From Rote to Reflection

We've all done it...some of us quite frequently. We rattle off an Our Father or a Hail Mary or a Glory Be with our minds wandering far afield and then wonder what in the world we just said. We slog through our daily prayers only half awake, mumbling them from memory or letting the words of our prayer books slide by without stopping to think about what they actually say.

Catholics are especially susceptible to these kinds of problems. The prayers we memorized as children glide off our lips and can escape without a second thought. We have at our fingertips collections of beautiful prayers written by devout men and women and designed to deepen and enrich our spiritual lives, but it is very easy to read them quickly and then forget about them.

In order to break this all-too-familiar pattern, we must move from rote to reflection, setting aside time each week or even each day to meditate deeply on familiar memorized or written prayers, draw out the depths of their meaning, and apply them to our lives.

Let's look at an example. Today's closing prayer from the Liturgy of Hours reads as follows:

Lord our God,

help us to prepare

for the coming of Christ Your Son.

May He find us waiting,

eager in joyful prayer.

This seems like a simple little prayer, and on the surface it is...just five short lines appropriate to the themes of the Advent season. But when we stop for a few minutes to reflect on these words, we recognize the extent of their wisdom.

“Lord our God...”

Isn't it a miracle that we can even talk to God? Think about Him for a moment. He is all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-holy, yet He still allows us to address Him. He is so far above us, present everywhere and seeing everything, yet He stoops to hear the smallest of our prayers. He is our Lord and our God, but He wants a personal, intimate relationship with each and every one of us. Now that's amazing!

“...help us to prepare for the coming of Christ Your Son.”

These eleven words pack a huge punch of meaning. First, we learn that we are not alone in our Advent preparations. God helps us. He gives us the graces we need to prepare our hearts for the coming of His Son. It's good to remember this during the busyness of the Christmas season when we feel overwhelmed with a thousand things to do and very little time in which to do them. We can ask God to help us prepare, and He will...as long as we respond with openness and cooperation.

These two lines also tell us what Advent is all about, preparing for the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus came among us as a tiny Baby on that first Christmas, but He also comes to us every day, every moment, in our prayers, in our daily activities, and through the people around us. Are we prepared to recognize and accept Him? He comes to us in Holy Communion, too, in a most intimate and profound way. Are we properly disposed to receive Him, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity? How about at the moment of our death when we meet Christ the Judge? Are we ready to stand before Him?

It wouldn't hurt us either to take a few moments to reflect on Jesus Christ as the Son of God, equal to the Father, God from all eternity, and the Father's living Word.

“May He find us waiting, eager in joyful prayer.”

Our final two lines instruct us in the attitude we are to assume during the Advent season (and throughout our lives): waiting, eager, and in joyful prayer. Waiting suggestions recollection of God and a consciousness that something important is about to happen. It also speaks of patience and perseverance, of openness to the future, and of trust in the God Who comes to us. This waiting is not to be mournful or boring, however. It is to be eager. We're preparing for the wonderful event of Christ's coming, so why wouldn't we be like excited little children, ready to greet Him at the moment of His arrival? And while we're waiting, we're to spend our time in joyful prayer...not dull, weak, inattentive recitation but loving, trusting, intimate communication that strengthens our relationship with the Blessed Trinity.

This little meditation has merely scratched the surface of our model prayer, but the more we spend time spend reflecting on our “everyday” prayers, both memorized and written, the more we will recognize their depths, appreciate their beauty and complexity, and, through them, grow ever closer to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  

Mini Meditation

Prayer is not about getting something we want; it's about developing a relationship with Someone we need.  Seek the Giver rather than the gifts.

The Weekly Bookworm: General Catholic Church History

Dedicated bookworms like me not only love to read books, we also enjoy recommending and discussing our favorites. Every week, I'll suggest a few good books about a particular topic (i.e., between three and five), offer short review of each, and provide a link either to Amazon or an online source. Please feel free to begin discussions about these books or recommend others of the same topic. Bookworms like to receive recommendations as much as they like to give them!

Books on General Catholic Church History

1. The Compact History of the Catholic Church by Alan Schreck

Dr. Schreck, a professor of Theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, offers a easy-to-read overview of Church history in this little book. He covers all the major periods of the Church's past and highlights key figures and events without getting bogged down in details. I would recommend this book as a good introduction to Church history that will prepare readers for more complex and comprehensive studies.

2. Church History by Fr. John Laux

This book was the primary text for my Historical Foundations class at Franciscan. It is thorough, detailed, and long, but it is also a fascinating read that incorporates not only stories of historical events but also biographies of the saints and excerpts from primary source documents. Helpful appendices include a chronological table of events in the history of the Church in United States and lists of popes, ecumenical councils, and doctors of the Church. The book's primary drawback is that it cuts off at the mid-1940s (when it was written), leaving readers to turn to other sources for more recent Church history.

3. Studies in Church History by Reuben Parsons

This six-volume series is not for Church history novices! It is an intense and exhaustive look at the Catholic Church from the time of the apostles through the late nineteenth century. This is an excellent reference series, but it would be difficult and time-consuming to read all the way through. I have provided a link to Volume I, but the entire series is available online at www.archive.org.

The Wisdom of Dolly

Over the past few weeks, I've been rehearsing and performing as a member of the orchestra for the East Central School and Community production of Hello, Dolly! The musical is filled with catchy songs, fast and furious dance routines, and hilarious dialogue, but it also has moments of real wisdom that encourage the audience to think deeply about life, love, and wealth.

1. Our loved ones are close to us even in death. Dolly speaks frequently to her late husband Ephraim Levi, acknowledging the depth of their relationship, telling him about her plans, and asking him for a sign of his approval. In the end, she receives her sign and teaches the audience an important lesson about the love that transcends death.

2. Money is supposed to be used for good rather than hoarded. At the beginning of the play, Dolly says to Ephraim, “I'm going to marry Horace Vandergelder for his money and send it circulating among the people like rainwater, the way you taught me.” At the end, after she has indeed received a marriage proposal from Horace, she explains to the audience, “Money, money, money, money, money, Mr. Vandergelder's money. It's like the sun we walk under. It can kill...or cure....The difference between a little money and no money at all is enormous, and that can shatter the world. And the difference between a little money and an enormous amount of money is very slight, and that can shatter the world, too. It's all in how you use it.”

3. Love can be found in the most unlikely situations and with the most unlikely people. Irene Molloy never expected to find love again. Her first husband, Peter Molloy, was her share of true love, she tells her assistant, Minnie. Irene is planning to marry Horace only to get away from the millinery business, and she is only looking for “a bit of adventure” when Cornelius and Barnaby show up in her hat shop. Little does she know that by the end of the day, she would fall in love with the nervous, goofy Cornelius, who professes, along with Irene, that it “only takes a moment to be loved a whole life long.”

4. Even the most cranky and difficult people can and do change when their hearts are touched by another. Horace Vandergelder is an old curmudgeon. He spends much of the play blustering about how people are foolish, looking for “someone steady to cleaning the house” (as Dolly says), and yelling at just about everyone. In the end, though, Dolly has touched his heart and softened it, and he has learned what love means.

5. We learn about ourselves if we take time to reflect on our experiences. Dolly is a very self-confident person who pokes her nose into just about everyone's business, with good intentions, of course. But she also takes time to think about her life. In one of her “conversations” with Ephraim, she talks about how an oak leaf fell out of her Bible, a leaf that she had placed there when he asked her to marry him. She realizes that she is like that old oak leaf, without color and life, as she follows her daily routine without emotion, waiting for something, anything, to happen that will bring her true joy. She vows to “rejoin the human race” and asks Ephraim to give her away. Almost in spite of herself, she ends up finding joy in her relationships with Horace, Cornelius, Irene, Barnaby, and Minnie as she plans for them all to be together and dance at Horace's niece Ermengarde's wedding. Dolly has discovered what life is really all about...love!

St. Gertrude's Prayer

Today (November 16) is the feast day of St. Gertrude, who was a thirteenth-century Benedictine nun and mystic.  Our Lord gave her the following prayer for souls in Purgatory:


Eternal Father, I offer Thee the most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the Masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal Church, those in my own home and within my family.  Amen.  


Please pray this powerful little prayer frequently!

Marthe Robin

Today I was "introduced" to an incredible person.  It was totally by accident.  I was looking up something else on the Internet when I came across the story of her life.  Perhaps I shouldn't say "accident"; "God-incidence" is more accurate (there are no coincidences, after all).  In any case, God placed Marthe Robin directly before my eyes.

Marthe Robin (1902-1981) lived her entire life in a small French village.  By the time she was twenty-eight years old, she was almost completely paralyzed and bedridden due to a neurological illness.  She could not eat or even drink water.  She lived in darkness due to severe eye problems and eventually lost her eyesight.  She couldn't even sleep.  Most people would have given up in despair...but not Marthe.  She offered her sufferings to Jesus and became a victim soul, intent on making reparation for the sins of the world.

Marthe's story does not end there.  With the help of her spiritual director, she founded a school in her village and, not long afterward, a retreat community called "Foyer de Charite" (or "Home of Love"), which took on the mission of proclaiming the Gospel with a special focus on love of God the Father and the need for all humanity to live as the family of God.  Today there are seventy Foyers de Charite in forty countries, all of which offer numerous retreats each year to men and women of all ages and backgrounds.

Along with being a victim soul and a community foundress, Marthe was also a stigmatist and mystic.  She received the marks of the Passion and Crucifixion for the first time in 1930 and continued to physically experience the sufferings of Christ every Friday until her death in 1981.  Further, Marthe received numerous visits from Jesus, Mary, and St. Therese, who guided and and strengthened her throughout her life.  Because Marthe was not able to eat or drink due to her paralysis, her only source of nourishment for fifty-three years was the Holy Eucharist, which she received once a week.  Jesus provided Marthe with everything she needed to fulfill her divinely-given mission.  Can we not trust Him to do the same for us?

For more information on Marthe Robin and her amazing story, please visit the following websites:
"Marthe Robin: Another Victim Soul" by Jim Gallagher
"The Servant of God Marthe Robin"
"Marthe Robin: Charity and Love" by David Fanning
"Marthe Robin: Modern Stigmatist, Mystic, and Foundress" by Jeff Mirus
"Foyer of Charity"

Reading Recommendation: First Clement

Christians seeking to learn about the early Church while deepening their spiritual lives will benefit from a thorough reading of the ancient First Letter of Clement to the Corinthians.  Written sometime between 81 and 110 AD, First Clement was sent from the Roman Church to the Corinthian Church in response to divisions and conflicts that were plaguing the latter.  Scholars, as always, debate endlessly about the letter’s authorship, but tradition holds that Clement, the bishop of Rome (i.e., pope) in the years 88-97, penned the document, which was often regarded as Scripture by other Church Fathers. 

Clement addresses the potentially-explosive situation at Corinth (apparently some younger, power-hungry Christians had risen up again a group of holy presbyters (priests) and ousted them from their office) by reminding all Corinthian Christians of the life they are called to live in Jesus Christ.  He focuses on such still-highly-relevant topics as jealousy and its consequences, repentance, obedience, faith, piety, hospitality, humility, peace, virtue, holiness, and the necessity of divinely-sanctioned order.  The entire discussion is permeated by quotations from the Sacred Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, which Clement uses to support and explain his arguments and to illustrate how faithful Christians are to conduct their lives.  Clement ends his letter by exhorting the Corinthians to reestablish unity among themselves through repentance and love.

Despite its early date, First Clement exhibits a sophisticated Christology, depicting Christ as the Suffering Servant Who died and rose again for the salvation of humanity.  Clement also presents Christ as the divine Son of God, as a divine emissary from the Father, as a model and teacher for all people, as both priest and sacrifice, as a sign of the divinely-sanctioned order in the Church, and as the scepter of God (i.e., power and authority of God in a supremely-dignified Person). 

Modern Christians will find abundant inspiration and “food for thought” in First Clement’s theology, presentation of salvation history, and practical moral guidance for authentic Christian living.  The letter is also saturated with gems for meditation.  For example, in chapter 19, Clement encourages his audience to “gaze intently on the Father and Creator of the entire world and cling to His magnificent and superior gifts of peace and acts of kindness.”  Who wouldn’t benefit from following Clement’s instructions and reflecting on God in this way? 

First Clement is featured in the Loeb Classical Library’s The Apostolic Fathers Volume I, translated by Bart D. Ehrman, quoted in this post, and available at Amazon.  The letter may be found online in several full-text translations as well as in the original Greek at http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/1clement.html.  For more information about Clement and the other Apostolic Fathers, refer to Clayton N. Jefford’s Reading the Apostolic Fathers: An Introduction, from which much of the information in this post is drawn.