Glory be to
the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. May the Blessed Virgin
Mary, St Joseph her most chaste spouse, holy Saint Maroun, hermit and
physician, and all the blessed angels and saints who stand in adoration before
the throne of God, pray for our parents, for our neighbours, for the suffering
souls in Purgatory, and for us. So we begin, and so may we conclude. Amen.
Prayer is a conscious turning of the
attention to God. In that movement of attention, heart and mind are animated
and raised as one. Prayer is a lifting of our souls to an awareness of the
divine presence; here, now, and beyond all here and now.
Holy are you,
Lord God. Holy are you, and all-powerful. Holy are you, and immortal. God All. God
Alone. Unimaginable light. Unimaginable darkness. Have mercy on us.
Sleep, waking and prayer. Each is a
world in itself. In sleep we are
strictly circumscribed: we have no voluntary movements. Our senses are limited,
and our minds are captive to dreams. In waking,
we have more freedom: we can move around. Our thoughts are more orderly and
manageable. Open to our environments, we can interact with others, and receive
impressions. The waking world is infinitely larger than the sleeping.
And the world of prayer surpasses the waking life in the same degree that the waking
life transcends the sleeping. In prayer, not only are we open to everything in
the world, we are also open to the influence of the supernatural. The purpose
of sleep is to refresh us so that we may enjoy healthy lives. The purpose of
waking life is that we may come to know, love and serve God. Worship is the
highest activity we are capable of, and true prayer always contains an element
of worship.
In prayer, our spirit can fit wings to our
earthly shoulders and fly, if not to heaven, then at least above the earth. We
can receive impressions of a fineness and beauty that nothing on earth can ever
give us. When the spirit prays, even words can disappear, just as the stars are
invisible when the sun reigns in the sky. A friend of mine, a practical man, and
not at all a dreamer, recounted to me the following story, which I retell with
his permission:
“An event I can’t forget during my
early 20s was when I went alone to a naval base overseas on a technical course.
Everything was going against me financially. My luggage was delayed. I couldn’t
even purchase a call card because my bank card was inactive. The question in my
mind was: “Why me?” After all, I have always been a religious person. So I went
for a walk, not knowing where I was
going, asking myself this question. Unexpectedly, I found the base chapel
illuminated. It was empty. I walked in the door puzzled, feeling very upset and
lonely - I had never felt worse in my whole life. I sat inside for a period of
time saying nothing at all, not even saying a single prayer. When I got out of
the chapel I was full of joy and peace.”
Because it is a contact, and even a quest for contact with God, prayer is
always available, whatever we’re doing. Prayer is a world in itself, like life
beneath the sea, or life above the ground. While the universe of prayer is here
within us, always available, it is the most unexplored territory of all. It’s
less travelled than the desert, the Antarctic or the jungles of Borneo.
Yet, we bear the portal to prayer
inside of ourselves. We only need to open that door and enter that world. Prayer
is not simply an addressing of ourselves to God, it is also an opening of
ourselves to him. It is always helped by feeling our smallness, our humble
condition before him.
Some times are better for prayer than
others. The worst times are “later on”, “tomorrow” and “I should have
yesterday”. The perfect time to enter the prayer life is now – right now,
whenever I am reminded of it. Even if I have no time to take out my rosary, or
to sit or kneel for five minutes, I can still pause for a moment, collect
myself for three seconds, centre my attention, call on God, acknowledge his
greatness and my weakness, and ask him to help. But if I have indeed prayed,
and not just thought about praying, then things won’t be exactly like they had
been four second ago: I will have confidence in his reality.
Morning Prayer
Morning is a
natural symbol.
Every day, God speaks to us through natural symbols. Cultural symbols, such as flags
or alphabets, point beyond themselves. Through God’s natural symbols of day and
night, God tells us that life knows a beginning and an end. Each morning
announces a fresh start. The dawn tells us to arise and praise God, for he is
good, and stands over and above the ever-changing world.
Morning is a perfect time to dedicate
the day to him, whatever it may bring, as an unconditional offering. What better than to pray that our beginning
may be a good one, and that we may live it worthily. It is a fit time to
reflect that we do not know what the day will bring, except that everything
which can happen to us must happen in accordance with his laws. The very fact
of morning calls us to thank God for preserving us through the night, and for
the gift of another day – a present greater than all the treasure that all the
rulers of the world could offer. Here is an ancient Syriac hymn, 1,650 years
old, which can also be said as a prayer:
The Light of
the just and the joy of the upright is Jesus the Messiah, our Lord. Begotten of
the Father, he manifested himself to us. He came to rescue us from darkness and
to fill us with the radiance of his light.
Day is drawing
upon us; the power of darkness is fading away. From the true Light there arises
for us the Light which illumines our darkened eyes. His glory shines upon the
world and enlightens the very depths of the abyss.
Death is
annihilated, night has vanished, and the gates of hell are broken. He brings
salvation and grants us life. He ascends to his Father on high. He will return
in glorious splendour and shed his light on those gazing upon him.
Our king comes
in majestic glory. Let us light our lamps and go forth to meet him. Let us find
our joy in him, for he has found joy in us. He will indeed rejoice us with his
marvellous light.
The angels and
guardians of heaven will rejoice in the glory of the just; crowned with
victory, they will sing hymns and psalms. Stand up then and be ready! Give
thanks to our king and Saviour, who will come in great glory to gladden us with
his marvellous light in his Kingdom.
Glory be to
the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.
Preparing the
Day
It is also a good idea to use our
morning prayer to prepare for the day before us. Morning prayer can be an oasis
of peace in each and every day. Even if we know there’ll be trouble later on,
why should that disturb our prayer? The trouble will be there when we come
back. Let it abate for that short period. We won’t suffer.
Part of the reason people let their
prayer lives drop is that they don’t see sufficient benefit in prayer. But
then, do they try to connect their prayer life with their daily life? Without
that connection, how can the benefit flow?
We could rejuvenate our Christian lives
each morning. If you don’t know where to begin, make the sign of the cross and
ask God to clear your head. Start with a formulated prayer. Here is one,
beautifully phrased, this time from the Latin tradition:
Remember,
Christian soul, that this day, and every day of your life, you have God to
glorify, Jesus to imitate, the angels and saints to invoke, a soul to save, a
body to mortify, sins to expiate, virtues to acquire, hell to avoid, heaven to
gain, eternity to prepare for, time to profit by, neighbours to edify, the
world to despise, devils to combat, passions to subdue, death perhaps to suffer
and judgment to undergo.
Use any other prayers you know, and
then summon into your mind the likely events of the day. Is there something you’re
looking forward to? Something you’re afraid of? Maybe bring that to mind. Where
is my Christian duty in that event? Do I have to forget God?
Is it a question of relationships? Is
there money involved? Status? Am I worried about how I’ll look? Do I appreciate
that the most important thing in my life is my relationship with God, and that
no other issues, not relationships, money or anything else need to stand in the
way of that? And if suffering cannot be avoided, do I accept to suffer in order
to mortify the passions, or to offer atonement for my sins?
Rather than letting the anticipated difficulties
ruin our peace, why not let our peace make us better able to deal calmly with the
difficulties, robbing them of their power to touch our minds? Part of the
problem is that we have seen so much anger, anguish, anxiety and worry that we
have a recorded voice in our memories, which tells that we must get upset, that
we don’t have the right not to be fearful. But fear is only nature’s means of
getting us to move out of harm’s way. Once we’ve done what we can, fear serves
no purpose.
Conversely, if it is something I am
looking forward to, will I forget God, in my happiness? Success can be a great
trap: we can too easily become self-satisfied, even puffed up and proud.
Morning prayer can be a time to contemplate our pleasant expectations in a
peaceful light, and to thank God for them.
So never let your state of mind put you
off your prayers. Let your prayers change your state of mind. Let each morning
be a morning of prayer, a morning of peace. Amen.
This was written by a priest of the
Maronite Church. Of your mercy, please pray for him.
"In this Year of Faith, the People of God have also been
urged to witness to their faith through increasing their practice of charity.[1]
In seeing to our neighbor’s needs, we are serving and loving Christ himself, this is powerful. “As you did it to one of the least of these brethren, you did it to me.”(Mt 24:40) Consequently, all Christians by the nature
of their baptism are invited and challenged by the Gospel to carry the light
and healing of Christ to all those who are in need especially to those who are
broken, suffering and poor. It is through this call to love Christ that we are
to reach out in humility and care for our neighbor by helping them in their physical
needs, and journey of faith. I have witnessed and seen in my own ministry, the
great impact of living a disposition of self-giving love, hospitality and
forgiveness, especially when it comes to cultivating openness and dialogue in
relationships. On the other hand, I also believe that if we truly desire to
grow in holiness and intimacy with Jesus then our desire to reach out in love
will grow and intensify, even amidst all confusion, poverty and persecution. We
learn from Jesus, who was meek and humble of heart that the focus is always on
loving and bringing humanity to salvation. I too perceive that the focus of the
New Evangelization is on loving our neighbor (where they are at) and upholding
their sacred dignity as son or daughter of God. 
