Table of Contents

God is the only sure thing

Hello, is that you, God?

Praying from the Wounds of the World

Throwing Ourselves into God

Praying Today

Praying with Our Feet

Carbon Footprint Prayer

Breathe your prayer, be your prayer

Loving Deeply

Prayer: Keeping it Alive and Well

A Space Apart, Meant to be Shared

Closing

God is the only sure thing

by Sister Therese O’Rourke, IHM

It has been my experience that prayer opens our minds to new, unimagined insights and leads us to encounter those waiting for us along the way.

“Ma’am,” said my seven-year-old student after noticing my look of concern, “you have no need to worry. Don’t you know that God is the only sure thing?” Neysa was a rare gift to encounter in my first year of teaching in rural Mississippi. She carried the good news of the Gospel in her heart and shared it freely from the moment she burst into my classroom each day, until she raced to a bus that carried her home into one of the poorest sections of Kiln, Mississippi.

She informed me on more than one occasion that she had been “raised on the Bible,” and that her mother taught her to pray “all the time.” Both were evident in her pithy, scripture-based wisdom that had the effect of lifting spirits and healing emotional wounds among her classmates. She had an expansive heart and she seized every opportunity to nurture a sense of belonging in our class. We never took her for granted. We shared prayer daily throughout the year. Neysa prayed from a sacred space deep within her amazing heart, and, in time, taught the rest of us to do the same. I was blessed to be Neysa’s teacher. There is no doubt that she was my teacher as well.

Prayer makes true community possible. In his book titled, The PrayerWe Offer, Msgr. Peter J. Vaghi notes that we don’t pray, “My Father” but “Our Father,” reflecting that “our relationship with God affects our relationship to each other. When we pray ‘Our Father’…we are challenged to exclude no one.” (Vaghi)

There is holy power in togetherness rooted in prayer. “A hunting party sometimes has a greater chance of flushing love and God into the open than a warrior all alone” (Hafiz). The world to which believers carry the good news of the Gospel, while always pointing to a preferred future, is hungry for the community we envision and often waiting for an invitation to belong.

What Neysa knew and taught is that prayer and our personal relationship with God are at the very heart of life itself. Prayer is not an additional task. It is God’s call, God’s gift, and God’s process of creating something new in each one of us throughout our lives.

It has been my experience that prayer opens our minds to new, unimagined insights and leads us to encounter those waiting for us along the way. Those “chance” and often life-altering encounters elude us without prayer. It is possible, I think, to move through the years allotted to us and miss life.

Neysa was right. Take her advice and “pray always,” for “God is the only sure thing.”

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Sister Therese has recently completed her term as president of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Scranton, Pa.

Prayer is not an additional task. It is God’s call, God’s gift and God’s process of creating something new in each one of us throughout our lives.

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Hello, is that you, God?

Phones, Pads, Prayers

by Christine Robinson

When I was a very little girl, I gathered—I’m sure nobody taught me this—that in order to pray, one had to have a particular posture: head bowed, eyes closed, hands clasped. It was also clear to me that those prayers always had to have words, either memorized or extemporaneous. And while I was always drawn toward the idea of prayer, I never felt very good at those wordy exercises. When I discovered the meditation practices of the East, I had no idea that many of these same practices would be called “prayer” by contemplative Christians or Jews. It was a revelation that brought me back home, so to speak, to the practices of my own Christian heritage, and in that exploration, I discovered that all kinds of things that I had found myself to be useful spiritual tools: journaling, walking, art, chant, and picturing loved ones in my mind’s eye, could also be considered prayer. For someone who had always felt a bit spiritually backwards, it was wonderful to discover that I had been praying all along—but with things in my hands, or a spring in my step.

Last year I spent a few sabbatical months in a faraway city. I had only a couple of suitcases with me, my Kindle for books, and a new smartphone, which I had purchased mostly for its map capability. I had a book to write and a city to explore and time for silence and prayer. And that’s when I learned to pray with a smartphone.

When I was away from my landline, my smartphone was my lifeline to the world. It was never off. I was careful to take it everywhere with me, and I found all kinds of capabilities besides phone and map. I discovered quickly why it is that the younger generation is said to check their messages before they get out of bed in the morning! (While I was discovering smartphones, that younger generation was discovering iPads and tablets, which do everything except make phone calls even better than a smart phone. While I have no direct experience with tablet computing, everything I’m about to say about phones goes for tablets, too.)

Having learned to take pencils, journals, books, and art supplies into my prayer time, perhaps it was inevitable that I started taking my phone. That might seem off-putting to some, but a smart phone is, after all, just a tool, as a pen and paper or a printed book might be. All tools take getting used to, and none work for everybody, but I’m certainly not going to put a limit on what tools God can use to get through to me. I encourage you to try some of these suggestions and see if they work for you. Even if the old ways feel better to you, those of us who advise that younger generation should keep them in mind.

Praying with Photos

Those of us who keep a prayer list can, of course, keep that list on a memo in our phone, but I have loved praying with photos I’ve taken or downloaded. For me, seeing faces helps a lot. You can even have folders of pictures for days of the week, and besides faces, you can snap photos or download pictures from the web to remind you of situations you want to pray for.

Especially if you have the larger surface and better resolution of a tablet or iPad, it would be possible to download images of icons or other evocative religious symbols for meditation. You can even download a video of a flickering candle! Perhaps none of these is “as good” as gazing at the real thing, but the “real thing” is not always available.

Using the Clock

For those who find it easier to sink down into meditation if they know they will be called out of it at a particular time, (or who don’t want to be distracted wondering how much time has passed), there are many meditation timers available. The virtual ones can be downloaded from the phone’s app store, but many phones come with a clock/stopwatch/timer function built in. Often it is possible to change the alert tone to something gentler than an alarm beep.

Using the Music Player

Smartphones often double as MP3 players, which means that it is possible to download all manner of chants and prayer services. This can be especially useful for prayer or meditation in a distracting environment. Pop in your earbuds, press play, and you can create a spiritual space wherever you are. This tool is also useful in the dentist’s office, the waiting room, and on the bus!

Lectio Divina

Most smartphones and all tablets allow you to download files, so the day’s scriptures, poetry, or whatever you study as your spiritual practice is readily available. Multiple languages and translations and even notes and commentary can all be at your fingertips with a little advance work.

Social Media

The meat of my spiritual practice during that sabbatical was a version of Lectio Divina, which I was practicing with daily chapters of the Tao Te Ching, and I summed up each day’s study with a sentence which recapped the message I wanted to take into my day with me. Then I learned about Twitter, which is a very quick and easy way to share very short messages, 144 characters or fewer. That limit was a good challenge for me, and although I didn’t seek out any followers, I eventually developed quite a few. I also learned how to get my twitters to appear automatically on my Facebook page, where commenters encouraged me to compile the twitters into a book. Twittering one’s spiritual practice turns out to have a downside; it takes discipline to keep this a spiritual practice and not a performance. But it is another way to share. Twitter has another spiritual benefit. If you “follow” the right people, you will find an unending supply of uplifting quotes, scripture passages, and links to poems.

I expected to return to paper and pen in my spiritual practice after that sabbatical was over, but it didn’t work that way. Now I pray with my phone in my hand every morning. Hello, is that you, God?

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Christine Robinson is the senior minister of the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque, New Mexico, the author of The Twittered Tao and co-author of two books for small group ministry, Heart to Heart and Soul to Soul. She is the author of Psalms for a New World: http://doubterpsalms.blogspot.com
She Twitters as RevCrobinson.

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Praying from the Wounds of the World

A Justice and Peace Perspective

by Sister Chris Koellhoffer, IHM

In the rural West of Ireland, one can find seemingly unending acres of lush greenery and breathtaking landscapes. Many years ago, when I spent time in this picture–postcard region, I also saw something that contrasted starkly with such verdant images: a number of thatched roof homes, clearly abandoned, where the top outer covering had collapsed. During the Great Famine, when so many were dying of starvation and disease, family members, ill and frail themselves, often didn’t have the physical energy or strength to dig graves for the dead. All of their life force went into the struggle to survive yet another day. In place of a traditional proper grave, the home then often became a burial site, as the gravely weakened survivors simply caved in the roof, signifying that there were dead loved ones within.

As I stood in reverent silence by these tombs, a fierce wind howled through the openings of the homes. Was it my imagination, or did I actually hear the cry of a mother keening for the lifeless child she clutched to her heart, wailing her inconsolable grief to the universe? From just such brokenness came the belief that only those who have suffered such a loss themselves can hear the ghosts cry.

This made me wonder, what about us in our time and place? Can we hear the cry of the “ghosts” of today? And what is the role of prayer in bringing about a deep listening to those cries? Some who are inclined to immediate action may think of contemplation and time spent in deep prayer as frivolous, a “waste” of time in the face of the crying needs of our age. Some may even think that contemplation isolates a person from justice issues or invites a person to avoid genuine interaction with what Vatican II named as “the joys, hopes, griefs and anxieties” of the people of this world.

In The Illuminated Life, Joan Chittister addresses the danger of this line of thinking. Contemplation, she insists, can never be used to justify distance from the great questions of life. It can never be an excuse to, as she says, “let the world go to rot.” She notes, “If contemplation is taking on the heart of God in the heart of the world, then the contemplative, perhaps more than any other, weeps over the obliteration of the will of God in the heart of the universe.”

Prayer is essential in leading us to hear more clearly the cries of those who have been marginalized, oppressed, dismissed, forgotten, and to respond to them out of that contemplative stance. Contemplation leads us to exactly the type of action described by Elaine Prevallet in Toward a Spirituality for Global Justice. She observes that contemplation consigns us to a state of dangerous openness and creates a change in consciousness where we begin to see beyond boundaries. This moves us from a sense of openness to a sense of connectedness with the wounds of the world. “The breath of God which the contemplative sets out to breathe is the spirit of compassion,” she remarks. “The true contemplative weeps with those who weep and cries out for those who have no voice.”

Far from having us keep our distance from the works of justice, our prayer should enhance our sensitivity to others and our sense of solidarity with wounded humanity. As we witness the pain of others, our hearts should resonate with their suffering and urge us to “com-passion,” suffering with. This movement from deep prayer to deep connection is a natural flow, according to Henri Nouwen: “To carry deep in our hearts this suffering condition of humankind, and to know that we all belong to each other, leads us to want to relieve the burdens of hatred, distrust, and oppression that we see all around us.”

Prayer involves active engagement with God, with our own doubts, with the evil and good of the world. True prayer, genuine contemplation, invites us at every moment to touch the pain of the world and to have our hearts broken.

Listen. Can we hear the cries?

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Sister Chris has recently completed her term as the councilor for spiritual development for the IHM Congregation.

Prayer is essential in leading us to hear more clearly the cries of those who have been marginalized, oppressed, dismissed, forgotten, and to respond to them out of that contemplative stance.

Some suggested readings for hearing the cries of our world:

Journey to the Common Good by Walter Brueggemann

Prayers for a New World Order by Betsy Clark, SSJ

Prayers for Justice and Peace by Edward F. Gabriele

Praying for Peace Around the Globe by James McGinnis

Salted with Fire: Spirituality for the FaithJustice Journey by Fred Kammer, SJ

The Illuminated Life: Monastic Wisdom for Seekers of Light by Joan Chittister

Toward a Spirituality for Global Justice: A Call to Kinship by Elaine Prevallet

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Throwing Ourselves into God

by Sister Mary Ellen Merrick, IHM

In the Christian tradition we celebrate the central story of faith. Jesus spent thirty-three years on earth. The first thirty were a type of private preparation for the public final three years. Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday and culminating with Easter, tells the story. There are numerous examples in scripture where the followers of Jesus ask him to teach them—teach them how to pray. He did by his words and by his example.

The disciples, like many of us, had no idea what they were really asking. As I reflected on my own experience of prayer and learning to pray, I realized how much of an evolutionary process it has been and continues to be. As a very young child, I recall watching my grandmother “finger the beads” as she sat having a cup of tea or looked at the night sky before retiring. I’d see the beads move in her hand as her lips quietly mouthed the words. She seemed to be conversing with someone important to her. I asked her one day and she simply smiled and said, “Child, it’s me and me God that’s having a wee talk here.” I also recall her kneeling with my brother and me at night and “blessing those we love.” It was a litany of family who had “gone to God” and those “still with us.” This is a young memory for me but it got stored somewhere deep within me until I needed it years later.

As my childhood progressed, my family engaged in Church as it was at that time. There were weekly participation at Mass, regular confession, forty hours devotion, and processions where being a flower girl was a special honor. My brother and I attended Catholic school, so instruction in the rules and expectations of being a Catholic were faithfully taught. We learned how to understand and respect other people and many other valuable lessons that I treasure to this day. I could tell anyone who asked what kinds of prayers I knew: parts of Mass, novenas, holy card prayers, rosary, prayer to my Guardian Angel, and ejaculations. I followed a formula of sorts and never stopped to consider that what I had learned was not complete. I was doing what I had learned and was being faithful to that learning. It was the way of a child and might have stayed that way if a period of crisis had not entered my life: a crisis uninvited, unwanted, and life changing.

Remember the disciples, especially the apostles? They said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” When I was still a young sister and was experiencing my first assignment as a teacher, I discovered that alcohol had the ability to change the way I felt. I had no idea that my family history suggested a strong potential toward not being able to handle it appropriately. Today’s research would point to a certain brain chemistry that prevents some individuals from being able to enjoy the substance safely and predictably. I was one of them but didn’t know it then. Time went on and so did the progression of the addictive illness. I tried to cut down, even stop, to no avail. My community even changed my assignment, hoping it would help. It did, for a while, but that was not enough. During the years that I struggled with alcohol, I was able to continue teaching and fulfill other responsibilities. On the outside all seemed okay. It was the inside that was slowly dying. My prayer all but disappeared. I went through the motions but was not connected to the experiences. Prayers and worship were remote, and I felt God was lost to me. I felt like a phony and it became increasingly intolerable to be with my beloved eighth grade students, encouraging them to be the best each could be, when I was not able to do the same. I asked for and received the help I needed. Somewhere in the experience of this, I recalled my grandmother and the memory of her and the image of her strongly suggested that she was in a relationship with her God. It dawned on me, rather powerfully, that I didn’t have a personal relationship with my God. I wanted one. My spirit was crying out for it but all the misuse and abuse of alcohol was preventing my search from attaining its goal.

Gradually, things changed. My head cleared, my health improved and I started to pray out of my experience. It was like talking with a dear and trusted friend. The deep shame I had felt turned into a profound gratitude and humility for the chance that sobriety offered. Now there are moments during each day when I have “small chats” with my God. Driving is a good time to do this or before closing my eyes at night. I have stopped worrying about what others think of me and hesitating before saying what I feel about something. Fear about dying or living fully is no longer a concern. Prayer is relational, a connection to someone who loves me unconditionally and compassionately. Prayer bonds me to my IHM sisters and my family irrespective of time, place, and distance. Prayer is what enabled me to begin a new ministry a little more than two years ago; it encouraged me to risk something new and leave what was well established and secure.

I heard a speaker a few weeks ago offer a metaphor about his awakening to an experience of God. He described moving to Chicago and going to Lake Michigan for the first time. He knew it was large but had not imagined how immense it actually was. It was summer and people were enjoying the water coming on shore in waves as the ocean does. He was mesmerized and thought of the greatness of God. Slowly it dawned on him that the bathers were doing something he was holding back on doing. They were running into the shining blue expanse of the water and throwing themselves into it, being absorbed by the beauty and comfort of the experience. He was just standing there. He realized he wanted to throw himself into God’s embrace like the swimmers he was watching. I have come to believe that this is what prayer is in the context of relationship. We need to throw ourselves into God. God desires this for each of us.

I have no idea what you, as a reader, have experienced or how you would explain the evolution of prayer in your life. This brief article is my attempt at touching on some of what it took for me. I’ll simply end by saying how aware I am when now I whisper “Lord, teach me . . .”

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Sister Mary Ellen serves as the executive director of Guest House for Women Religious in Lake Orion, Michigan.

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Praying Today

by Father Frank DeSiano, CSP

We have a huge vacuum in Catholic life—namely, regular, daily prayer. Even though large numbers of Catholics report praying every day (what else might they say to a pollster?), our everyday experience shows that Catholics rarely have a set discipline of prayer, and that prayer rarely happens in a regular way in an average Catholic household. Is it any wonder that young people see “church” as something divorced from their lives, something “extra” they have to do, and something they give up as soon as the oil of Confirmation dries on their heads? Prayer is not a disciplined part of our lives; as a result, religious experience in our everyday lives appears strange.

There is, in this larger story about prayer today, a background piece and a foreground piece. Let’s see where it takes us.

The Background

The background piece involves the superficial ways many think of prayer. On the one hand, it’s a set of words one says, perhaps with magical purposes, to try to change fate. On the other hand, it touches the greatest drama of a life—how one opens up to the divine in trust, passion, and love. Until we begin to see prayer in profoundly relational terms—expressing a personal and powerful relationship with God—then no kind of prayer will make sense.

People have a relationship with God. They often do not allude to it or cultivate it. Yet every believer sees herself connected to God in an abiding, sustaining way. Preachers, teachers, liturgists, musicians, spiritual directors—all of us religious leaders—have to run (not walk!) to help people get in touch with this relationship. Whatever their preferred form of prayer, believers have to be teased behind the external form to touch and be touched by the unending and abundant life that we call God.

Spiritual leaders, likewise, have to underline the reciprocity of prayer’s relational force. It’s all too easy for people to nod vaguely at some being “in the sky” who seems nice most of the time. It’s far harder to commit ourselves to this God through steady attention and constant seeking. As Jacob wrestles with God (Gen. 32:24 ff.), he shows us how seriously he takes God. And, powerfully, we see how seriously God takes him.

Part of prayer’s reciprocity comes down to this sobering truth: unless we persistently open ourselves in prayer, unless we commit our being to the relationship of prayer, God becomes a remote and ultimately harmless abstraction. Just as our relating to other human beings gives them substance in our lives, so our relating to God allows God to be substantial in our consciousness.

My own engagement with God revolves around the psalms, neatly delivered every day to me in the Liturgy of the Hours. Dare I let God speak to me through these words? Dare I let the words linger in the edges of my vision, demanding of me a response? Dare I make the phrases of the psalms into an expression of my relationship with God? Of course, the psalms engage me because the Holy Spirit graciously led me on a spiritual journey many decades ago in which I discovered God as love. Surely the Holy Spirit has the energy to engage all people once they open their hearts to the divine!

Relational. Interactive. Give-and-take. Speak and listen. Personal. Communal. Quiet and fierce. Gentle and burning. Everyone will have her or his own way of engaging with God, whatever the starting point. The psalms, scripture reading and reflection, liturgy, adoration, prayer to the Holy Spirit, prayer that arises in crisis or joy, family prayer—whatever the starting point, spiritual leaders have to help people touch the relational side of their experience.

If the definition of prayer can be put as the lifting of one’s mind and heart to God (is God upward?), I think it can also be put this way: the expression of our relationship with God in such a way that we give God access to our lives.

The end-point of looking at prayer as relational and seeing the relational as the essential background piece of prayer, is that prayer becomes a nonstop interaction with God, permeating one’s whole life, with multiple expressions (both individually and as a community) that weave together into one entire fabric. One is always talking with God; God is always addressing the heart. One never escapes this God; indeed, one never wants to escape this God.

Perhaps it is hard to know how to begin helping people today to see this relational side of prayer—or seeing their lives as a relationship with God in the first place. Nevertheless, people still desperately seek meaning in their lives, endlessly scan the horizon of their minds and the vaults of their hearts, speaking into reality’s depths, filled with expectation. Can we take the very searchings of modern people and begin to point out the contours of an unending conversation with God?

The question, after all, does not involve whether the Spirit is at work. Rather, the only question is how we help people recognize the Spirit at work in their lives—God’s relational quality drawing people into ever deeper relationship with the divine. “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom. 8:27-28). The Spirit is already there! Here! Within! Around!

The Foreground

The foreground question gets down to some practicalities. We have to help Catholics develop a daily routine of prayer. Spiritual leaders have to provide the books, websites, tools, and resources so that Catholics introduce consistent prayer throughout their day. While I am not advocating everyone pray the Liturgy of the Hours (it would be foolish to advocate what is unworkable), I do think we need resources to help Catholics pray at distinct intervals throughout the day.

Imagine if families had a structure of prayer. Imagine if this became part of Catholics life. Imagine if laypeople had forms of prayer that punctuated their day, helping them see their day as sacred. Imagine what would be unleashed in our lives once the power of prayer started transforming the lives of everyday believers. Imagine if all of us, from the simple to the most sophisticated, from the most pious to the most imprisoned, all saw prayer as part of our life—in an explicit, discernible way.

Certainly, this might heighten the risk of hypocrisy. We always run that risk when we have external behaviors that might not be backed up by internal forms. However, the correlative is also true: until we have consistent external behaviors, people will not have the basis to explore and expand the inner world these behaviors reveal.

Our agenda for prayer is huge. But it is also a great opportunity. Having moved from clusters of sporadic, external prayer which prevailed before the Second Vatican Council (with clergy, religious, and the rare lay person delving deeper), we now can think of patterns of consistent prayer among all Catholics, all of it an expression of an ever-deeper relationship with God, and much of it supported by personal and collective commitment.

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Frank DeSiano is a Paulist priest. A former president of the Paulist Fathers, he now leads the Paulist Evangelization Office in Washington, DC. He writes extensively and regularly presents to dioceses, clergy and laity involved in ministry. His newest book, Reactivating our Catholic Faith, is available from Paulist Press. Father Frank is the twin brother of Sister Ann Barbara DiSiano, IHM.

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Praying with Our Feet

by Jill L. Snodgrass

The telos or purpose of prayer is relationship. Prayer strengthens our relationship and connection with God, self, others, and all of creation. Many of us respond to God’s call to prayer on bended knee with bowed heads, folded hands, and reverent hearts. We offer petitionary and intercessory prayers, prayers of adoration, praise and thanksgiving. We offer utterances of emotion—fears, concerns, joys, and anxieties spoken and given to God on behalf of our neighbors, the world, and ourselves. We enter into prayer in solitude and in community and always in response to God’s call.

But God calls us to pray with more than just our lips. God calls us to engage in what liberation theologian Jon Sobrino (1981) refers to as “contemplativus in actione” or contemplation in action. Prayer transforms the world not only through God’s action in it, but also through our own. We are co-creators with God and prayer prepares us to engage in the world by working to create God’s kingdom on earth today. As Dorothee Soelle contends, “Our hands have a double use: to pray and to do battle. We are not to dichotomize or polarize prayer and action in the world. They must go together. The journey inward must lead to a journey outward” (LeFevre, 1995, p. 215).

Like Soelle and Sobrino, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel believed in the power of prayer (or contemplation) in action. Rejecting the Aristotelian concept of God as “unmoved mover,” Heschel was fervent in his admiration of the prophets and his belief that God is pained by human acts of oppression and injustice. According to Heschel, prayer not only originates in the heart and is uttered by the lips; prayer is a response to God’s will that is placed in the feet and enacted with one’s whole being. Heschel wrote, “Prayer must never be a citadel for selfish concerns, but rather a place for deepening concern over other people’s plights….Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods” (Heschel, 1970).

On March 21, 1965, Rabbi Heschel traveled from New York City to Selma, Alabama to join Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Selma Civil Rights March. For Heschel, as for King, the march was both a political and a religious endeavor. They considered it a reclamation of the pronouncements of the prophets of Israel, a resurrection of the Exodus story. When asked why he went to Selma, Heschel replied, “When I march in Selma, my feet are praying.” Heschel went on to say, “For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying” (Heschel, 2005).

The friendship of Heschel and King did much to strengthen Jewish-Christian relations in the 1960s and beyond. But it also has much to teach us about the purpose and the methods of prayer. What does it mean to pray with your feet?

First, it means that prayer should be not only verbal but also active. As God’s children, made in God’s image, we are not objects to God but subjects with God. We are co-creators whom God has entrusted to work and pray toward ushering in the kingdom on earth this day. Our world is teeming with religious and political rhetoric, an endless stream of words that masquerade as The Word. Yet when we accept responsibility as co-creators with God, our words alone are not enough. God calls us to enact our faith in both word and deed. Therefore, prayer must be both of our lips and our feet if we are to do justice in our role as co-creators of the kingdom. For, as the Psalmist reminds us, “God’s word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path” (Psalm 119:105, NRSV).

Second, praying with our feet evidences our righteous indignation in ways that words cannot. The success of the Civil Rights Movement derived from the prayers that King, Heschel, and millions of others uttered with their mouths and marched with their feet. Righteous indignation over the oppression inflicted upon all of God’s children was manifested not only in word but in nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience. From round-the-clock global news coverage and RSS feeds to tweets and blogs, praying with our feet proclaims the voice of justice in a unique and powerful way. The never-ending updates on the violence in Syria and global economic recessions almost necessitate that we allow our hearts to harden if we are to cope with the magnitude of the world’s pain. But God invites us to give voice to our righteous indignation in a transformational way by praying with our feet, rather than “to turn on, tune in, and drop out” or resign to callousness.

Finally, praying with our feet invites us to cross borders and boundaries. Ut Unum Sint – may they be one. The Gospel of John reminds humanity that we are one (John 17:21, NRSV), created in unity with diversity. When we pray with our feet we are moved beyond the walls of the church, temple, or synagogue. We transcend all boundaries toward the oneness of God, as evidenced by Reverend King and Rabbi Heschel. They marched side-by-side, praying with their feet, each from his own religious tradition toward justice for all God’s people. More recently, we’ve seen this same boundary crossing in the Occupy Movement. Leaders and adherents from across religious traditions joined together to hold worship services, provide chaplains, and offer material support to those praying with their feet in Zuccotti Park and across the nation. A group known as Occupy Faith DC, an interfaith coalition in support of the Occupy Movement, prepared a Thanksgiving meal for protesters and hosted teach-in style presentations about the religious significance of resistance to injustice.

As a child, I recited three prayers every night at bedtime. Though the significance was lost on me in childhood, in one of the prayers I asked God to “guide my little feet,” a prayer I’m sure many know well. God invites us to pray with our feet that we might be God’s messengers to act boldly in our righteous indignation and cross boundaries toward greater unity and justice in creation.

References

Heschel, A.J. (1970). On prayer. Conservative Judaism, 25, 1-12. Heschel, S. (2005). Following in my father’s footsteps: Selma 40 years later. Vox of Dartmouth. Retrieved from http://www.dartmouth.edu/~vox/0405/0404/heschel.html

LeFevre, P. (1995). Modern theologies of prayer. Chicago: Exploration Press.

Sobrino, J. (1981). Christian prayer and new testament theology: A basis for social justice and spirituality. In M. Fox (Ed.), Western spirituality: Historical roots, ecumenical routes (pp. 76-114). Santa Fe: Bear & Company.

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Rev. Jill L. Snodgrass, Ph.D. is assistant professor of Pastoral Counseling at Loyola University Maryland and resides in Ellicott City, MD. Jill is ordained in the United Church of Christ and her research focuses on spiritual care and pastoral counseling with traditionally marginalized populations.

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Carbon Footprint Prayer

by Sister Pam Smith, SS.C.M.

On a dismal night in the 1980s when I was feeling unusually bereft and distressed, I decided that Saint Paul had set forth an inflated and unachievable ideal when he counseled the followers of Christ to “Pray constantly” (Eph 6:18). At that point I wondered whether I was praying at all. I had been baffled about the whereabouts of God for months. Oh, I’d been showing up at liturgy and going through the expected motions: mumbling my antiphonal side at morning and evening prayer at the convent, participating in daily Mass, leading prayer before each of the classes I taught at the local Catholic high school. But it all seemed like blank space, like words vaulted into some cosmic black hole. I wasn’t hearing Elijah’s gentle breeze at all.

It was a Wednesday evening and, like the proverbial Wednesday child, I was full of woe. I’d been wasting evening hours on small talk, repetitious phone calls, and inattentive channel flipping. I couldn’t manage to read through a single serious book, so I would spend most afternoons, between the end of school and supper time, walking aimlessly for miles. One afternoon a week I went with the school’s Action Club to visit and feed permanent residents at the local VA hospital, most of them paralyzed, one of them a suicide risk. Those days I came home speechless and numb. Sometimes I went to the public library and picked up books filled with photographs and art work. That Wednesday night, though, I had a powerful impulse to connect with God, or at least to make one last-ditch effort to do so. I went downstairs to the convent chapel after everyone’s light was out, put on a cassette of instrumentals from the St. Louis Jesuits or John Michael Talbot, and lay down on the floor. And that was all I did: lie there with carpet fuzz and the taste of the day’s dust in my face with a musical background set at the lowest audible volume.

I stayed quite long. In the scant yellow beams from the streetlights out on High Street and the red gleam from the sanctuary lamp within, I found some small warmth and comfort. Afterwards, as I uncramped, got up, and headed upstairs to bed, I realized that I had indeed prayed. I had been wordlessly gentled by God. From that experience I concluded that the real rule of prayer was “Pray any way you can.” Flat on your face. In midnight and early morning darkness. Doing nothing. Letting music play softly upon you. Liking the fact that streetlights cast shadows from trees and houses and cars. Realizing that the tomes of artwork and photography I’d been leafing through had been a type of spiritual reading, too, attuning me to beauty and the world of creation—which, after all, has been called by saints and scholars a revelation of God.

The lesson of that night has served me well over the years. Roughly ten years ago I began to suspect that tithing time for personal prayer would be a worthy exercise of stewardship: 144 minutes a day. Most days I barely come close. But there are also work days—not just retreat days—when I double or triple that time. Because I’m director of catechesis in a diocese that runs a little more than five hours driving time end to end, I spend considerable time on the road and book occasional overnights in motels in hardship places like Myrtle Beach. My prayer amid these days I call my “carbon footprint prayer.” The travel means that I lay a larger than average carbon footprint despite the fact that I drive a Prius. I feed on fast food and take-out and thus dispose of numerous plastic utensils, paper napkins, and Styrofoam containers, I cause sheets and towels to be laundered more frequently than they ever would be at home, and, on four-day weekends when the Rite of Election is held at four sites across the state, I burn gas and rubber for more than 1,000 miles.

How do I pray at these times? In the car I sometimes pray just like my Grandma Smith: twenty decades of the rosary and favorite aspirations. At other times my prayer is silent: sheer admiration of the sunrise over a marsh or the canopy of live oak trees draped in Spanish moss overhanging a two-lane roadway. I’ve learned the bend of egrets and the dive-bomb of pelicans. Sometimes I talk aloud to one or another person of the Trinity or to some uncanonized members of the communion of saints—Thomas Merton, one of our deceased sisters, Dad, Mom, Uncle Howie, Grandma. Sometimes I listen to the radio with segments of scripture, Christian rock, smooth jazz, or symphonies. On long rides I may insert into the CD player a spiritual audiobook or a pleasant, happily ending novel, or a series of lectures on the poetry of Walt Whitman. At the motel I read, journal, stroll, and, if ministry comes with the benefit of a beachfront deck (which it sometimes does, off season), I sit for a long stretch simply being one with the surf. Every now and then I write a poem or sketch.

All of these are, I believe, ways of prayer. They still me and prepare me for better attentiveness. They tend to celebration and contemplation. They enhance my liturgical prayer. They lift my mind and heart to God and allow God to get a word in edgewise.

Though my carbon footprint is at times significantly larger than it was on a routine day or a desperate night in Lebanon, Pennsylvania nearly 30 years ago, I believe that my tread upon Earth has been redeemed by a lesson learned there. These days I pray any way I can and recognize that I move slowly and steadily toward praying constantly—this way and that.

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Pam Smith, SS.C.M. is at present director of Catechesis and Christian Initiation in the Diocese of Charleston. Prior to her present position she taught on elementary, secondary, and college levels and served as associate dean and director of lay ministry programs at a seminary. She has served her community as vocation director, councilor, and general superior. She is the author of ten books, most recently Mark Time: A Gospel for the Hurried, and has placed more than one hundred poems and articles in spiritual and theological journals.

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Breathe your prayer, be your prayer

by Dayna Pizzigoni

“…Breathe your prayer, be your prayer” - Alla Renee Bozarth

Praying is like breathing for me.

More often than not, I do it throughout my day without realizing it because it is what I was made to do. Other times, I intentionally pray and nurture my connection with God. Sometimes I sing familiar refrains of psalms of praise in the car in moments of consolation; sometimes I silently shout “Help!” in moments of stress; and sometimes my prayer is giving an orange to a man experiencing homelessness as I wait for the light to turn green. My life would be void of meaning, abundance, and connection without my prayers. Thankfully, God has called me to a vocation where I can also experience prayer in my work as a budding pastoral counselor.

Pastoral counseling is a field of professional counseling that underscores the spiritual being as an integral part of our bio-psycho-social selves. Prayer is an essential part of my identity as a pastoral counselor. Prayer can be a tacit reality in therapy or an explicit part of treatment. I believe that counseling is a sacred space. The sacred exists in the God inside each client and in the Spirit around us in session. Sometimes when a client is sharing her pain, I am silently praying for her while responding to her story. This unspoken kind of prayer may be the only spiritual part of therapy for a nonspiritual or religious client; however, pastoral themes of hope, forgiveness, and the like are relevant to most people. If spirituality or religion is important to a client, I can integrate his faith explicitly in treatment. For example, prayer can be a helpful tool in treating anxiety if someone understands God as a protector. A spirit of prayer can also be integrated in deep breathing exercises. Last but not least, prayer in my personal life allows me to hold unending hope, acceptance, and faith in the growth of my clients.

Our teenage community of faith presents unique needs in mental health. My adolescent clients are struggling with understanding themselves and feeling as if they don’t belong, as most of us did in high school. On top of experiencing these normal developmental pangs, they struggle with deep wounds from a parent with the disease of addiction; from a secret abortion; from repeated bullying; from rape; from suffocating anxiety; from low self-esteem; or from isolating depression. For many adolescents religious beliefs are in flux and unclear as they hold in tension their growing autonomy and the beliefs of authority figures, including the Church. They are exploring their spirituality and slowly beginning to own their beliefs. My hope for them is that in counseling, they experience the accepting love of God in risking vulnerability and receiving healing.

Teresa of Avila wrote, “Christ has no body now but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours.” Some of us use Christ’s hands in ethical business, dedicated teaching, and creative art. I feel called to use them in healing hearts and minds as a pastoral counselor. While not all pastoral counseling happens in spiritual or religious settings, I am particularly blessed to counsel within my faith community, which has invited me to integrate prayer and counseling explicitly. Loyola University Maryland and The Catholic High School of Baltimore have allowed me to develop and assess a psycho-educational, theistic intervention called The Imago Dei Experience (TIDE). TIDE is a six-week, fifty- minute-per-week program involving group activities that affirm the beauty and sacredness of the body. It is based on three basic ideas: God made you beautiful; God thinks you are beautiful; and God moves within you. The Imago Dei Experience gives adolescent girls at The Catholic High School of Baltimore a chance to explore the spiritual goodness of their bodies with sound theology and peer-support.

The essential piece of TIDE is not its theology or therapeutic interventions, but that it is experiential and in a peer setting. Adolescents journey in their spiritual lives in the same way as they do every other part of their lives—with a significant influence from their peers. In my catechetical work with middle school students, faith and justice work with high school students, and counseling with adolescents, it is clear that teenagers need all the stories, signs, symbols, and service our Church offers. They need to re-create it on their own and with their peers. In a pluralistic world full of wonderful diversity, it is important that our Catholic adolescents experience God in our Catholic community. One theology compared to any other theology might be confusing as adolescents navigate their souls with only a recently attained ability to think abstractly. What sticks is an experience of faith with peers.

St. Teresa of Avila’s message about Christ’s body is not just a call to serve and pray knowing we show God to the world. It is also a reminder that we see and know God most easily through one another. Prayer is about connecting with God. The truth is that we are always connected. This transcendence moves in us like the air that we breathe. If we as adults, young and old, do everything as prayer, then perhaps we can embody the Christ that our younger brothers and sisters long to see with their own eyes. They will still need to see it among their peers and encounter it on their own, but they will know what to look for when searching for Christ. Our role is invitation; theirs is discovery.

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Dayna was raised in New Jersey and was educated by the Sisters of IHM, Immaculata. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in pastoral counseling at Loyola University Maryland. Dayna serves on the Board of Trustees for the Center for FaithJustice in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. In addition to providing counseling, she is facilitating The Imago Dei Experience, a program she created using theistic affirmation and nondualistic spiritual exercises to enhance body image and self-esteem. Dayna welcomes responses to her article via email at dmpizzigoni@gmail.com

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Loving Deeply

by Linda A. Urbanski

Prayer is union with God. Prayer is movement toward the realization that we live in the space of God at all times. Sometimes this realization occurs in silence, sometimes in the midst of a crisis, but often in the ordinary moments of our daily existence when we simply go from one activity to the next without even thinking—just doing, being, serving and growing connected to all the people and situations that make our lives what they are.

Parents pray when they feed, love, and embrace their children. They pray when they change a diaper. They pray when they support their adult children through the challenges of life. They pray when they place themselves, their children and grandchildren in the hands of God to be blessed and guided by God’s divine mercy and love.

Athletes pray when they take the field or step onto the court. In those few moments of silence, they connect with God. They make time to experience a sense of oneness which allows them to dedicate all they do and who they are in the name of God. They pray for strength, for safety, for the ability to lead and share their God-given talents with others. They realize that this gift of athletic ability is limited not only by time, but sometimes by unexpected circumstances. They thank God they are given the opportunity to use that gift for good by sharing with others.

Women and men dedicated to a spiritual way of life pray when they open themselves to be instruments of God’s love and mercy. They pray privately, as well as in groups. They pray when they listen and carry the pain of the people who come to them in need. They pray when they share in the special sacramental moments of people’s lives. These women and men nourish themselves through silence and in the daily prayer practices that were engrained in them during formation so that their whole life is a journey toward growth in the realization of union with God. They pray in humility that God will use them for good and transform their frailties. They pray when they offer forgiveness and mercy, since they have known God’s unconditional love and mercy firsthand.

People in healthcare pray as they walk into their facilities knowing that for the next 8-12 hours they will be asked to empty themselves for the sake of others and minister to the sick, the aged, the lonely, and the dying. They pray as they hug a patient, comfort a family member and explain a procedure once again. They pray when they administer medication or start a chemo drip. They pray before surgery, and when they feed a patient and clean a room. They pray when they welcome a new baby into the world and sit by another leaving this world for the next life. People in healthcare nourish their own spiritual lives by prayer and being present for each other. They feed their souls and connect with God through sports, music, art, and other experiences that afford them a sense of joy and freedom. They prayerfully feed their souls by allowing suffering to pass through them while offering hope to patients and families.

Students and teachers pray by entering into the same journey—a journey of respect for learning. Students question. They search for answers. They learn more from their teachers’ actions than words. They learn what is important. They learn to love learning. They learn to develop a hunger/a passion when they encounter a teacher who loves the subject he or she teaches. That hunger or passion is prayer at its best. At times the questions, the behaviors of the student may not make sense, but the teacher never gives up on the student in the same manner that Jesus never gave up. Jesus didn’t pray only when he slipped away from the crowds; he prayed all through the difficult moments when people just couldn’t grasp the message he was trying to convey. Jesus prayed with his life, by his actions. He prayed because he wanted everyone to share his passion of oneness, of union with God.

So how do we pray? We pray by living fully! We pray by loving deeply, caring for relatives, friends, strangers, and anyone who comes to us in need. We pray by following the example of Jesus—feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, making a place for the homeless, healing the sick, comforting those broken by sorrow. We pray that we feel connected through Jesus to everyone who ever walked this earth or will ever walk the earth. We pray by realizing there is no separation between God and all of creation. As we touch creation we touch God and God touches us. We feel wholeness, oneness with God.

We pray by offering compassion and understanding even if others cannot understand why we would choose to do so. We allow ourselves to be vessels of mercy and vehicles of reconciliation wherever there is tension, conflict, terror or mass destruction. We offer ourselves in the same spirit of Jesus to be broken and poured out in the name of justice for children, women, men, refugees, victims of war, hunger and starvation. We move in silence and stillness with Jesus and the communion of saints across place and time to minister spiritually to situations that cause suffering. For we believe that Jesus takes us and others with him to touch any person in need of mercy, grace, peace and light.

Prayer is fully engaging in everything we do in the presence of God. It is reaching out, as well as reaching within, touching and being touched by an Ever-Living, Ever-Loving God. Prayer is the realization that we are one in God—with God—the realization that each breath we take comes from God and returns to God. It is the realization that once we are no longer able to breathe, we will enter an eternal space of God. Prayer is the realization that nothing can ever separate us from our gracious God.

So…let us pray!

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Linda A. Urbanski, Ph.D. is a licensed nursing home administrator at Ingraham Manor in Bristol, CT. She is the author of two books: A Journey In Healing, From Longing To Sacred Unity, Nursing Home Resident Satisfaction, and The Spiritual Connection. She also offers retreats, conferences, and spiritual direction. She is involved with the spiritual formation of candidates interested in ministry. She can be reached at LUCCSH@aol.com

Prayer is the realization that we are one in God—with God—the realization that each breath we take comes from God and returns to God.

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Prayer: Keeping it Alive and Well

by Sister Nancy Hawkins, IHM

If someone were to stop me on the street and ask, “What is prayer?” I would respond, “It is relationship.” It is also an action word that describes the relationship that I have with the one I love and follow. Being a Christian, I have a prayerful relationship with the Triune God who is my creator, my redeemer in the person of Jesus the Christ, and the one who inspires and continually sustains me in the person of the Spirit. If the same inquisitive person asked me, “How do you keep that relationship alive?” I would respond by saying that I keep it alive in the same way that I keep any relationship in my life alive and well. I spend time with my God, I share myself with my God, and I listen to my God.

But as we all know, relationships can fall flat and even become mundane. It is then that we need to be creative and add special features to our relationships. Many of my advisees at St. Bernard’s plan “date nights” with their significant other so that their relationship will retain the same excitement and joy as with that first meeting or encounter. The same holds for the prayer relationship that exists with our God. We need to find ways to keep it meaningful, fun, inspired, and always new. I personally believe that God delights in my efforts to enhance who we are together! And I delight in the ways I am inspired by my God.

Nature is a constant source of prayerful inspiration for me. It matters not what season or whether it is shore, desert, or woods; God is there. I can play in nature and be a child again. Nothing is ever the same in nature, and all that is created reflects the Creator. When I am in nature I see God clearly and my soul is healed. Nature asks nothing of me except that I respect it. My prayer is always alive in nature.

I am a lover of books. I grew up surrounded by them, and I come to God through them. Many a retreat has been enhanced by a special poem or novel. I believe that the Spirit lives in the verses of Mary Oliver and Maya Angelou. I have a friend named Peggy Rosenthal who penned a book called Praying the Gospels through Poetry. She writes, “Poetry’s special art is to cast a fresh eye on the too familiar.” I hear the Spirit of God in the spaces between words that come from the poet’s hand. Will we ever forget this line from Mary Oliver, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I know that the poetic word had brought energy and joy into the prayer relationship I have with God. A few books that have helped “stretch” my spirituality and prayer life are The Clowns of God by Morris West, The Little Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery, and My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok with its sequel The Gift of Asher Lev. I heard God speak to my heart as I read each of these books.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love going to the movies, and that I often use movie clips when I teach or give retreats. I often go to the movies “with God!” Recently Martin Sheen’s film The Way and the true story told in Of Gods and Men have given me much to bring to my prayer. I definitely encountered the truths of our faith in both these movies, and my God relationship expanded because of their creativity and powerful messages.

I am convinced that learning about other cultural prayer forms and spiritualities keeps my God relationship fresh and exciting. I often call to mind Thomas Merton’s statement, “The East completes me.” My prayer life is “completed” by Celtic Spirituality. The concept of the Thin Places is especially inspiring. The Celts believe that there is a very thin line between me and those who have gone before me into eternal life. This concept has expanded my understanding of the Communion of Saints. The chants and sounds within the Buddhist tradition bring me peace and serenity. The prayers from different religious traditions are inspiring, especially the paradoxes of the Eastern Koan-parables and poems of the Muslim tradition by the mystic Hafiz. My linear Western mindset is drawn into cyclical reality through these cultures. I have learned that I never step into the same river twice!

Journaling is a very easy way to keep my prayer life alive and well. I have journaled since my college days and I never grow tired of being with God in this manner. Something happens to me when thoughts move down my arm, into my fingers and out the other side of the pen. Journaling is highly personal, and it gives me perspective on my life when I reread my yearnings, hopes, anxieties, and beliefs. Sometimes I draw, doodle, paste pictures, or write letters to God. I have not saved all these journals, but some are very special and they will be with me for a long time. I hold these journals gently and have even used them when I create prayer rituals for myself. They are my own personal sacred texts and they reflect how I love my God.

Finally, I know for a fact that making a retreat every year has helped keep my prayer relationship with God in good shape. As with a car, my soul needs that yearly tune up, for the bumps in the road of life damage my personal alignment! When I go on retreat I am giving myself a tremendous gift. I do believe that it is only in solitude and silence that some aspects of my God relationship will grow and thrive.

Prayer is a wonderful reality and it deserves to be fed, inspired, renewed and polished. Like a good wine it only gets better with age!

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Sister Nancy serves on the faculty at St. Bernard’s School of Theology and Ministry in Rochester, N.Y.

Nature is a constant source of prayerful inspiration for me. It matters not what season or whether it is shore, desert, or woods; God is there. I can play in nature and be a child again. Nothing is ever the same in nature, and all that is created reflects the Creator. When I am in nature I see God clearly and my soul is healed. Nature asks nothing of me except that I respect it. My prayer is always alive in nature.

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A Space Apart, Meant to be Shared

Our Lady of Grace Montessori School and Center

by Sister Ann Barbara DeSiano, IHM

Turning off busy Shelter Rock Road in Manhasset, NY on to the driveway marked Our Lady of Grace is a cue to many who come here that their life is about to transition to a different pace and a different reality. Hidden from eyes driving to the local mall is this holy space we name Our Lady of Grace Center, just uphill from our Montessori School. Since our IHM community received this property as a gift in 1959 we have strived to make it a center of peace and learning, both for our retreat seekers and for the children who attend our school.

Pat Cuccia, a longtime friend of OLG, summed this up, saying, “For many of us who have been attending functions for twenty years or so, balance is what we seek at OLG. The welcoming ‘serenity’ sign posted on the tree in the driveway signals a change of pace for us who are so busy with the things of this world. For many years when I was working in such a stressful job, OLG brought me back to the center and served as my fulcrum when things tipped too much one way or the other. It is an important place for many looking for respite on Long Island.

Etching of Our Lady of Grace by Sister Fran Fasolka, IHM

Whether people come for a day of prayer, a private hermitage experience, a weekend retreat or a week long experience of God’s presence, most are coming to experience a “shift” in their living. Some experience their lives as exhausting, out of control, frenzied or all-consuming due to work and family responsibilities. Others are dealing with significant life issues—recovery and addiction, health problems, relationship issues or unfinished business from past events. Many are the walking wounded, and many come who have been apart from the Church for a period of time and are searching to fill a spiritual void that lingers. They come in search of a renewed hope and spiritual healing, and to reconnect with God.

We invite others to come in and unplug from the frantic technological demands of their work and home lives and enter into the silence. Putting aside cell phones, texts, emails, Facebook and other social media, even for a short period of time, can help soothe the inner spirit that craves space to “just be.” Such interior quiet gives visitors a chance to feel joyful, peaceful and grateful and opens them to an awareness of God’s presence and love.

Our mission is to create that sacred, peaceful space where reconnection can happen. We desire to allow each person who comes to experience God’s unconditional love in his or her life. There is a beautiful symmetry to each room in our Center which projects both calm and relaxation. Large windows show the beauty of the natural landscape, preserved over many years. Rooms are spacious and inviting. Food is nourishing and delicious, and an environment of quiet prayerfulness radiates from this space. Our chapel is large, simple and flooded with natural light. Our small staff is dedicated and mighty when it comes to meeting the needs of our visitors!

A variety of retreat leaders helps minister to the needs that varied groups present. Both sisters and priests from different religious backgrounds offer days of prayer, weekend experiences for learning and sharing faith and weeklong retreats offering individual spiritual direction. Some retreats are primarily contemplative, and some focus on some specific aspect of our faith such as discipleship. Many times an established group will bring their own leader for a day of learning and prayer.

Parishes often use OLG for Pre-Cana instruction, staff-building, parish planning for particular needs such as social ministry or Bible study, staff in-service education or for a time for quiet, prayerful relaxation. Parish groups such as Rosary Societies or Parish Councils also bring their membership for Advent or Lenten prayer. In all of these activities, our desire is to foster a listening, receptive heart.

While we are a small retreat center, we can accommodate up to sixty persons for a single day event and twenty persons for an overnight event. We also have a small building which serves as a hermitage for those who wish to be alone for a space of time for an individual retreat and provide for their own meals. Retreats which are open to the public can be found on our web site at OLGmanhasset.com by clicking on the heading RETREATS. It is also possible to call our Center (516-627-9255) and speak with someone about planning an event for a particular group.

It is not just the Center that engages in ministry, but Our Lady of Grace Montessori School also seeks to meet the spiritual, emotional, physical and educational needs of the young children in our care. At present 180 students from Nursery to Grade Three attend our school. Teachers and parents find that the Montessori pedagogy is the perfect antidote to the frenetic lifestyle of many young children today.

Mary Stark, teacher, explains, “Within a Montessori classroom, children are taught all subjects as a ‘hands on’ experience. Concrete materials are used from the earliest ages. Children also work within three year age groups which gives them a more realistic social experience, almost mirroring their future in the work place. Older children mentor their younger classmates and the younger children value the opinions and advice of the older children.” In this way they learn to cultivate the skills of grace, courtesy and empathy… In short, it builds well balanced, happy children.

Children, who call the Center their “castle,” use this space for fun events such as Christmas plays, dinner with Santa, or St. Patrick’s Day party and the Easter Egg hunt, for spiritual events such as special Masses and celebration of Sacraments and for educational experiences like the annual Book Fair, art classes on our side porch or nature walks on our grounds. Through these experiences the Center and School really become “one” blessed space.

Through both the Center and the school, helping others live balanced lives is an essential element. That looks different for each person and different at every stage of life. People seek work, but do not desire to work themselves to death; they wish to live happily in the present and not be swamped by indecision or regret; they want to reach out, but do not want to take on so much that their own balance is lost in the process; they are often good to others but not too generous with their own needs; they want to pare down those elements in their life that are needlessly sapping time and energy; and they want to find ways to make room for more joy. Our Lady of Grace is a place where all those needs are being addressed.

To experience the fullness that is Our Lady of Grace, you must come and see!

Our Lady of Grace Center

Our Lady of Grace Montessori School

Swimming pool at Our Lady of Grace

Principal of Our Lady of Grace Montessori School, Sister Kelly Quinn, IHM

Chapel at Our Lady of Grace

One of many bedrooms at Our Lady of Grace

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Sister Ann Barbara serves as the Administrator of Our Lady of Grace Montessori School and Center in Manhasset, NY.

www.olgmanhasset.com

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Congregation of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Scranton, Pennsylvania

www.sistersofihm.org

Our mission as Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Scranton, Pennsylvania, is to follow Jesus as a community of disciples, aware that we are sent to be a clear and understandable prophetic witness to the presence of God in the world. - from the IHM Mission Statement

These articles were originaly printed in IHM Journey, a publication of the IHM Congregation for its members, friends, donors, sponsored institutions and supporters of the IHM Sisters and their ministries. Opinions expressed by authors do not necessarily reflect those of the IHM Congregation. Written portions contained herein may not be reproduced without the permission of the IHM Congregation. Correspondence should be addressed to the Journey editor at: IHM Center, 2300 Adams Avenue, Scranton, PA 18509. E-mail: communications@sistersofihm.org

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