Types of prayer

Third Sunday of Advent Year A 2016:

            Well you have to love this Sunday.  It’s called Gaudete Sunday, which means rejoice.  It’s one of only 2 days in the year where the Church puts on the Rose vestments, which are symbolic of Joy.  It’s almost Christmas.  Hooray. 

But, we still have 2 weeks.  We still have 2 weeks to get ready.  Yes, buying presents, baking cookies, having parties, and all that.  But, also spiritually, we have 2 more weeks of Advent to prepare to meet our Lord. 

Here at St. Jude we have been focusing on prayer during this season of Advent.  The first week we discussed a definition of prayer as ‘living with God.’  This is a good reminder that we should live our daily lives in union with God who is always there with us.  Last week we discussed some difficulties in prayer.  This week I want to talk about some different prayer styles.

St. John the Baptist sends messengers to Jesus to ask a simple question: who are you?  Isn’t that the most important question ever?  Who is Jesus?  If Jesus is just a regular guy who said some nice things, his existence wasn’t a big deal.  But, if Jesus is the incarnate Son of God sent by the Father to bring Good News of eternal life to his people, it makes a huge difference.  The identity of Jesus has a huge impact on history.

The identity of Jesus also has a huge impact in our lives.  If Jesus is a living, breathing, real person, with whom we interact on a daily basis, then it will change the way we think, act, work, play, live.  Living with Jesus will fill our lives with joy, he will be there when times are tough.  But, if Jesus is a story in a book, if he is abstract, distant, or theoretical, then he won’t have a huge impact in our lives, and we will be missing out on his presence.

So, think about your own life.  How much does your relationship with Jesus affect how you live, how you think?  Don’t worry, when it comes to prayer and relationship with Jesus it is never a game of perfect.  It’s not like we have to grow to a certain level and then we are just done.  No, we are always in process.  But, it does take a process.  We need a plan if we are going to improve in our spiritual life.

I heard a quote one time from a football coach on TV (I can’t remember if it was Tony Dungy or Herm Edwards) and I thought it applied to so many things in life.  He said “anyone can have a goal.  But, a goal without a plan is just a wish.”  Isn’t that great?  A goal without a plan is just a wish.  When I heard that for the first time, it made so much sense.  So many of my goals and aspirations were just that, wishes.  I didn’t have plans in place to help me to grow.  One place I saw that was in my prayer life.  I wanted my prayer life to improve, but I didn’t have a plan in place.  So, let me give you three areas of prayer so that you can try to formulate plans in each area.  If you do this, you will really see your life of prayer grow every day.

First, private prayer.  Private prayer is the living relationship that each soul has with the living God.  Private prayer can be as simple as thinking about God.  Private prayer is where we share with God the deepest part of our hearts, we lay bare our souls, we communicate with God on a deep level.  We can do this in many different ways.  Some people stick to mental prayer, just having a verbal dialogue with God in our minds.  Some people use prayer books for inspiration.  Some people will pray the rosary, read the scriptures, or pray the divine mercy chaplet.  All these different tools for prayer or different styles of prayer help us to connect with God in the depths of our being.

But, in addition to private prayer, there is public prayer.  And just a little hint, we are doing it right now.  Because we are body and soul creatures, we have to make sure that prayer is touching both aspects.  Private prayer is a great way to pray inside of us.  But, public prayer is just as necessary so that we are praying on the outside too.  Mass is the most important public prayer.  Mass really helped me to grow as a disciple of Jesus.  I started going to daily Mass in my early 20’s and it really changed my life.  Confession is another great public prayer (of course it’s more private) but it helps us to connect with God on the outside and on the inside.  Also, families, do you pray together as a family?  Try to plan on how your family is going to be able to be a family that not only prays to God on the inside, but on the outside as well.

Finally, spiritual reading.  So, private prayer and public prayer are great ways to connect to God.  But, spiritual reading is important because it helps to keep the content of our prayer fresh and up to date.  I’ve definitely noticed that in my life I can hit a little rut in prayer.  I can find times where it seems like I just go over the same things in prayer, or like I don’t have new ideas.  This is where spiritual reading comes into play.  By picking up a good book, I get challenged with new ideas.  I get new words that can form the dialogue that I have with God.  Now, the problem with spiritual reading is that everyone ends up liking different books.  You have to find the books that are right for you.

I remember my first year in seminary lots of people recommended books to me.  Each time, I would start the book and I would find that it just wasn’t doing anything for me.  In fact, after a couple months I was starting to wonder if maybe I was in the wrong place.  I mean what good is a priest who doesn’t like reading about God right?  But, then I found a book that really connected with me.  It was the Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton.  I really enjoyed that book and it helped me out.  Then I found CS Lewis and his book Mere Christianity.  Then I found Crossing the Threshold of Hope by John Paul II.  You get the picture.  I’ve found numerous books that have helped me to grow as a Christian.  But, at first, I was disappointed because it didn’t seem to be going well.  So, my recommendation: if a book still seems boring or dry after a couple chapters, just stop reading it and get a new one.  Spiritual reading is not going to help you at all if you don’t find books that inspire you.

So, these are three areas of prayer: private, public, and spiritual reading.  If you can develop a game plan in these areas you will see your prayer life take off.  Also, check the bulletin because in my column I describe other styles of prayer.  Each one of us will have a different plan, a different style.  That’s ok.  We are all different people after all.  But, hopefully we are all heading in the same direction.  It’s the direction of Advent: we are all heading towards welcoming Christ into our lives..

Obstacles of prayer?

Second Sunday of Advent year A 2016:

In today’s gospel we hear the voice of John the Baptist.  He says repent, we hear that we need to prepare the way of the Lord.  This is one of the major themes of Advent right?  Prepare the way for the Lord, prepare for his arrival at Christmas, and when he comes again.  The words of John the Baptist remind us of a basic truth in the Christian life.  We cannot remain passive, we have to become active.  John is calling us to take action.  Jesus is coming, and we cannot just stay on the sidelines, we have to get into the action.

As I mentioned last Sunday, we are spending the season of Advent here at St. Jude thinking about our life of prayer.  Last week we defined prayer as living with God.  All of us can grow in our spiritual lives if we start to see our whole life as being lived in God’s presence.  I mean, God is there already, but by calling to mind his presence, we can start to see everything in the light of our relationship with him.  Living with God can have a profound impact on our daily lives.  Prayer is essential if we are going to take action and put into practice the words of St. John: repent and prepare the way of the Lord.

But, prayer is not always easy.  In some ways prayer is simple, living with God, speaking with him.  But, this doesn’t mean that it is easy.  So, as we hear St. John say “prepare the way of the Lord,” it got me thinking about how we can do this in our own lives.  What are some of the common obstacles of prayer and how can we overcome them.

The first one that I hear quite often is “I don’t have time to pray.”  Isn’t that the truth sometimes?  Our lives seem to be getting busier all the time.  Just for an example, Thursday I woke up and looked at my calendar to see what all I had going on that day and I discovered that I had 11 appointments on my calendar.  I was basically booked from 7:00 mass in the morning until 9:00 at night.  It was a crazy day.  How many of us can say the same?  These kinds of days are becoming the norm more and more.  So, how to pray when our life seems so crazy?

I have 2 suggestions.  First, try to carve out time for prayer.  Remember how I said I had 11 appointments?  Well, one of my appointments that day was my holy hour in the chapel.  I make that hour every week, and it’s an important part of my spiritual life.  And, I certainly call it an appointment.  I feel it is just as important as anything else in my schedule.  I try never to bump that hour from my schedule.  Normally, if someone wants to meet with me I can just meet before or after that hour.  Try to do the same in your own life.  Make an appointment with God and make sure you stick to it.  Try to schedule a weekly holy hour, maybe a rosary, a time to read scripture.  Our lives are crazy, so we have to become more intentional about prayer time.  I know that if I don’t schedule prayer, I find I don’t pray as much.  I think many of us just think: I’ll pray when I get the time… But, we never get the time, so try to book it.

Second suggestion: make your everyday life more prayerful.  So, we cannot always be in the chapel.  We cannot always be praying the rosary.  But, we can always talk to God.  This is a trick I learned during my time in the seminary.  I noticed that there is a lot of time spent traveling and waiting.  Maybe it’s time in the car.  Maybe it’s walking between appointments.  Maybe it’s waiting at the doctor’s or whatever.  Think about your day.  How much time is really just waiting or travelling?  I try to use that time to have quick conversations with God.  I tell him what’s going on in my life.  I ask him for guidance.  I share with him my troubles and burdens.  Simply put, I just try to reach out to God.  I find that in my life, there are lots of these little minutes.  I can squander these times, or I can turn to God.  I can tell you that when I’m in the habit of reaching out to God in all the little moments of my life, my life sure seems to go more smoothly.

Time is just one obstacle to prayer.  Hopefully these two suggestions might help you to prepare the way of the Lord.  Check out the bulletin this week.  In my column I talk about some other common obstacles to prayer.  I hope you will find these things helpful.

Living with God.  In some ways it’s quite simple, but it’s not easy.  Hear the word of John the Baptist today and take action.  Prepare the way of the Lord.  Actively seek to grow in faith by growing in prayer.  If you do, then this Advent will be a great season of growth for your life of faith.

Prayer is Living with God

First Sunday of Advent year A 2016:

I just love Advent.  It has always been one of my favorite seasons.  I can remember being a kid and just loving to see the Advent wreathe go up in Church.  It meant 2 great things.  1, school was coming to an end for vacation soon.  2, Christmas was right around the corner with feasting and presents.  I have always loved Christmas like no other day.  So to see these candles on display meant the time was coming near, the wait was almost over.

But, as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to value Advent in a new way.  No longer do I see it simply as a time of waiting for Christmas.  Now, I see it as a time of preparation.  And a time of preparation not only for celebrating Christmas as a parish.  But, Advent is also a time to prepare for meeting Jesus.  I don’t want to sound morbid, but we will all meet Jesus someday.  We don’t know the day nor the hour.  But, he is coming for each one of us.  Advent is a yearly reminder to be on watch for him.  But, I’ll let you in on a little secret: the Advent of Jesus is not simply something that happened at Christmas, or something that will happen at the end.  The Advent of Jesus takes place every day.

If we want to be prepared for meeting Jesus, we have to meet him in our daily lives.  If we get to know Jesus while in this life, then we will have communion with him for eternal life.  But, on the other hand, if we don’t know Jesus in this life, we won’t be able to recognize him on the last day.

So, make this season of Advent a powerful time to refresh your relationship with Jesus.  Get to know him all over again.  Of course, the key to any good relationship is communication.  When it comes to communicating with Jesus, we call this prayer.

During the next 4 weeks here at St. Jude we are going to reflect on prayer.  So, if you already have a perfect prayer life, I want to apologize right now.  Because the next 4 weeks are only going to be important if you feel like prayer is a challenge, if you feel like you would like your prayer life to improve.  It will only be good if you need some guidance on facing the challenges and obstacles of prayer.  But, if you already have those things all handled, it might be a bit dry for you.  If so, please bear with us…

Today we begin by simply trying to answer the question: what is prayer?  If I had you write down answers to this question, what would you say?  For some people, prayer is specific: the rosary, or the mass.  For some it’s really generic: it’s having a nice thought…  But, I think for most people prayer is something sort of ambiguous or difficult to pin down.  Well, if we don’t have a good understanding of what prayer is all about, it’s going to be really hard to have a good prayer life.

So, here is a definition that I like: prayer is living with God.  Prayer is living with God.  This definition is simple to remember, but it includes perhaps the most important part: prayer is about our experiencing God in the midst of our lives.  Think about the people you live with: maybe a spouse, a sibling, parent.  What kind of a relationship do you have with that person?  Maybe some days it’s great.  Maybe somedays it’s a fight.  Maybe some days there’s lots of communication, maybe some days it’s just peace and quiet.  But, if you think about these people you will see that there is sharing.  There is a sharing of space, a sharing of thought, a sharing of burdens, a sharing of joys, blessings, food, etc.  The one thing that is usually implied when it comes to living with people is sharing.

So, what about seeing your life as being lived with God.  Do you see him as being a living part of your everyday lives just like those very real and tangible humans with whom you share your life?  Or, does God seem distant and remote?  Prayer is living with God.  So, it means sharing with him.  Share your burdens at the beginning of a stressful day.  Share your morning cup of coffee with him, and just chat away like you might with a friend.  Share your blessings, your joys, your griefs, your struggles, your pains.  Most importantly, share, talk, love, laugh. 

In my experience as a priest, when I say prayer, I’m suggesting the building of a living relationship with the living God.  But, when people hear “prayer” they think of specific concrete forms of prayer, like Mass, Adoration, Rosary, Divine Mercy, etc.  Of course, all these prayers are great, and they certainly have a place in a prayer life.  But, I’m not just telling you to add one more thing to your already busy life; rather, I’m saying we need to make our lives prayerful. Prayer is living with God.  It includes prayer events, but it’s also a mindset, a lifestyle, a way of seeing the world that could change just about everything.

So, take some time this week and think about your understanding of prayer itself.  Do you see it as something overly formal, something overly general, do you have a solid understanding of what prayer is all about?  Do you live your life with God? 

Now, I should warn all of you.  Living with God is not easy.  It’s not always easy to live with other humans either.  But, living with God is certainly worth it.  Having God in our life literally changes everything.  Jesus wants us to be prepared for that day when he will come to meet us.  The only way to be prepared for spending our eternity with God is to live with God now.  Make this Advent a month of prayer and discovery so that you can grow in your relationship with God.

St. Jude Our Patron

Feast of Saint Jude 2016:

This weekend we celebrate with great joy our patronal feast day.  We are celebrating the feast of St. Jude, the apostle.  What does it mean to say that St. Jude is our patron saint?  Certainly, the Church is named after him.  So, this parish is dedicated to St. Jude in a special way.  I know that non-Catholics can sometimes find this confusing.  Does this mean that we worship St. Jude?  No, we worship God alone.  But, the saints are our examples, our heroes.  Also, since we believe that the saints are alive and well in heaven, they are also our powerful advocates and guides.  St. Jude is a terrific example for us and a powerful patron.

First, St. Jude provides us with an example of Christian living.  In fact, all the apostles do.  Think about that list of apostles that we heard in the gospel.  We probably think about them in glowing terms, these names call to mind great statues, huge basilicas, and heroic courage.  But, they didn’t exactly start that way: one was a crooked tax collector, one was a zealot, one betrayed Jesus, one denied him three times.  Over and again in the gospel, we hear them being petty, doubtful, and maybe even arrogant or aloof.  And what about St. Jude?  What’s interesting is that we know very little about him.  All we really have to go on are pious legends.  So, here we are at St. Jude parish, it’s a parish dedicated to a relatively unknown person.  How did he become so famous?  Well, according to legend he and Saint Simon were executed as martyrs for the faith.  Their bodies were brought to Rome and buried in St. Peter’s basilica.  However, pilgrims began to bring petitions to St. Jude.  They found that their prayers were being answered.  So, his fame spread.  And here we are at St. Jude Catholic Church 2000 years later.

The example of the apostles is that no matter where we are now, we can always move toward greatness.  No matter what kind of sinner we might be, we can always become great saints.  The apostles went from sinners, doubters, deniers, and unknowns, to great saints because of their relationship with the risen Christ.  When Christ gave them the gift of the Holy Spirit, it changed their hearts and their lives. They became the great heroes of the faith not because of their own merits, but because of the power of God at work within them.  So, hopefully St. Jude be an example for us all.  We might not be important, or famous.  But, we too can be saints by God’s power.

Second, we call St. Jude our patron.  What does that mean?  It means that we can have a relationship with him, because he is not dead, but alive.  The saints are living with God.  They can pray for us, guide us, and help us. 

St. Jude is also known as being a patron for especially difficult and hopeless cases.  I remember learning about this for the first time.  I was a seminarian and I was assigned to St. Pius for the summer.  Fr. Bill Schooler is the pastor there, and he was formerly the pastor right here at St. Judes.  The first night I was at the rectory we were in the living room chatting and hanging out.  Fr. Bill had a cat who came slinking into the room.  Now, I’m not much of an animal person.  But, I think animals can sense that, so they are always trying to cozy up to me to get me to change my mind.  But, this, of course, makes me like them even less…  Anyway, Fr. Bill’s cat jumped right on my lap.  Fr. Bill told me that this cat would never do this normally.  Anyway, I asked what the cat’s name was, he said: She’s hopeless.  Hopeless, that’s a weird name for a cat.  So, he told me that he named her after St. Jude, who was the patron for hopeless cases because he got the cat while he was pastor here.  I found that interesting.

The reason that St. Jude is patron of those hopeless cases is because those people who went to his tomb would bring their most difficult and seemingly impossible cases and they would receive miracles in their lives.  So, I love having St. Jude as our patron.  No problem is too tough for him.  He can pray and guide us always.  Outside of the school we have that beautiful St. Jude statue.  I like to walk past it every day on the way to church.  Whatever problem or issue is weighing on me, I just hand it over to him.  I always say: St. Jude, this is your parish, not mine.  Help me out with this issue.  I’m telling you, it really helps.  Maybe you could try the same thing.

What a great feast day for us.  St. Jude is a wonderful example for us of being a saint, and he is a powerful intercessor.  As his parish, we turn to him today and always.  We ask for guidance and prayers.  No problem is too tough for him.  So, today and always we pray: St. Jude our Patron, pray for us.