Review your life

After being baptized in the Jordan River and in preparation for his upcoming mission, Jesus went into the desert to pray. (Matthew 4: 1-11) Jesus had to deal, especially, with temptations to do ministry his own way, instead of the Father’s way. As Jesus’ followers, we have similar temptations. So, it also is good for us to get away for a time. But, Jesus was lucky. He had a nearby desert. Where is our desert? Unless we deliberately hunker down in a cabin in Cook Forest right before a blizzard hits, finding the time and place to be alone is difficult. We must make our own desert. Some ways that have worked for me are: going to a retreat house, stopping in at church during off hours and locking myself in a room.

In preparation for big changes like getting married, having a baby or starting a new job, we, like Jesus, need to pray, reflect and discern. Depending on our circumstances, this need might be met in a seminary program, a 30-day retreat, a Pre-Cana conference, the RCIA, etc. Many spiritual directors and writers recommend we make a retreat every year and review our life with God monthly, weekly, even daily.

Of course, any time is a good time for self-assessment. But daily is the ideal frequency for the review of life. The end of the day or the first thing in the morning is the best time to reflect on the day. Such a practice is like breaking up the earth so that God can sow and nurture the seeds of new life in us. How is prayerful reflection done? One way is to check our behavior, using the Ten Commandments. Another way is to do an examination of conscience using either a purchased printed form or one found on the Internet, such as at www.norprov.org/spirituality/ignatianprayer.htm.

If we have been living the Christian life for some time, the review we need is more of an attitude check about relating to God, other people, life in the world and so on. For many of us “old-timers,” it is not only about sin but also about discerning what God is calling us to. With all due respect, we cannot settle for Yogi Berra’s wisdom: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!” We Christians must be as sure as possible that our way is God’s way and not a wrong turn.

Concretely, you might prayerfully review your day using the following five steps:

1. Relax and ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten you.
2. Thank God for the specific blessings of the past day.
3. Reflect on what you did this day; were your actions motivated by love?
4. Acknowledge your failings and ask God for forgiveness.
5. Make resolutions about what you will do differently tomorrow.

Notice that these steps focus on broad patterns of behavior, not just sin. Rooting out vice is just one part of what Christian discipleship is all about. Where is loving service and community in the sin-extermination scenario? A healthy review of life helps us grow closer to God and, communally, helps us build God’s reign of justice and love on earth. We need to become aware of our resistances, our tendencies to not act on the things God says to us. And, of course, we need to ask for divine assistance to change. It may be possible to alter surface behavior with strength of mind, but deep attitude change is beyond our own power. It requires grace and inner healing, which are gifts from God.

Going apart to prayerfully reflect is a desert experience, but it enables us to learn to love as Jesus did. And loving like Jesus did is, ultimately, water to our own souls!

—Fred Keck earned his doctorate in theology at Fordham University. He is currently studying for the permanent diaconate in the Erie Diocese.

E-mail a friend

Please tell us what you thought of this feature

Listening to God in prayer

Success as a Christian would be easier if God’s reign could be earned like a diploma or a civil service promotion. You could list and check off accomplishments: Keep the Sabbath. Check. Support your pastor. Check. Do not commit adultery. Check. When the list is completed, you’re in!

But it is not like that. Jesus taught his followers to love God with their whole mind and heart and strength, and to love their neighbor as themselves. His teachings are not about keeping rules, but about relationship with God and other people.

We carry on this relationship with Jesus through prayer, Scripture, sacraments, ministry, etc. Jesus’ teachings are an important medium through which he speaks to us and guides us. If we listen for Jesus’ voice, he will lead us far beyond a checklist of minimum requirements. Jesus calls each of us to live like he did, though in our own place and time. And, in his earthly life, he demonstrated that his way involves laying down one’s life for one‘s friends.

Jesus told Martha that he would not ask Mary to help in the kitchen. No. She had chosen the one thing necessary: listening to Jesus. But Mary had Jesus there in the flesh. Jesus is not in the flesh today, at least not in the same way. So how are we to listen to Jesus?

Actually, the question has three parts: Where do I listen? How do I listen? What do I listen for?

Where to listen
Jesus does speak to us, although not usually in words our ears can hear. Of course, we do hear his Word at liturgies, in the readings from Scripture and in the prayers of the rituals. But when a word or sentence really hits home personally, that is when we sense Jesus is speaking to us. God also speaks through nature, through the words of a friend or even through a song playing on the radio. I remember commuting to college back in the 70s and experiencing God urging me to trust as I listened to Paul McCartney’s song, “Let it be.” In reality, we never know where God will speak, so we have to be open to God everywhere.

How to listen
Participation in Mass, private meditation on Scripture and silent prayer are good places to hear God speak to us individually. But it is the discipline of quieting down, clearing our mind to listen and learning to wait that prepares us to hear God. We may hear God within or outside of prayer time.

Lately, for example, I have felt God telling me to focus on the “now.” The fact that it has popped into my mind several times, just out of the blue, makes me think the idea is from God. And, in this case anyway, it couldn’t hurt to focus my attention more on what is happening now, rather than on what is going on in my head. By doing what is suggested, I can test the inspiration to find out if it bears good fruit. When you experience God speaking like this, it is also good to talk with God about it in prayer. Be thankful for what you experienced and open to whatever God might add.

What to listen for
The content of God’s communication will depend on you and your circumstances. God may reassure you or challenge you or point out something you need to do. When I am particularly eager for God to tell me what I should do about a problem or bad feeling, I often experience God communicating that I am loved. This comes through a feeling of peace and perhaps words heard from within that say, “I love you.” Notice that, to learn what God has to say, we must be willing to hear something we were not expecting.

God’s communication can take numerous forms. In addition to a sense of peace, God sometimes gives people the gift of tears, a great idea or a nudge from inside to do something. Again, the way God chooses to speak to us depends on our personality type, our familiarity with Scripture and church tradition as well as on our needs at a particular time. In the end we must determine whether or not the message we think God is sending to us is from God. Familiarity with Scripture and tradition makes it easier to know whether the message is consistent with Christian teaching. And, by listening regularly and discerning the source of the message, we gradually develop an ability to recognize whether the message is in Jesus’ voice or not.

Relationship with God is not easy. There is a lot to learn. It takes time. But, on another level, it is not so difficult. Our desire to have a relationship with God in which God speaks to us is a desire God puts within us and calls us to. If your relationship with God is growing, then God’s reign is growing in you. The effort and patience are worth it. This is the way to happiness. We know this because God revealed it in the earthly life of Jesus.

—Fred Keck earned his doctorate in theology at Fordham University. He is currently studying for the permanent diaconate in the Erie Diocese.

E-mail a friend

Please tell us what you thought of this feature

Persistence in prayer

How persistent in prayer are you? Is that an important question? Jesus spoke of an unrelenting widow who got what she needed from the crooked judge by wearing him down. Jesus praised persistence in prayer. But why?

Jesus’ teaching might make nagging seem good. It might seem that prayer can magically cause God to bless us. But magic is not the proper attitude toward God. God transcends human beings, totally. We are not supposed to decide for ourselves what we truly need and then manipulate God to get it.

Jesus presents God as a loving father, as one who wants to give bread, not stones, to people who are hungry. God knows what we truly need and is eager to give it to us. And God does not need prayers to know what we need. So, why then, does Jesus urge us to be relentless in prayer?

The value of persistence
Persistence is valuable for a number of reasons. First, it is an exercise in faith. Every time we ask for God’s aid, we acknowledge that God is the source of all goodness. And, as with muscles, repeated exercise makes faith stronger. Further, by asking God repeatedly for what we need, we become more receptive to what God has to teach us. Sometimes we grow by not getting what we ask for. Often, in Christian discipleship, what we learn is that we don’t really need what we think we do. We learn that what makes us happy is to give to others, to use the gifts God has given us to love others. As the Rolling Stones’ song goes, “You can’t always get what you want…but if you try sometime you just might find, you get what you need.” (Who would have thought the Stones would be quoted in an article on prayer?)

Over time and repeated experiences of God’s care for us, our trust in God increases. And we must trust God before we can hear God’s challenge to become more. But we might never hear God’s call to develop and to minister if we do not pray for our needs. That is why Jesus tells us to be persistent. It takes time to grow enough to comprehend God’s answers to our prayers.

Acting “as if”
But what if we do not feel trusting? What if we give up if we do not get what we ask for after one or two tries? How will trust grow? Sometimes the best thing to do is to “act as if.” Act-as-if you trust in God by persistently praying for what you need. Put your own concerns aside and act-as-if you feel it is more important to learn what God has to say than to get what you want. This is not easy to do, by the way, as I know from personal experience. Generally, I want to get what I think I need. But experience has taught me that what God gives is better for me and makes me happier in the long run.

Notice that acting-as-if is not being phony. You are not pretending to have feelings you don’t have. You are deciding to behave in a way which would flow out of that feeling. Eventually, with God’s grace, your emotions will arise to fill the action. Gradually, you grow into the kind of person who spontaneously trusts and is open to God’s Word.

Put it into practice
Openness to God and the willingness to grow are the keys to happiness. Persistence in prayer helps these traits develop. Pick an area in your life where you or someone you love has a real need. (Do it now!) Okay, in the days and weeks to come, pray persistently until you experience God’s answer. Work on being so open that you can hear the answer even if it is something you didn’t expect or didn’t want to hear. Watch for what God may be doing in your life and/or in the life of the one you pray for. If you are persistent, God will answer and your persistence will be rewarded.

—Fred Keck earned his doctorate in theology at Fordham University. He is currently studying for the permanent diaconate in the Erie Diocese.

E-mail a friend

Please tell us what you thought of this feature

Seven ways to improve your prayer

A child kneeling at the side of her bed asking God to bless friends, relatives and her kitty is classic. But when we are reminded at Mass to pray daily, few of us take it to heart. Personal prayer, however, is not just for kids. Prayer is for everyone. Communication is necessary to grow with God. We pray to God at Mass. We do it, perhaps, at school or at parish meetings or at the K of C. But, just as we cannot skip Sunday Mass, we also need to have a one-on-one relationship with God. Otherwise, it would be like marrying a person with whom you never had a private moment. What kind of marriage would that be? Jesus wanted his disciples to call him not master, but friend. We must spend time with God to help such intimacy develop. Here are a few suggestions that may encourage you in your efforts to pray daily:

Pray regularly

The first key to personal prayer is establishing a daily routine. Pick a time and place where you can be alone and uninterrupted. The place should be comfortable and, if possible, not associated with work or napping or paying bills. Some people pray at church where there are fewer diversions. How long should you pray? It depends. Maybe, right now, you pray five minutes in the morning. On days off, you pray one-half hour. That’s fine! Don’t try to put so much time into prayer that you do not stick with it.

Be comfortable

Should you kneel? Feel free to do so if you want, but know that it is not necessary. Some people sit. Others stand. At different times of your life, you may change the way you pray, including your posture, the time of day, the length of prayer and what you do as prayer. It is good to begin personal prayer with a relaxation exercise. Awareness of your breathing is recommended. By focusing on one thing in the context of prayer you are saying that God is worth your full attention. In addition, when you relax, you open yourself to the peace God wants to give you. Some prayers, rather than following the rhythm of their breathing, find a similar benefit in listening to music or gazing at the flame of a candle.

Talk with God

What do you do when you pray? People do a lot of different things. Some recite pre-written prayers like the Our Father, the Hail Mary or one of the Psalms. Some do a more elaborate version of this by praying the Liturgy of the Hours. These are special books with pre-written prayers and Scripture quotes for each day of the liturgical year. Formal prayers are good, but a Christian should also learn to converse with God from her or his heart as soon as possible. We must tell God how we feel, ask for what we require, complain if that is what we need to do. God is real and must be treated accordingly. We must also learn to listen. Of course, we (usually) will not hear God with our physical ears. But ideas may come or an inner voice may speak a message God wants us to hear.

Use Bible passages

Use of Bible readings is common in many styles of personal prayer. Since the Bible is the recorded Word of God, Scripture is an especially appropriate medium of conversation with God. The idea, at least at first, is to meditate on the passage. By meditate, we mean “think about.” One way to meditate is to answer questions such as: What from this reading struck a chord in me? How does the message apply to my life? What do I need to do differently? The questions guide your thinking. Then you can talk to God about it. Later, as you grow in prayer, the question may be about what word resonates within you. You then stay with that word and let God speak to you through it. Or, you might read a passage a few times and then listen for what God has to say to you about that theme. Note that meditation is thinking, while the next step is more about being receptive to divine inspiration.

Discern God’s voice

It is possible that the voice we experience in prayer is coming from a part of our inner selves. It may mean little. It may be a good idea. Or, it may be an important idea because it is a communication from God. In order to know, Christians have ways of determining where the ideas or feelings associated with God ultimately come from. Such a process is called discernment. We cannot delve deeply into discernment here. Certainly, an impulse to behave in a way contrary to the commandments and Jesus’ teaching is not from God. Even with the tools of discernment, we cannot always know whether an idea or course of action is from God, except by acting on the urge to see if it leads to good fruit. The point is, God does want to guide us, correct us, comfort us and challenge us. We must be open to it all.

Deal with distractions

Simply being in God’s presence opens us to distractions. You try to focus on God, but you start thinking of all sorts of things: the tasks you need to do, a sick friend, great come-backs you could have said and so on. Distractions are a problem in prayer. But they must be put into perspective. Prayer is like a practice field for trusting God. We can gently return from even the most engrossing digression to focus, again, on God. We do this because we know that it is God, not our own cleverness, who saves us. So, repeatedly choosing God over distractions is the perfect exercise for a Christian disciple. On the other hand, a distraction may persist because it is too important to ignore. Maybe a part of you needs attention in the presence of God. Maybe you have issues you need to discuss with God. Maybe the distracting idea will not allow itself to be pushed aside because it is, in fact, God speaking to you. The best thing is to let go, and talk to God about the nagging idea.

Pray as you can

As Pope John Paul II said: We must pray as we can, not as we can’t. If we do this, we will be doing all God demands regarding prayer! What can we expect to happen when we pray regularly? Communal prayer will be more meaningful because of our closeness with God. In addition, God will guide us. On a moral level, we will have a well-formed conscience and be able to tell right from wrong in most situations. We may also hear God call us to a state in life, a ministry or a particular course of action. Of course, even the saints endured dry periods during which nothing discernible happened in prayer. So, it is difficult to generalize about prayer. God takes each of us where we are. But, isn’t that what we really need?

—Fred Keck earned his doctorate in theology at Fordham University. He is currently studying for the permanent diaconate in the Erie Diocese.

E-mail a friend

Please tell us what you thought of this feature

At 6:30 a.m. anything can happen...and does By Sister Susan Doubet, OSB We hold Morning Prayer in our monastery at 6:30 a.m. on weekdays. With no intention to toot our own horn, without cause, I must say that our prayer is quite special: We chant most of the psalms and canticles, have a variety of musical instruments played and have many sisters who generously share their creativity and experience in presenting the Word of God. However, that 6:30 a.m. time can sometimes overwhelm even the best of intentions. A stand-up comic couldn’t compete with some of our faux pas, for they aren’t rehearsed or timed or planned, they just happen. Here are some of the best from recent mornings: The reading from the Rule of Benedict says: “Those guilty of a serious fault are to be excluded from both the table and the oratory.” One morning we were told, “Those guilty of a serious fault are to be executed from the table ….” During the Easter season the solo reader was supposed to be telling us, “Let us go forward with branches….” But that day we were told, “Let us go forward in branches.” And then there was that time when our prayer asked God to “Free us from our tendency to sin.” But our leader begged God to “Free us from our tendency to sing.” And, she was one of our musicians, too! On hot August days you can tell even in the early morning that it’s going to be “a scorcher,” as they say, so who could blame one of our sisters when she quoted the chapter on humility in the Rule by reading: “Therefore any requests to a prioress should be made with all humidity...” Everyone loves the Advent readings, especially the Old Testament Scripture prophesies of the coming of the Messiah – except one day when we were told, “Wait in patience for God’s promise takes forever.” And finally, in our prayers we often pray for all the intentions that are asked of us. Many of them are posted on our prayer bulletin board. Here’s one of our memorable ones from that board: “Please pray for Maria K. who broke her hip and her husband Chuck.” None of these hilarious moments changes the beauty and sincerity of our prayer, of course. They just remind us that we are human.

ora et labora and herding cats I heard a funny story on the radio recently. A union worker was bemoaning the fact that the real meaning of Labor Day has been lost and that it has become just another day off from school and work. He even cited a third grader in his town who, when asked what Labor Day was about, answered, “It’s a day when we think about all the women who have had children!” Well, labor – work – still has an important place in the Rule of Benedict and one of the popular Benedictine mottos is “Ora et Labora,” (Prayer and Work). The inside family joke, muttered behind covered mouths whenever this is voiced in any monastery is, “Oh, yes, more like ‘Ora and Labora and Labora and Labora!’” Nonetheless more than 15,400 women and 7,800 men worldwide live this life and those totals don’t include the Cistercians and Trappists, followers of the Rule of Benedict, too, as their founders sought to reform Benedictine monastic life in the 12th and 17th century respectively. St. John’s Abbey, just west of Minneapolis, is home to the poet Kilian McDonnell, OSB. In one of his poems he gives us a glimpse of everyday life in his abbey ... and in every Benedictine house. The monks of St. John's file in for prayer In we shuffle, hooded amplitudes, scapulared brooms, a stray earring, skin-heads and flowing locks, blind in one eye, hooked nosed, handsome as a prince (and knows it), a five-thumbed organist, an acolyte who sings in quarter tones, one slightly swollen keeper of bees, the carpenter minus a finger here and there, our pre-senile writing deathless verse, a stranded sailor, a Cassian scholar, the artist suffering the visually illiterate and indignities unnamed, two determined liturgists. In a word, eager purity and weary virtue. Last of all, the Lord Abbot, early old (shepherding the saints is like herding cats). These chariots and steeds of Israel make a black progress into church. A rumble of monks bows low and offers praise to the High God of Gods who is faithful forever.

It's not what's taught, it's what's caught Every once in awhile during my teaching days, I would forget that oft-quoted phrase all teachers have heard, “It’s not what’s taught, it’s what’s caught.” But then something would happen to bring me back to it and I’d humbly admit that my students’ fondest memories of my classes would probably have little to do with my mathematics efforts. Here’s one event that surely qualifies: I had just begun an Algebra II class with a group of juniors when I realized, due to the squinting that was going on in the front rows, that I had forgotten to pull the shades on the first window as I did every day to cut the strong afternoon glare of the sun on the board. Not wanting to break my growing excitement into the world of equations and graphing, I backed up toward the window and reached behind for the drawstring – not missing a beat in my explanation of whatever invaluable mathematical nugget that day held. I found the right string without a problem, but as I pulled it, it caught and stopped. Now everyone who has ever opened drapes or shades knows exactly what to do when this happens, and I had done it the correct way hundreds of times: you switch to the other string, back up a couple inches, switch back, and then the one you want will work perfectly well. Why I didn’t do that that day I do not know. What I did do, after feeling it stop, was give that string what turned out to be a Herculean pull – and yanked those 8-foot-high blackout drapes, the bars, the string paraphernalia, the hinges, screws and even a small cloud of plaster dust out of the wall and down onto me. It all happened so fast I didn’t move one step, (remember I was engrossed in my lesson at the time). So before anyone could realize what was happening, there I was, buried under those heavy drapes and everything else that had come down with them. Of course there was dead silence – that is, until I emerged unscathed, looked up at the whole class and started to laugh, which of course set them off into great hilarity, in fact it was probably a combination of laughs, giggles, howls and amazement. After all, their teacher had just buried herself right in the middle of the Pythagorean Theorem! I know deep down that many of those girls probably remember that moment more than any algebra I taught that year: the day when Sister acted quite human, laughed and enjoyed the moment as it should be – teaching much more than a mathematics lesson.

—Susan Doubet, OSB, is the executive director of the US secretariat of the Alliance for International Monasticism (AIM USA). She is also a research assistant for Sister Joan Chittister, OSB, and lives at Mount St. Benedict Monastery in Harborcreek. You can view her postings on Mondays and Thursdays at www.eriebenedictines.blogspot.com.

E-mail a friend

Please tell us what you thought of this feature