Praying the news

A number of years ago I met the Carmelite sisters of Indianapolis. They were a small group but they had a wonderful website about praying the news. It captured my attention and I continued pondering it. I also started praying the news. When I read, see, or hear the news I do it with an attitude of intercession. I pray for the situation. I pray for God's wisdom to become manifest in the people involved, in the policies involved. I pray for God's compassion to reach persons affected by natural disasters. I pray that the spirits of the dead be comforted in God's eternal embrace. I pray for reconciliation in every conflict.

I pray big. I pray for the conversion of world economies. I pray for reconciliation among world religions. I pray for the protection and guidance of world leaders. To me it is important that the world be influenced by God's grace. As a creature of this world I invite God's grace here, into the worst conflicts, into the saddest tragedies, into the bloodshed and suffering and oppression. I pray big.

After I pray big, I read, see, and hear the news alert for God's answer, because I know God will answer my prayer. When I hear something on the news about which I've prayed, I smile. I listen for reasons to hope. I listen for efforts toward reconciliation. I listen for God's grace at work. I rejoice and delight in the news sometime.

Try it. Pray big. Then be on alert for your answers in the news.

Praying on the Road to Emmaus

During the Easter season, it's delightful to pray the Easter gospel stories. Try this one:

• Read Luke 24:13-35
• Have you experienced a tragedy? When? How did you feel at the moment? Who helped you to understand what had happened? How do you see it differently years later? What did God do with your memory? How was your memory transformed? How was it an experience of reconciliation for you?
• Pray using your imagination: You are walking, running actually, from your problems, conversing with someone, ...your spouse or your friend.....A stranger begins to walk with you who listens to your problem.....You spill it all out. ....The stranger asks you questions that get to the heart of it....You begin to converse about God and about how God has acted in your lives and in the life of the stranger. You arrive home, inviting the stranger to stay. The stranger breaks bread and you recognize him as Jesus.
• Write about your conversation and the whole experience, especially about what feels changed in you.
• Share this experience, break bread, with a friend.

Praying on the Cross

I hope you're having a good Friday. Here's a suggestion for praying with Jesus on the cross and for letting Jesus pray with you in your crosses.

Read the Passion in one of the four gospels. Read all of it slowly. Have at hand a cross or crucifix.

How do you feel reading this? What parts inspire you? What parts leave you indifferent? What parts make you feel bad? How?

Can you write your own Passion as it has happened to you?

Make the Way of the Cross with devotion.

Look up the seven last words of Jesus.

"Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34)
"In truth I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise." (Luke 23:43)
"Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." (Psalm 31:6 and Luke 23:46)
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:2 and Mark 15:34)
"Woman, this is your son." "This is your mother." (John 19:26-27)
"I am thirsty." (Psalm 22:16 and John 19:28)
"It is fulfilled." (John 19:30)

Pray the seven last words with your crucifix. Which word resounds in your heart? Which word have you heard from a suffering person? Have a conversation with Jesus at the cross.

Pray with Mary standing at the foot of the cross. Can you be there with her without words?

Let Mary be with you in your own cross and suffering. What does God's grace do in you at this moment of prayer?

Praying in Gethsemani

Here's a way to unite your Gethsemani moments with that of Jesus.

Read Matthew 26:36-46.

Read and reflect on this story about Martin Luther King: "Martin Luther King went to bed one night after a long day of work. As he was falling asleep the telephone rang. The caller said to him: "Listen, Negro; we're fed up with you. Before the week is over you'll be sorry that you came to Montgomery." King hung up the telephone and all of his fears suddenly started assaulting him. His courage left him and he began to feel bad. He got up and started pacing in his bedroom. He went to the kitchen, made some coffee, poured himself a cup and began to pray. The words of his prayer were something like these: "Father, I believe that what I am doing is well done; but now I'm afraid, very afraid. The people depend on my leadership. If I lose strength and valor, they will begin to feel afraid. I don't know what to do. I can't handle this responsibility by7 myself." "At that moment," said King later, "I felt the divine presence like I had never experienced it before."

Draw a beautiful place where you might pass a night in anguish.

What does your drawing reveal about your particular anguish? What does it reveal about the strength you find in yourself and the support you find around you?

Have you had anguished moments like those of Jesus? Have you ever suffered over a decision, a doubt, some resistance or loneliness? Have you had to deal with attacks from other persons? How were you wrestling with God's will? What mission was it that you didn't want to accept from God? Reflect on these moments.

Pray with a cup or chalice filled with wine, mixing in your struggles, problems, sufferings and anguish. Pray that God transform your suffering in the same way that Jesus rose from the dead.

Pray in a position that expresses your anguish. Converse with God. Tell God "no!" as many times as you need, turning over to God all that you feel. Stay in your anguish without trying to distract yourself from it. Wait till your "yes!" is born within.

Pray this prayer of Charles de Foucauld:Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures. I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands I commend my soul; I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands, without reserve, and with boundless confidence, for youare my Father.

Write about what God did during your prayer.

Praying on the Mountain

Sometimes our prayer transforms us, helps us gain a new perspective, and gives us a "mountaintop experience." Try this:

Read Luke 9:28-36. Draw a mountain, with as much detail as you can.

Ponder your drawing, what you liked, what you disliked, what stirred up emotion, what inspired you, what awakened resistance.

Prayer tranfigures how we wee the world. In certain unforgettable moments we see things as from the mountain, from a liberating perspective. There is a clarity of vision from above that we don't experience in everyday life. They are precious moments of intimacy with God and of call. They are always preparation for the mission. When have you had a mountaintop experience of prayer, a clear experience of approaching God?

Meditate about the mountains in Hebrew history: the mountain of Abraham's sacrifice (Genesis 22), Mount Sinai of the covenant (Exodus 19), Elijah on Mount Carmel (I Kings 18:20-40), and the famous encounter of Elijah with God on Mount Horeb (I Kings 19:9-18). What is God's message for you in these stories?

Jesus invites you to accompany him to the Mountain of Transfiguration. There not only is he transfigured but you too are transformed in the vision of your call, in that special relationship with God that forms part of salvation history. Let yourself feel strengthened for the path that follows. Converse with Jesus, with God, and with the figures from the past, feeling their support. Write a summary of your conversation.

Prayer on the Lake

This is a good prayer when you are dealing with emotional turmoil, current or past.

Read Mark 6:45-52 and Matthew 14:22-33 with their parallel passages if you wish. Draw a storm over a lake in your journal or notebook.

Have you had moments of stormy seas in your life? How are your particular stormy moments reflected in your drawing?

Imagine the stormy sea of Mark's gospel, feeling all of the anxiety and fear that you have inside. You could be one of the apostles in the boat. Converse with Jesus, like they did, from your own panic. Imagine how Jesus responds to you. Then you can write your conversation.

Imagine the stormy sea of Matthew's gospel. Imagine how Peter was invited to step out of the boat toward Jesus in the storm. Here Jesus doesn't just calm the storm but invites Peter to faith and trust in the middle of the storm. Converse with Jesus, imagining how he responds. Then write your conversation.

Praying in the Desert

Here are some suggestions for getting into praying with Jesus in the desert. You'll need a bible and some paper and pen.

• Read Matthew 4:1-11 and draw a desert.
• Ponder your desert drawing, imagining yourself there. What do you like? What don't you like? What frightened you?
• What would be difficult for you in the desert?
• Have you ever had a desert time in your life? How do the different aspects of your drawing reflect the aspects of your own desert time?
• The Holy Spirit moved Jesus into the desert. It was part of his preparation after his call at the River Jordan. In the desert Jesus confronted all of the dangers of the desert: thirst, hunger, heat, cold, insects, animals, and loneliness. He also confronted Satan and was tempted with easy ways out. The most important part, though of his time in the desert is that he encountered his Father in the situation, without the distractions of everyday life. There he began to live the relationship with God that he discovered at the River.
• You too have moments of desert in your life, when you feel tested by Satan, tested by events in your life or even tested by God. There may be demons that want to control your life. You may be tempted by the "easy way out." In the desert you cannot escape the sun that shines into your shadows, your lies, your falseness, your fears, and your resistance to God.
• Your desert is dry. It's not a place of consolation but a place that tests our motivation. There you learn to love the God of consolation instead of the consolations of God.
• You too may be afraid in the desert. There you confront your fears, your lack of faith and learn to trust God.
• Desert fasting is like desert sun. It illuminates the negative in your life. Fasting leaves you in a bad mood. We feel at our worst and sense our fragility. Fasting helps us confront our motivation in life: in what do I trust? what do I need? to what am I attached? Fasting stretches the spiritual muscles.
• Praying in the desert is at the boundary between life and death, where you can most clearly see who you really are. To pray without this reality is false. You come face to face with God where you can see the deepest reality of your call clearly, where you can learn to respond "Yes."
• Reflect over other biblical passages that have to do with deserts. Jesus' time in the desert was illuminated by the experience of his ancestors there: Exodus 16 and 17, Hosea 2:16-25.
• Sit down to pray. Empty yourself, as an excursion into your desert. Write all of your images, desires, feelings, thoughts, memories and distractions that pass through your mind, opening all of this ("That's me!") to the Love of God. Then open yourself to God without words, or with only one word. Stay in that space for 15 to 20 minutes.
• Write an honest and intimate conversation with God.