Dear All,
This week we have attached a few readings related to prayer. It is said that there are as many valid ways of praying as there are people who pray – so please don’t worry if none of what we have chosen makes any sense to you. If you find a way to being in God’s presence then stick with it until it ceases to be helpful.
For our blessing this week we have chosen ‘Bless to me, O God’ from ‘Heavenly Peace’ – enjoy it!
With love
Info re Evening Prayer: consequent of Stephen’s death, there will be no Evening Prayer in the Blessed Sacrament church on Tuesday 7 October. Also, there will be no zoomed Evening Prayer on Monday 6 October. Nor will there be Evening Prayer in Blessed Sacrament on October 8th (our Foundation Day).
Entering Into God’s Intimacy
Prayer, therefore, is far from sweet and easy. Being the expression of our greatest love, it does not keep pain away from us. Instead, it makes us suffer more since our love for God is a love for a suffering God and our entering into God’s intimacy is an entering into the intimacy where all of human suffering is embraced in divine compassion. To the degree that our prayer has become the prayer of our heart, we will love more and suffer more, we will see more light and more darkness, more grace and more sin, more of God and more of humanity. To the degree that we have descended into our heart and reached out to God from there, solitude can speak to solitude, deep to deep and heart to heart. It is there where love and pain are found together.
Prayer
Prayer is like watching for
The kingfisher. All you can do is
Be there where he is like to appear, and
Wait.
Often nothing much happens;
There is space, silence and
Expectancy.
No visible signs, only the
Knowledge that he’s been there
And may come again.
Seeing or not seeing cease to matter,
You have been prepared.
But when you’ve almost stopped
Expecting it, a flash of brightness
Gives encouragement.
Ann Lewin
The French writer and philosopher, Voltaire, was right when he said that
There ought to be moments of tranquillity in great works.
It’s what Tennyson described in his poem Lucretius as
Divine Tranquillity, yearned after by the wisest of the wise …
The question for us, therefore, is this: Whatever great works we put our mind to, are we to be numbered among the wisest of the wise and yearn after such tranquillity? Prayer? Meditation? Mindfulness? Maybe … But for me, it’s often just about being still, like a boat on a calm sea, or a house perfectly reflected by a still shore. When we find it and give ourselves to it, tranquillity is enough of itself …
your gentle voice calls into my silence
searches me out in love
overwhelms me with many forms of light
and I answer your call
with a hesitant voice:
Here I am
I am a child of God
a child
through the death of your son
I am blameless and pure
in the grace that you hold in readiness
for me
my head swims
at what you have done for me
I drink in the light
that spreads out with your presence
and I am whole.