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June 11, 2009
> 9:27 AM
loth @ ctk  LOTH@CTK stands for Liturgy of the Hours at Christ the King - our parish. When I first came back into the Catholic Church I pretty much stayed quiet and to myself. I didn't want to go in trying to do all kinds of things and "be somebody" right out of the gate. The thing is, I'm not right out of the gate - that's part of the point. I'm this guy who has been a Christian and living the Christian life for, at the time, 27, now 29 years. I had grown and learned and become this leader, then a pastor, a thinker, a spiritual director to some - et cetera, et cetera.But here's the thing - in this arena, no one knows anything about me. I'm the new guy. I felt, really, that God was having me sit still for a while to re-orient, to recover. He's been doing this to me for a while - as a wise, old spiritual director said to me - "making me small." Not fun, but good, he said hesitantly. So, the part of the new guy, the little guy, the nobody, was/is new to me. I haven't been that for a long time. But this is the way it is. I've been learning how to deal with it. One of the things I said I'd love to do even since I was being quiet in the pews, was to help, somehow, to introduce praying the Liturgy of the Hours to the people in the pews with me. Most Catholics - really - aren't that familiar with it as a way of daily prayer for them. That's for Priests and Religious (vowed monks and nuns and brothers). Well, it's for all of us and there has been, for a while, a resurgence of liturgical prayer among all the people. I've certainly been a part of this in other Christian territory. The wider Body of Christ is catching hold of this fast.    So, not long ago, I met with our Pastor and mentioned that I'd like to help do something like this - teaching people how to pray the Office and making it available to them in the parish. I ended up talking to my Deacon friend, Tim and found out this is one of his "things" too, and we went to work making it happen. Last week, it became a reality at the Cathedral parish of Christ the King. We had an introductory session to go over what it is (you see the group there seated), the history, why we pray in this way, and how to do it - then we prayed Evening Prayer together. Tim, Fr. Al (both pictured there) and I tag-teamed at the teaching thing, then we went into our side chapel that we had set up choir style (photo 3 there) and prayed Vespers together. Very cool. 20+ people showed up for the first session - great! We're doing this now every Wednesday night at 7:30pm at the Cathedral - only Evening prayer, no more intro sessions. Last night was our second week - news is getting around because more people showed up than last week - good stuff. We're using the small prayer book called Shorter Christian Prayer, which has only Morning, Evening and Night prayer for the 4-week Psalter rhythm. We bought several and have them available for people to use. Several people have bought them from us as well, to take home. Hopefully, they will begin using them during the week at home as well. All this has been very fulfilling for me, and I know it's not all about me - but I'm grateful that I've been able to be a part of helping this happen. I think there is part of my own vocation in doing this. I see a dim shadow of things to come, of people learning and living in a rhythm of prayer, together... Labels: church, liturgical prayer, reversion 0 Comments:| permalink | e-mail me | 
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