Prayer, for Real
How do we pray today? What do we pray about?
We pray in and through the desires of our hearts and the work of our hands.
We pray in the words of our lips and the gestures of our bodies.
We pray by contemplating God's revelation in Scripture and in the experiences of each day.
We pray alone, in small groups, in large gatherings of worship.
We pray where we live and where we work, at congregational gatherings and with God's people whom we serve.
We pray with confidence in Christ’s gift of the Spirit who makes all things new.
We pray with trust in the abiding love of Mary, our Mother.
Listen to the wisdom of Sisters of Charity, Associates, and colleagues as they reflect on the many ways that they meet the Body of Christ in the events of their everyday lives.
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As a young Sister-nurse, I was sent to work with psychiatric patients in [St. Vincent’s Hospital,] Harrison -- even though I was sure I couldn’t do that work. Then I remembered a story that Sr. Miriam Gabriel had told me.
When Sr. Gabriel’s brother, a priest, was assigned to a parish way up in the boondocks, he was heartbroken. He never thought he’d be able to stay there. Then one day he looked at the Blessed Sacrament in his church and heard himself saying: “If it’s good enough for You, it’s good enough for me.”
When I was struggling with the difficulties of my new mission, I drew on that story for strength. And I never had a miserable day after that!
Sr. M. Christopher Kurtz, SC
How do I meet the Body of Christ? When I receive Eucharist I make a very conscious, audible AMEN. I am saying Yes to the love of Jesus as I meet Him in the world, my Sisters, my neighbors, and especially in the poor.
Sr. Mary T. Higgins, SC
The feast of Corpus Christi invites us to reverence the unity we share in the Eucharist:
The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of
Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are
one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.
(1 Corinthians 10:16- 17)
This nourishment draws us into the union of divine mercy that seeks to flood our world with forgiveness.
Denise Levertov encourages us in her poem “To Live in the Mercy of God”:
To live in the mercy of God,
To feel vibrate the enraptured
waterfall flinging itself
unabating down and down
to clenched fists of rock….
“Not mild, not temperate,” the poet marvels, “God’s love for the
world.”
Sr. Patricia Morgan, SC
Come, Compassionate Spirit, imbue our lowliness with your power, move our hearts by the reality of the suffering of others, and grant that we are not a cause of their pain.
Come, Loving Spirit, fill us with your grace, and help us to look beyond impressions to see the true value and dignity of each person.
SC Immigration Prayer Forum
