A Sunday Thought About the Wonderful World of Prayer to Start the Week Off Right
These recent Sundays we've been talking of new starts, and of recapturing our sense of awe and astonishment. Maybe it's the cool, crisp air of fall that inspires such thoughts. Maybe it's our anticipation of the coming of Christmas. Ah, Christmas, that new start for all mankind as God became one of us and pointed us in the direction of Heaven both by His example during His earthly life, and by His Passion and Resurrection.
Whatever the source of inspiration, in the midst of it all this week brought us the feast of St Therese of the Child Jesus, a/k/a St Therese of Lisieux, a/k/a, "The Little Flower." Hemmed in as we all sometimes feel by the world, the flesh, and the devil, St Therese re-directs our hearts and minds with her life of mortification, self-denial, and self-control. She challenges our self-will, self-love, and our typical love of ease and comfort. She diverts us from the worldly road we've been traveling to a road less traveled. For so many of us, it's a new start.
As for a sense of awe and astonishment, read "The Story of a Soul," a collection of her writings. Once you do, you'll understand why this diminutive, sickly, cloistered nun, who died at the age of 24, was named a Doctor of the Church, joining a club that includes St Augustine and St. Jerome (whose feast we also celebrated this week). Neither a genius like Augustine nor a scholar like Jerome, she reminds us there's hope for all of us non-geniuses and non-scholars. Yes, we too can become holy, we can become saints! Really.
St Therese refreshes our mix of new start, awe, and astonishment in a simple and direct way. Here she explains what prayer really is, and how to pray:
St Therese, by your intercession, may we learn to pray as you did, as you describe it to us here, in a spontaneous manner, with an open heart, holding nothing back, May we learn this so that we can understand what you mean by "the good God," so that we can speak to Him and know that He understands us. May our prayers be "an outburst of the heart," as they were for you, "a cry of gratitude and love uttered in affliction or gladness."
How much better would our lives be if only we could do this. Our souls would be sanctified throughout the day in all our thoughts ,words, and actions, as we simply and directly speak to God. We would finally enjoy real peace of mind no matter what was going on in our lives, even in the midst of affliction. And praying directly from our hearts, holding nothing back, Our Father would know how much we love Him, and we would know, with audacious confidence, how much He loves us despite all our faults.
If you pray like you love God, and you know He loves you, what a wonderful world this would be. Kind of reminds me of these lyrics in late Sam Cooke's song of the same name:
"But I do know that I love you; and I know that if you love me too, what a wonderful world this would be."
Whatever the source of inspiration, in the midst of it all this week brought us the feast of St Therese of the Child Jesus, a/k/a St Therese of Lisieux, a/k/a, "The Little Flower." Hemmed in as we all sometimes feel by the world, the flesh, and the devil, St Therese re-directs our hearts and minds with her life of mortification, self-denial, and self-control. She challenges our self-will, self-love, and our typical love of ease and comfort. She diverts us from the worldly road we've been traveling to a road less traveled. For so many of us, it's a new start.
As for a sense of awe and astonishment, read "The Story of a Soul," a collection of her writings. Once you do, you'll understand why this diminutive, sickly, cloistered nun, who died at the age of 24, was named a Doctor of the Church, joining a club that includes St Augustine and St. Jerome (whose feast we also celebrated this week). Neither a genius like Augustine nor a scholar like Jerome, she reminds us there's hope for all of us non-geniuses and non-scholars. Yes, we too can become holy, we can become saints! Really.
St Therese refreshes our mix of new start, awe, and astonishment in a simple and direct way. Here she explains what prayer really is, and how to pray:
"I have not the courage to force myself to seek beautiful prayers in books; not knowing which to choose I act as children do who cannot read; I say quite simply to the good God what I want to tell Him, and He always understands me.Don't you wish you could have such a relationship with God? Maybe you already pray this way, but for the rest of us, this opens up a wonderful new world of prayer.
Prayer is like a mighty queen to whom the king's audience is never denied and to whom he can refuse nothing. We can be heard without having to read any set formula adapted to the circumstance...For me prayer is an outburst of the heart, a glance upwards to Heaven, a cry of gratitude and love uttered in affliction or in gladness - or, in short, anything that raises the soul to God."
St Therese, by your intercession, may we learn to pray as you did, as you describe it to us here, in a spontaneous manner, with an open heart, holding nothing back, May we learn this so that we can understand what you mean by "the good God," so that we can speak to Him and know that He understands us. May our prayers be "an outburst of the heart," as they were for you, "a cry of gratitude and love uttered in affliction or gladness."
How much better would our lives be if only we could do this. Our souls would be sanctified throughout the day in all our thoughts ,words, and actions, as we simply and directly speak to God. We would finally enjoy real peace of mind no matter what was going on in our lives, even in the midst of affliction. And praying directly from our hearts, holding nothing back, Our Father would know how much we love Him, and we would know, with audacious confidence, how much He loves us despite all our faults.
If you pray like you love God, and you know He loves you, what a wonderful world this would be. Kind of reminds me of these lyrics in late Sam Cooke's song of the same name:
"But I do know that I love you; and I know that if you love me too, what a wonderful world this would be."
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