Are you there God? It's me...

Imagine you are sitting down to pray and this happens.

You sit down ready to have a conversation with the Lord and all of a sudden you find it very difficult to even come up with words. You sit and sit and try to come up with something to say, but nothing seems to come out right. You start over many times with "Dear Lord..." or "God..." The inability to come up with a prayer becomes frustrating, so your mind begins to wander to things such as the other people in the room or the sounds around you.

Has that ever happened to you?  It has definitely happened to me on many occasion. I kept asking myself, "What is the road block in my way that makes it so difficult to cross the prayer road and have a conversation with the Lord?"

The answer, I think, was that I was trying to hard.

I was lucky enough to attend a Theology on Tap series on Thursday April 19th where the topic was on spending time in prayer with God. This was exactly what I needed to help me refocus on my prayer life. Auxiliary Bishop Mark Seitz gave a wonderful talk on what prayer looks like, and how we can become more involved in our conversations with God.

Prayer, according to St. Thomas Aquinas is the "unveiling of our mind in the presence of God" and as "the soul's affectionate quest for God". Great! But how does someone successfully unveil their minds and whole-heartedly seek out God through prayer?

I guess the first place to start is to reflect on the approach to prayer. Prayer is a very intimate moment that you share with God. It is a time of petition, thanksgiving, adoration, and a time to ask for forgivness.  When I get ready to pray, what is the attitude I bring? Where is my effort and focus during prayer? Do I have the willingness to practice prayer in order to talk more openly and easily with God? In order to become better at something, we often have to practice. Is that not the same with prayer?

Bishop Seitz challenged everyone to think about these questions very seriously.When we pray, Bishop Seitz mentioned that we have to speak from the heart; we have to be there in the presence of God. As we open ourselves to the presence of God in our time of prayer, our conversations will not only become more honest, but more passionate in our dialogs with God. I was reminded that if we stop, breath, and slow down at the begining of prayer and really focus on the moment at hand, we can feel Gods presence and the feeling that He is there and is ready to listen. If we take the time to breath in the moment with God, it might become easier to commicate with God in a heartfelt dialog.

Bishop Seitz discussed different reasons for prayer. He mentioned prayers of petition where we seek to find an answer or a solution or help for a problem in our lives. Seitz made it very clear that you can never ask for God's intercession too many times. God wants us to come to Him in prayer with struggles and petitions. We also can pray out of thanksgiving for the wonderful joys that God has placed in our lives. We also pray in adoration for the marvels that God has created for us out of love. Lastly, we can pray to ask for forgiveness. Often times this is a hard prayer to pray. We must approach this type of prayer with honesty. We cannot hide the truth about ourselves. God knows every inch of us and every thought or action we do. We have to trust that He will have mercy on us time and time again.

When we participate effectively in prayer, we come to a different perspective of life, as Bishop Seitz says. We see the world from a different perspective at that moment when we open our eyes to hopes and joys of having God on our side. When we open our eyes, we open ourselves to God's will and that He directs everything to the good. Our trust in him grows deeper that He will get us through whatever is in our paths with infallible hands.

So I challenge you to take a minute to reevaluate your prayer life and think about steps you can take to open yourselves up more fully to the awesome gift of prayer. I will leave you with a quote that Bishop Seitz left for us to consider as he challenged us to continue to grow in our prayer life,

“Only in prayer do we achieve that complete and harmonious assembly of body, mind and spirit which gives the frail human reed its unshakable strength.”
― Alexis Carrel

The Gifts of Easter Continue...

Reflection on the gospel reading

2^nd Sunday of Easter (4/15/12)

John 20:19-31

The gifts of Easter continue…

There were two verses from today’s gospel that stood out to me.

“Peace be with you.”

“Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

God does want us to have a peaceful heart and mind.  Jesus greets the apostles twice in this one reading with the words, “Peace be with you.”  Think about how you feel when you do God’s work or when you’ve made a decision based on prayer – we tend to be overcome with a sense of peace or even joy.  That is what Jesus is offering to us.  That is yet another gift He wants to give us, but we have to be open to receiving it.  If we insist on seeing the wounds - the lance in His side - or ask for miracles to happen on demand, we are missing out on the amazing beauty of God’s glory that surrounds us every day.  Our hearts are shut off from the peace that can be found in a simple still moment.

If we believe without having seen, we can find the peace that Christ offers.  That line in the gospel is speaking to all of US.  We are the ones who have not seen and have believed.  I feel like this message can be applied even beyond belief in Christ.  Even though we cannot see the plan that God has laid out for our personal lives, if we believe that He will sustain us and that He knows what will bring us happiness, then God will bless us in our journeys because we have believed.  He will bring us joy.  Through our belief and trust, we can learn to hand over our worries and allow Christ to sustain us…to fill us with “life in His name.”  I’ll be the first to admit that handing over my worries is not an easy task, but it is one worth striving for.  I believe that faith and trust go hand in hand.  As I work to build my faith, my trust will also grow, allowing me to depend more fully on Christ and His plan. 

The Upper Room

On Thursday MIYA  had a wonderful opportunity to join in on the experience of the Upper Room. The Upper Room, if you are not familiar, is a group of young adults from around the area that join together for a time of praise, worship, adoration, intercessory and open prayers once a month. I encourage you to join next month for it was an experience that not only rekindled my love of Jesus, but also allowed for my heart to be open to what God wants for me and those that attended.

We began with the Blessed Sacrament being exposed for all to see. It was an amazing scene as we all knelt before Jesus to begin our journey with him. As we began to take in the wonderful experience, we joined together in beautiful song of praise and adoration and internal prayer preparing our hearts for Jesus.

As we continued our journey with Jesus, an amazing moment happened when we were allowed to be silent and be with Jesus in the moment. As we were in silence, it gave each and every one of us the time to slow down and mediate on the true awesomeness of this moment. A moment of being in the presence of Jesus and feeling his love for each and every one of us. The moment where we could lay down our struggles at the foot of the cross and truly listen to what God is saying to us.

As we were moved by the spirit, many of us opened our hearts to Jesus and allowed him to move us through open prayer. The prayers of those present were beautiful. They were prayers of thankgiving and praise for what has been put into their lives. A thankfulness for struggles and the gratefulness for the joy that has reached their heart were touching. Father Michael spoke a wonderful verse from Philipians 4 that really stuck with me as a particpant.

^"4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! ⁵ Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

I personally was moved to my knees several times and eventually brought to quiet tears. Tears streamed down because I truely felt connected with God and that He was listening to me. I was overwhelmed with the moment when my heart was on fire and in being in the moment with Jesus. The room, although filled with furniture, people, sounds of the air condition, singing, guitar and mumbles of prayers from those around me suddenly fell slient. It was Jesus, me and His love. What an amzing feeling! Nothing mattered. I laid down my sorrows  and concerns and thankfulness at the foot of the cross. In that moment of connection with Jesus, I knew that there was a plan for me. I lifted up my heart and shared with Jesus that I will trust with patience what he is doing in my life and the life of my family and also for what he has to come in my life and those around me.

As we closed the night, I felt a sense of calmness and relief as I had just spent two hours with Jesus and was able to have a dialouge in my heart with Him. I was encouraged to have faith and trust and to know that I am where I need to be right now. For many young adults, we often wonder about the paths and where they are supposed to take us. I hope that this post has given you some sort of encouragement to believe that there is a reason for everything and I pray that we continue to trust in the paths that are sent forth for us even at the most difficult of times. .
 

Parish Mission

On Monday night, the parish mission (presented by Fr. Jim Kubikni) focused on the Eucharist. There were two points that really struck me. First was his discussion on remembering Jesus in the mass. Fr. Kubikni presented it this way…At the end of mass, he might ask parishioners how mass had gone that day. The typical responses would possibly be oh the choir was great, the kids were a bit noisy, and mass went a little long today. Where is Jesus? We celebrate the Eucharist at mass, and Jesus did say, do this in remembrance of me. So where is Jesus? This weekend as I sat in mass I found myself thinking about that and considering how I could see Jesus in the mass and in the Eucharist. As I took Jesus in, how was He trying to change me and make me a better person in order to serve God? This simple question was an easy way to make the routine of mass and the Eucharist a new experience again. I will continue to use this thinking as I attend mass so that when I am asked about mass, I can describe where I found Jesus that day.

The second point that really caught my attention was Fr. Kubikni’s discussion about living the Eucharist. In order to live the Eucharist, we should go out and live the sacrifice. Fr. Kubikni pointed out that Col 1:24 states, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church.” Fr. Kubikni talked about how the only thing that is lacking in Christ’s suffering for our sins is our participation. Jesus “thirsts” for us to know His love and sacrifice. It was suggested to us that when we have things that we have to do - whether we like those things or not - that we should “offer it up.” We were all encouraged to think of one person that we could offer up our sacrifices for. So the next time you are in a hurry but have to wait in a long line at the grocery store, stop and offer that time up for someone in need of your prayers. The thought of doing this actually brought some peace to my mind. I frequently find myself in a rush or having to do little things that I don’t necessarily want to do, but when I thought about how I could offer up those things as sacrifices for the person that I was thinking about, it makes all of those things seem so minor and not such a hassle. It was one of those ah-ha moments when the simplest of ideas can make such a difference in how we handle ourselves and how we respond to the people around us. Offering up our small sacrifices brings us a little bit closer to being able to truly celebrate the joy of Easter. So I encourage you to take a couple of minutes to sit quietly and think of one person who could use your prayers and sacrifices…when you have that person, write their name on your heart, and every time something unpleasant comes up in your daily life, stop and offer it up for that one person who is written on your heart. Instead of being frustrated, I believe we will feel a peace and a sense of connection to our Lord. Rather than being upset, we can rejoice because we are sacrificing not for ourselves but for another – just as Jesus did on the cross.