Not Driven to Despair…

Last week in Adoration I was reading an editorial in my September Magnificat on the Jubilee Year of the Apostle Paul, specifically regarding Saint Paul and the Cross of Christ.  Honestly, I don’t remember much from it because some scripture that was quoted grabbed me, struck me with wonder, and that was the end of that.

Gal 2: 19-20a  For through the law I died to the law,  that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me;

2 Cor 4: 6-11  For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to bring to light the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of (Jesus) Christ. But we hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

 While our circumstances are normalizing, my mind and heart are not.  It is as though I have undergone a very fundamental ’sea change’ and, to mix metaphors, have not my sea legs as yet.  I wish I had the words to share what these verses are to me… but there seems to be a growing silence and stillness within that steals the words from me.  So I leave them here for you in the hopes that you will also find the treasure in them.

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.

Not Enough Time…

As I mentioned in my last post, I am visiting my best friend and had the opportunity to spend several hours in prayer with her during her usual weekly 2-4 am Adoration slot. She’s the one who introduced me to Adoration in the first place and it had become a very precious part of my prayer life by the time I moved to a new state and new parish with no real Adoration to speak of.  Anytime I come to visit that coincides with Adoration, I am able to join her and it was particularly precious this visit as it has been more than six months since I had such an opportunity for Adoration, much less one with her.

I have not slept well these last months and was particularly tired last night due to little sleep the night before.  So I slept through both the cell phone alarms I set and had to be woken by my friend asking if I was sure I wanted to go. One might think that going to pray for two hours on such little sleep in the quiet of a private chapel would be difficult.  There was a time when I could not pray for five minutes together without serious boredom and attention loss.  I frankly was a bit concerned that, despite previous experiences in Adoration, I might be tempted to join the apostles in their example of ‘midnight prayer’.

Silly me.  Time had passed for me, but not for God.  My location had changed, but His remained the same.  He was there waiting for me.  I had so much to pray for, petition and thanksgiving, so much I wanted to meditate on… so I got right to it.  After praying the dedication of the hours, I paused to switch out my Magnificat’s in their little cover as the month was changing that night and I wanted to go ahead and do Morning Prayer before I hit the more intense, specific prayer. There is usually an editorial, some articles and prayers before the daily stuff starts and I began with those once morning prayer was over.  As my previous post suggests, I got seriously sidetracked there with all kinds of intense illumination going on. 

 As I mentioned to my friend, as a Protestant I dutifully showed up for services with my Bible and a notepad, studiously listening for the ‘points’ in the sermon to make notes.  As a Catholic, I show up with so much to pray and meditate on in Adoration that it never occurs to me to bring paper… and repeatedly I’ve found myself learning so much, so inspired by repeated somethings that click as I meditate, that I’m scrabbling for pen and paper… holding my hand up to heaven saying ‘WAIT! Hold that thought! You’re going too fast!  I have to write this down so I won’t forget it!’

 This was true this time as well.  In fact, something unusual happened last night. Normally, our Adorations are a blessed, pregnant silence. Ours being the type of friendship where no words are necessary and hours of silent prayer spent together  in our Lord’s Presence with rarely a spoken word are an easy and familiar thing.  This time, it was happening to us both, though reading and meditating on different things but being given some really interesting illumination that spoke to the same or similar topics.  We kept interrupting each other to share as they struck us… sometimes one writing furiously, trying to capture the latest insight while the other was enthusing over something as well… both in close, intense communion with the Holy Spirit… but with each other at the same time… as the insights given complemented and shone light upon the others.

At last, we both leaned back in our chairs, silently absorbing the wonder of the moment.  After some moments had passed, my friend asked what time it was… I reached for my cell phone to check the time, thinking it could only have been about 20 minutes and why was she, of all people, so time conscious all of a sudden… (stupid anne)… Imagine my astonishment to find that it was 3:48 in the morning, a mere 12 minutes remained in our two hours and I was nowhere near ‘done’.  Yet again I found myself packing up my Adoration materials and reaching for my shoes feeling both profound joy and somewhat bemused disappointment as I realized that not even TWO hours is enough dedicated time for prayer…

Mourning the Loss/Embracing the New

You know it’s bad when you have been attending  your new parish for three months and as you arrive at the stop sign at the end of the road leaving the Church, your youngest says ‘Every week at this stop sign, we say how much we miss our old Parish.’ Yeah. That’s bad.  It isn’t so much that the new parish isn’t a good one, as that the old one was so wonderful.  We can’t help but compare the two and while we are doing our best to embrace the current parish, we do mourn for what we’ve lost… and it is substantial.

Tonight we attended our first Adoration in the new parish.  They have a Holy Hour once per month on Wednesday nights, during which they also have what they call a ‘penance service’.  What that really translates to is that Father is available in the Reconciliation Room during the Holy Hour for confessions.  I am very grateful for any Adoration time at ALL.  I can’t imagine NOT having it. There were about 20 adults there, made up of several couples and one other family with younger children than ours.  Not bad for such a small parish.  However, the conversation at the stop sign tonight still turned to the old parish where we had 24 hours of Adoration once per month. Dh and I regularly had one of the wee hours all to ourselves.  A very different experience I must say.  All regret aside, it was wonderful to spend time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament once again.

Adoration…

Worshipping God in the Blessed Sacrament… Adoration… one of the great treasures I’ve found in the Catholic Church.  Our parish has Adoration once per month for a 24 hour period.  I normally participate, waiting until the last minute to sign up for an hour so as to fill the empty spots… purely selfish, I assure you, as I’d like to see Adoration become more frequent. This month, the guy who coordinates all that in our parish was walking around so people could sign up at the Fish Fry one Friday and so I just asked him to sign me up for whatever hour he thought would need me. This time, it was 5-6 am… an unusual hour for me but I was looking forward to it as usual. What I didn’t bank on was getting sick the week before…

Climbing out of bed at 4:30 with some trepidation… still felt a bit queasy (not contagious… just not popping back as quickly as my 9 yr old did), I got ready to go and chatted with my husband who got up for an early morning breakfast. My bag loaded with materials… MP3 player filled with the rosary, Divine Mercy chaplet, Gregorian Chant, Abba Pater, among other options… my rosary, and rosary binder filled with Redneck Woman’s meditations using a rosary to pray for my children, for consecration, etc… I pulled on my coat and began the short drive across town to the Church.

It had dusted snow… the streets, sidewalks, and parking lots were silvered with it. Chilled air blanketed the empty byways and stores. Silence… even within the car, the only sounds my breathing and the rustling of my coat.  As I pulled up to the doors of the Church, I could see one other solitary soul slipping inside… and my feet duplicated his, marring the silvered dust before the doors.

With the open door, a burst of warmth, and light, and color… and the silence becomes not an absence but a Presence. Entering the sanctuary, I sign my name on the roster.  A nearby pew already has the kneeler down and I complete a double genuflection before taking my place upon it. Like the removal of my heavy winter coat in the vestibule, the mantle of care slips off my shoulders to the floor behind me as I begin this time of Adoration and prayer.

Shifting a bit, retrieving the readings and rosaries I wanted to use, I bid a whispered good-bye to a dear retiree in our parish who is leaving and we are left alone… my silver footed companion and I, before the Blessed Sacrament.  Over the past two years, I have spent many an hour here.  Some have been longer than others, at times tempted to join the apostles in sleep, at times ’schizophrenic’ prayer has been offered with mixed emotion… My companions have varied as surely as the intensity of my devotion, frequently a fellow parishioner, occasionally one of my children, my husband a time or two…

I began to read, to meditate, and to pray… setting to with a will, knowing the blessing and joy that will come, anticipating the treasured uninterrupted time with the Lord… despite the additional magic from the silvering snow, an ordinary Adoration… or so I thought.

It seemed but a moment before I had completed the initial readings and moved to the Children’s Rosary, and in doing so I mused a bit over the seeming increased intensity of the Presence… but didn’t pause over it, determined to pray for my children before time was up. Again, it seemed but a moment and I was more than half done with the Children’s Rosary… this caught my attention a bit as this usually takes me well over a half hour to pray, yet I didn’t hesitate but began to pray all the more as I knew I might be hard pressed to complete it and feeling that I wasn’t going to have enough time to pray for all that was upon me.

Next interruption, the door creaked behind me signaling a new adorer.  Surely it can’t have been an hour yet. A surreptitious peek showed it to be an older man I recognized who frequently comes and spends time before the Lord. Relieved that it was not yet the hour, I turned again to my prayer with joy.  One decade left and the door creaked again as the relief came for the next hour… and I could not believe it was up… I was nowhere near done praying.  There was so much left on my heart, the Presence of the Lord had grown so around me and it seemed that very little time had passed at all… only a few moments, surely no more than 15 at most… but the cell phone time does not lie, the fresh faces were present… and while I knew I could stay and pray as my heart longed to do… though I was certainly welcome, my husband slumbered at home – already concerned over his wife out at night alone. Should I stay and he awake to find much time passed and my absence continued, he would be quite concerned… and for that reason I could not remain.

Double genuflection. Crossed with holy water. Coat on again, lighter than the shoulders remember, mantle of care still pooled behind the kneeler in the pew.  The door opens upon the cold, silvered winter night, the silence once an absence hushes still… with Presence. He is yet with me… that intense sweetness, heightened awareness, living joy. 

Quiet breath, coat whispers, the car returns to its garage rest and I to my bed… Hidden there under blankets and the curve of her daddy’s arm, my youngest who bid me a groggy good-bye before I left from the door of her room. As I slide in beside her, my husband stirs and welcomes me home. I curl around my daughter, hold my husbands hand, and I turn to the Presence… again in Adoration.