apriori_2008 December

reposted by special request

“Pray, my dear children. Pray!”

During the Mass for Healing on Friday December 5th, our Chaplain Father Mike, spoke in his homily of the hopelessness people are feeling during these troubled times and especially during this time of year, not necessarily for themselves but for family members and close friends who have not been called to conversion or have somehow along the way lost their faith. His solution, “When there seems as if there is nothing you can do, you can always pray!”
As simple as it sounds, how difficult it is. “I don’t know how to pray.” “I don’t have time to pray.” “I don’t know what to pray for.” We’ve all said this to ourselves at one time or another or have heard someone else with the same lament.
Yet it really is simple, and true and POWERFUL!
Simple. When the children of Medjugorje asked the Blessed Mother what it was she was asking of them Our Lady said, “Pray my dear children. Pray!” They asked her how do we pray and Mary said simply to say the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be.
Powerful. St. Faustina asked, “Jesus, I beg you by the inconceivable power of Your Mercy, that all the souls who will die today escape the fire of hell, even if they have been the greatest sinners....because Your mercy is inconceivable, the Angels will not be surprised at this.” (Jesus pressed me to His Heart and said...) ‘My beloved daughter, you have come to know well the depths of My mercy. I will do what you ask,...’(873)
For that same reason the Blessed Virgin continues to ask for prayer and fasting: "You have forgotten that with prayer and fasting you can ward off wars, suspend natural laws."
What do we pray for? We should pray for ourselves, our family, relatives, friends and neighbors, the Pope, bishops, priests and religious, government leaders, lawmakers, judges and public officials, the sick and the dying, sinners, unbelievers, the suffering souls in purgatory, and even for our enemies. It would almost seem a better question is, “What don’t we pray for?
As a very young person I was told that a day not offered up was wasted and I was taught this simple prayer, “Dear God, I offer you my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day.” That together with an “Angel of God” with my breakfast cereal pretty much had me covered for the rest of the day. Later I learned there are 7 types of prayer: blessing, adoration petition asking forgiveness, intercession and thanksgiving, everyone of which interestingly enough is found in the prayer Jesus taught us, the “Our Father.”
It is, however, possible for a child to lose sight of the gift of faith, of prayer, of love, along the way. But having learned how to pray in his childhood with his family, that person can once again open himself to prayer & to communion with God. For this reason it is incumbent on us as Knights to pray often, pray together and teach our families to pray. It is our right and it is our responsibility.

apriori_2009 December

"In all your affairs, rely entirely on the Providence of God through which alone all your plans succeed … Strive always to cooperate with it. Then, believe that if you trust well in God success will come to you.”
~ St Francis de Sales

Sometimes we muse about what might have been. I had a thought the other day - and when I say thought I suppose looking back on that thought I really mean insight - that after I finished my engineering degree I should have gone into medicine. The engineering side of medicine has always seemed to me to be full of unlimited frontiers. Especially with the technology that exists today the only limit would be your imagination. But the insight was that it occurred to me that my desire to do so was/is not so much because I want to help people but because there is stuff I (emphasis on "I") want to know and learn that I don’t know. If in the process of satiating my own curiosity I accidentally help mankind, OK, but really that wouldn’t have been my primary goal. I suppose though, the fact that I am considering that the byproduct of my effort may go to the benefit of mankind may be my nature, there is some goodness there. And the awareness of my nature is possibly a byproduct of the awareness of the concept of prayer and love.
Where I’m going with this is that prayer life for me has been a series of epiphanies, for lack of a better word, and we are in the Christmas season and there are 24 more shopping days until the Feast of the Epiphany. Back then I might have prayed to become a successful medical engineer . That’s all, nothing more, because that’s what I wanted. As I matured and became more aware of “not my will but Your will be done.” I may have prayed to be successful so I can help people, but was that really it or would I have been really trying to trick God into making me successful by saying “See, you should help me succeed (and oh by the way prosper) because I want to do good.” Yeah, I know, trick God, LOL. The one laughing out loud would be God. I do believe he has a great sense of humor. Thankfully He is also infinitely patient.
Which brings up a whole new level of prayer, especially considering the idea of free will and the fact that even though He knew before we were even born everything we would do, we still have that free will and He still loves us no matter what stupid stuff we do. He still loves us. He still loves us. I can’t stop saying it. I can’t stop thinking about that love and praying every day that the Holy Spirit will open my heart just a little bit and let some of that love in. That LOVE. That love that helps overcome pride. That love that joins us with the Communion of Saints. That love that is present at the sacrifice of the Mass, that is on the altar during adoration. That love that in the beginning was the Word, the WORD THAT BECAME FLESH. The Word that became flesh because Mary said yes. That love that we are preparing ourselves to receive on Christmas Day.
VIVAT JESUS!