LET IT aLL sTART hERE
For Catholics who care...
I live in New York State. There’s a mountain here in Stamford that rises up along Route 10 just beyond the old ski hill, Deer Run. It’s not the highest peak around, but I feel as though it is. There is a wind twisted hawthorn that stands sentinel at the acme of this mountain, and I imagine it had been left behind by a sentimental logger who fancied himself “The Giver” and bestowed on the town…The Tree of Life. It can be seen for miles in every direction. I watch it throughout the seasons: On sunny days and rainy days…on windy days and the hottest of days. It never disappoints: it is always there. It is reliable. I
can go there to pray. I mention the mountain with it's tree because today I felt compelled to go up there, and use it as a podium at the top of the world to announce: There is no preferred positioning where God is concerned! It doesn’t work that way. LetItAllStartHere has given me some unexpected notoriety in the prayer circuit. I have become the go-to-girl, acting as a representative for those who feel that they may be less favored by the Divine. Let me explain: In just the past few days, requests have come in for me to pray hard for a man living on borrowed time, whom I have never met. He needs a new heart. And, then, someone I did know-- someone who I heard openly curse God-- asked that I pray for a homeless man with “developmental disabilities” who had been featured on Facebook. I was to pray that his family would claim him as their own. By some strange twist of fate, they had managed to “misplace” him, and he had slept in cardboard boxes and had been eating gifts of Chinese take-out for the last three years! And, then there was a young man who was haunted by a past that he could not face. I was asked to pray that he receive courage and peace. Certainly, it is not unusual for a Catholic community to pray for one another. It is like a trust fund of which we are benefactors: I will pray for you… you will pray for me. We will collect the prayers we’ve banked. And yet, what I do find unusual is that non-practicing Catholics as well as non-believers are requesting these prayers. They are suddenly aware that prayer is needed…that God is needed, and they are not exactly shy to tell me they need assistance. But why won’t they do the asking themselves? I find it odd that they seem to have a problem with Catholicism, and yet they have no trouble asking a Catholic to intercede on their behalf. What is going on? I wonder what the Holy Spirit is up to. But, I want to make this perfectly clear: I am happy to do it! If I can pray a man well, if I can comfort the lost by ensuring that God cares what is happening to them…well, then, I am doing the work Christ asks that we do. However, I would be even more delighted if I could get these folks to take the reins themselves. I would just like to point out this one thing: God prefers your prayers to mine. Jesus, Himself, declared: "… that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” (Luke 15:7) That is your invitation to talk to God. Call Him, or text Him yourself! You don’t need a surrogate to do the work. A few years ago, I felt like a failure in my prayer life. I didn’t think I was doing it right. I wasn’t being heard. I felt that I was just not good at it. I wasn’t getting anywhere. I went to a priest and asked him to intercede for me. That priest told me: He said, “There are no gold stars when you pray. There is no right way to do it.” He advised me to practice and be patient. Gave me some tips, told me to sit in front of the Tabernacle. He emphasized that I needed to keep working at it…stick with it…and don’t give up. At the time, I felt as if my life depended on getting it right. So I prayed as often as I could, never imagining that I would one day become “messenger” for so many people who needed to send a dispatch to God.
18 Comments
Charlene Caramore
3/1/2015 10:19:09 pm
Evelyn, God has called you to do a wonderful work through this blog, through your prayers and through your life. He has given you such a wonderful gift. Thank you so much for all that you do and all that you share with us. It seems odd to me and I think to others who pray a great deal that some people just feel as though they can't do it. We had our first Book Talk on Matthew Kelly's Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic the other week and for the most part it was the same cast of characters who usually come to the Adult Ed sessions but I was so pleased to find a young man who has never before come to anything but Mass. He was so grateful for the book because it gave him an outline of how to pray. Before that, he just didn't know how to do it. Maybe people just need a little explanation--prayer is talking to God. We talk to people all of the time. Talk to God as if you were talking to your father, your mother, your brother, your best friend because he is all of those. The whole thing about prayer is developing that relationship. I know I'm preaching to the choir on this blog but I'd like to hear from others about how they encourage the people around them to make that first step in establishing a Love-Relationship with God. The more we share with each other, the more we can give this gift to others. And that's evangelization. Many blessings!
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You wrote: "Maybe people just need a little explanation...." Charlene, I know that if more time was spent "explaining" what the history of our salvation along with "the genius of being Catholic" meant (as Matthew Kelly told us in The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic) more people would find their way to or back to The Father who, as Fr. Michael so often tells us: "has loved us into being". Too many people have the wrong information...Catholicism has become...in very real and bizzarre way...an urban legend. I am thrilled about the young man whohas found himself in your book club. Wonderful. I real victory of sorts! Tell him that I said: Don't stop learning about the "genius of being Catholic". It's all so magic and mystical, and beautiful. And ask him to visit with us here.
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I had one more idea that I wanted to share with you about how crucial it is that the vaguely curious...be it a "non-believer" or a person who suffers the calamity of being a "beige Catholic", must learn all they can about Jesus' Mission, the history of our Salvation and the "Genius of being Catholic". Again, I believe that the reason why we are decreasing in numbers, losing Catholics to other belief systems is due to their simply not knowing enough about the Faith that they have inherited. Venerable Fulton J. Sheehan was noted as saying: There are not a hundred people who truly hate God today. But there are millions who hate what they wrongly believe God to be. Many people within and beyond the Church, hold warped views about God, so when they disbelieve or drift from God, they're usually rejecting a distortion. (Learn more about this in Catholicism: The New Evangelization)
Fran
3/2/2015 08:04:03 am
Lord, Let everything I do this day and in this season of Lent come from you, be inspired by you.
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jackie white
3/2/2015 05:44:38 pm
Fran,
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jackie White
3/3/2015 06:43:40 am
Evelyn,
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Charlene Caramore
3/4/2015 12:06:01 am
Jackie, I'm fascinated with what you said about the silent retreats. I too feel the call to become more contemplative and I'm searching for ways that God will help me on this path. . . or whatever path is His Holy Will. Where did you go on the 7 day retreat? I didn't even know that women would be allowed to join the Trappists in their prayers. I have a lot to learn. Also how did you find your spiritual director? I had one long ago but we parted over theological differences. Thank you so much for your insights.
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Jackie you are getting better and better at this "blogging thing". Bravo! It was great to have a chance to read your description of what one might find when one goes on retreat, be it Ignatian or at a Trappist monastery. I am a huge fan of Thomas Merton. In my old life, when I toyed with the question of being reincarnated...coming back as someone else...when I played that little game...I wanted a chance at being Henry Miller! Now, after I have recognized what is True and how God is at work in my life, I want to be Thomas Merton for a day. He, like St. Paul...like St. Augustine...like many of us sinners had lived a life I can relate to and his journey from sinner to saint heralds hope into my heart.
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jackie white
3/4/2015 06:06:58 am
Charlene,
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Charlene Caramore
3/5/2015 03:38:45 am
Yes, thank you, Fran. I have spoken to my priest about this and he mentioned a woman who recently moved to our area that was a spiritual director for years in the city. I have made an initial contact with her but never followed up on it yet. Your message has inspired me that I should get going. I'd love to do a silent retreat sometime. I once did a 3 day combined with a fast but my spiritual director of the time yelled at me and said I wasn't ready. She wouldn't even have done one because it opens you to such spiritual attacks. So I sort of got a mixed message there. I'll have to pray about it. I just finished Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain and was so impressed with this man. I want to read more of his. Any suggestions or favorites?
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jackie white
3/4/2015 06:14:31 am
Evelyn,
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Fran
3/5/2015 01:23:39 am
Thomas Merton would be 100 this year, He was a great writer like you Evelyn. He taught lititure in St Bonavenature Oleane New York.
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Fran
3/5/2015 07:02:46 am
thinking about the request for prayers that was asked of you had me thinking of these people and there pain. The request for prayers for the deveolmently disabled, person homeless and without his families support I found very disturbing. I worked for 27 years for persons devolmently disabled and I loved them. I am now on the board of directors for them. I also have two great nephews develomptly disabled. I don't know this person, but I will pray for him and if he is near by I'll be his friend. The person with a past that he is haunted by I will pray for also, forgiving yourself is very hard and I think impossible sometimes.
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jackie white
3/5/2015 07:36:18 am
Evelyn, Fran and Charlene,
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Janet Wenner
3/8/2015 09:56:37 am
re. paragraphs 5 & 6: Don't you love it when you wonder what the Spirit is up to? Just the greatest. And don't forget: It is only common sense to ask the person perceived as a more powerful prayer warrior to pray for us; part of their (your) prayer can be that God will strengthen that person's prayer life. Not that any of us ever gets to the point where we don't need each other's prayers!
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Janet Wenner
3/8/2015 09:42:19 am
it's= it is (contraction)
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