why, he replied, “I cannot go on…All I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me.”

I find myself feeling deeply compassionate for this brilliant, holy man who had worked all his life to understand the workings of God and the universe only to find at the end of his life that holy mystery cannot be captured by the mind but only lived in wonder and awe in one’s whole being. My compassion moves to joy for the fullness of what he had seen that was, paradoxically, the completion of his life’s work.

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