The Third Hour of Prayer…

 So I was quite willing when said friend turned to me (as we left the Adoration Chapel at 4 am) and asked if I was up for ‘the third hour’ of prayer as her husband calls it.  You. Betcha.  During a recent natural disaster, a local church refused to accept supplies from my friend’s Catholic parish simply because they were from Catholics.  Since it can be difficult to fall asleep after Adoration anyway, my friend has taken to spending an hour in prayer for this Church.  We piled into the car, swung through Whataburger for a breakfast sandwich to eat on the way, and headed for the third hour.

In the quiet of the car, we took out our rosaries and began to pray the Luminous mysteries.  The rosary is a meditation on the life of Christ, luminous mysteries being specifically the major events in our Lord’s ministry.

So these were a particularly appropriate meditation to pray for unity in service to our Lord with these, our brothers and sisters in Christ. As the street lights formed pools of clarity in the early morning darkness, our voices rose into the silence with the rhythm of prayer.  I meditated upon each event in the life of Our Lord, praying the words of the Angelic Salutation and asking God to accept her fiat as mine, that intimate communion with God returning.  The prayerful chorus of our voices invited our Lord into our midst and He came, and listened, and taught…

My memories are imperfect… and incomplete… some insight is not given for us… to be scribbled on the back of stray bits of paper, meditated on and shared, but to assist us in prayer… as our Lord participates and guides our prayer, bringing it into line with His will.  This was that sort but I wanted to save what I do remember as everything He gives is precious.

Luminous Mysteries

1. The Baptism of the Lord

As I meditated upon the Baptism, I realized yet again what being ‘Christ-like’ means.  It means that God came and LIVED as our example. He showed us HOW to respond by HIS response. He was baptised not because He needed to be cleansed of sin, but to fulfill all righteousness… and that is an example to us.  We need to respond in such a way as to fulfill all righteousness…   He humbled Himself and walked among those who were weak, needy, sinful… an imperfect reflection of Himself.  How can we refuse to do likewise?

2. The Wedding of Cana

In the Wedding at Cana, a need was brought to Jesus attention by His mother.  The wine was gone and the wedding feast far from over.  He asked what she would have Him to do… it was not yet His time.  She turned and gave instructions, her very entrusting of the servants to Him an act of faith, belief, and persistence.  What did He tell them? I told her no? He honored the request of His mother. He was humble. He saw the need and met it, even though the timing was not the best.  How often to I let convenience determine my willingness to serve?

3. The Proclamation of the Kingdom

4. The Transfiguration

5. The Institution of the Eucharist.

Bread. Wine. Simple food. Brought by sinful men, held in imperfect hands, shared even by a traitorous friend.  What did our Lord do? He took it, blessed it, broke it, perfected it, shared it… and in doing  so, gave Life. The bread and wine, like the prefiguring loaves and fishes, was useful to our Lord… not because of the perfect hearts and right belief of those who brought it, not because it was an adequate offering… the apostles themselves thought it insignificant and unworthy… but because of the perfect heart and holiness of He to whom it was given by faith. Our Lord repeatedly took imperfect gifts and sanctified them, made them holy, multiplying them, and using them to bless… to give Life.  Who then are we to refuse the gift of another made in our Lords name and to our Lords sheep, no matter how blemished, imperfect, unclean the heart of the giver in our eyes? Is it not a lack of faith on our part? Just as the apostles lacked faith that God could do anything worthwhile with a few simple loaves and fish?

As the temple became a car once again and the harmony of our voices died away, I realized a few things… First, that voices risen in prayer, glorifying our Lord, was something precious… it was as though I’d been given a very veiled glimpse of what it must be like to raise one’s voice in the throne room continuously in the Holy, Holy, Holy… never tiring, just being renewed and filled with joy and never ending love… not boring as it always sounded to me as a child… and that it would be a wondrous thing to be able to do that one day in heaven.  Secondly, that I was praying not only for that church, but for all Christians… for myself… knowing myself guilty and praying that I would be given grace to not be found lacking in faith, doubting God’s ability  to transform even the simplest things given by the most corrupt appearing heart, incapable of judging rightly the heart of another before our Lord… but trusting that God can use even the Samaritans of our acquaintance… to do His work.

Arriving back at the house, I climbed the stairs with a silly grin on my face to climb back in bed … a third hour… who knew… I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.