Preparing homilies for class and then giving the practice “reflections” at Mass have really helped me to relate scripture to the everyday life we find ourselves in. In January, I was challenged to place some of the Apostle Paul’s writing from 1 Corinthians into a context that our parishioners could identify with: “But God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is
without it, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another. If (one) part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.” [NAB 1Cor 12:24-26]
“So that the parts may have the same concern for one another.” Yes! How difficult to live that concern for others when so many are being critical, insensitive. And yet, Jesus asks us to do just that. Why else would he have taken Saul, the Christian slayer, and transformed him into Paul, the Christian saver through that life-changing encounter on the road to Damascus? But how can we meet his call to be forgiving, understanding, loving when the church we love is comprised of so many different, and sometimes difficult people? Well, we can’t do it alone.
If we can’t do it alone, how do we find the strength to be that loving, caring and concerned human being that Jesus asks us to be?
We can do it through prayer, by joining in “the unceasing ripple of prayer“: The Liturgy of the Hours. For me, this photograph of a ripple on a pond by Rob Breisch evokes the sense of unity and collective energy of this world-wide, sacred prayer.
Praying the Hours enables us to draw upon the collective faith energy of the catholic, universal church. It’s not something I can explain in quantitative terms, but it’s part-and-parcel with what Paul was saying. So what is The Liturgy of the Hours? [Continued in Ministry]
Filed under: Ministry, Reflections
Ah the wonderful body of the Church, if it were only so. As Catholics were are so divided on so many issues we forget that we are one body with many functions. I long for a truly unified Church, the one I knew as a child before the tumult of the 1960’s. We all need to be faithful to all of the teachings of the Church wether we understand why they are so or not. Desention has not boded well for the Church, or for the world, let us all pray for true unity and to know our own uniqe place and function in the body of the Church.
Perhaps the point of my post, that “Praying the Hours enables us to draw upon the collective faith energy of the catholic, universal church.” is what I find so uplifting. For me the glass is truly “half full”, especially when we are praising God. Dissension, tumult and a lack of unity have plagued Christians from the very beginning. That is, to be sure, the glass “half empty” assessment of our Church. Let’s continue to pray for a continuing revelation in our world of God’s marvelous creation. And in the Hours (as in the Mass), we have the sacred “hymn of praise that is sung through all the ages in the heavenly places and was brought by the high priest, Christ Jesus, into this land of exile [and] has been continued by the Church with constant fidelity over many centuries, in a rich variety of forms.” [Apostolic Constitution Promulgation, Second Vatican Council]
[...] in this sacred prayer of the universal, catholic church. A great postscript to my February post, “Unceasing Ripple of Prayer”. Explore posts in the same categories: [...]