Word to the Wise
Tuesday, September 9, 2008 - St. Peter Claver
[1 Corinthians 6:1-11 and Luke 6:12-19]Jesus departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God.
It is said of St. Dominic that he spent much of the night in prayer - loud prayer - so loud that the brothers would sneak into the chapel to listen! In our very hectic American society, the luxury of a time set aside just to pray seems too much! Yet, Jesus is portrayed in the gospels as doing exactly that. He would sneak off to pray by himself. And there are also the public prayers he said as a practicing Jew plus the prayers reported in the gospels, especially at the Last Supper and in the Garden of Gethsemani. Some folks just give up on doing prayer on their own and declare their good deeds or their ministry to be their prayer. I find that difficult to understand and wonder how they can stand the pace without the rejuvenation of prayer - or withstand inevitable crises in ministry. It seems to me that the example of the Lord is a reminder to us that we have to get away from our ministry occasionally and just talk to God. Perhaps there's a fear of facing God or, like Mary in the well known story elsewhere in the Gospel of Luke, to sit at the Lord's feet and listen to his words. Jesus calls it the better part, but I know Martha will always have trouble stopping what she's doing to take that position. AMEN
config
view
logs
3840.0 KB
77 ms
4
