Category: prayer

  • Ways to do this wrong

    Ways to do this wrong

    The Jesus Prayer may resemble mantra meditation, but it serves a different purpose. It can be misused as a mere mantra, seeking a specific mental state. However, its essence lies in heartfelt communication with Jesus, not in mere repetition. Meaningful recitation is essential to avoid empty practice. The prayer should reflect a sincere dialogue with…

  • Praying

    Praying

    Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

  • A Tale of Two Kisses

    A Tale of Two Kisses

    SOLOMON WRITES FOR the Bride these words, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.” Certainly, that is the desire of our hearts, that the Lord should kiss us so. Yet, as in a dream where everything is one’s own mind speaking, so in scripture, everything is God’s own word. And how our…

  • The Purpose of Liturgy

    The Purpose of Liturgy

    FATHER ABBOT LOOKED AT ME. Mr Novice, Day Two. I had said something like, “yes, I can make the Daily Hours and Mass, and I see the Lectio Divina on the daily schedule, but when do I pray?” He asked what I meant. And I replied, “Usually I wake up and say these morning prayers,…

  • A Daily Act of Consecration to the Holy Family

    A Daily Act of Consecration to the Holy Family

    Today is the Feast of the Holy Family. It’s falling on Friday this year because the Sunday after Christmas is 1 January, which is the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God. I have a particular devotion to the Holy Family on behalf of all who experience dysfunction, divorce, or any sort of Familial Loss…

  • Just don’t hold hands

    The Readings for the 17th Sunday, Tempus per Annum (C2) Genesis 18:20-32 Colossians 2:12-14 Luke 11:1-13 But he persisted: “Please, do not let my Lord be angry if I speak up this last time.” Genesis 18:32a I‘VE BEEN READING and listening to a lot of commentaries on the Bible lately. Although everyone agrees that Abraham…

  • Preparing for Prayer

    Preparing for Prayer

    ON THE DOMINICAN Calendar today is the Feast of St Albert the Great, Bishop and Doctor of the Church. It is ranked as a Memorial in other places. Since it is a Feast it has its own readings from the propers of the Order. The following, On preparation for prayer from the treatise On the Manner…

  • Kingdom Walking

    IT’S A NEW GAME TO PLAY with the whole holy family: Kingdom Walking. Get outside, walk your neighborhood, and pray. Use a rosary or read a litany, say the Jesus Psalter or the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Get a prayer rope and say the Jesus Prayer. Take on the Rule of 150 Beads if you want…

  • Prayer of the Heart

    THE WAY OF A PILGRIM is a classic text of 19th Century Russian Orthodox spirituality, carrying forward the tradition of the Jesus Prayer or “the prayer of the heart”. I read the text once, as a new convert to Orthodoxy, because that’s what you do, but I was troubled by many words that seemed to…

  • Prayers Before Work

    Prayers Before Work

    FROM THE OFFICE of Prime in the older breviary, these prayers asking for the intercession of the saints and God’s blessing on the day’s labors happen just before the Monks go out to their various chores. They make a good morning boundary between “work at home” and “home at home”. Pope St Pius X gave…

  • The Rosary: Closing Prayers & Suggestions

    When praying the Rosary, it is traditional to do one set of five mysteries (eg, The Joyous Mysteries) – also known as five decades – at a time, although another pious practice is to do three Mysteries a day as a minimum.  My personal practice is five decades a day, although I do not get…

  • The Rosary: The Coronation of the Blessed Virigin

    Our Lady’s coronation by her divine Son as Queen of Heaven is, in fact, the second coronation in the Rosary: the first being that of her Son, himself, by the Romans; but where the Virgin receives a crown of twelve stars from Jesus, he, at the hand of his fellow men, received a crown of…

  • The Rosary: Our Lady’s Death and Assumption

    Here, at last, is one place where the Romans and the Orthodox might differ in the Rosary – although as recently as the middle of the last century this was not so. When I was a freshman in High School I found at a used bookstore, a book on the Apparitions of Our Lady. It…

  • The Rosary: Pentecost

    The Mystery of Pentecost, the Out-Pouring of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles and all of Creation, is the beginning of the fruits of Christ’s actions among us. The Holy Ghost makes all of us divine if we will but let Him into our lives and reform, reshape, heal, cleanse, make whole what is shattered,…

  • The Rosary: The Ascension

    Our Lord’s Ascension is the first evidence that the “key has changed” as I noted in the last mystery: the Eastern liturgical texts speak of how amazed the Angels are at seeing one of our race of men entering into the Heavens.  The Psalm text, “Who is this king of glory?” is read as the angels…