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February 09, 2010
> 11:38 AM
re-thoughts on prayer and liturgy > 5 Here's a post where I'm talking about liturgical prayer - praying the liturgy of the hours - after I read an article in the Vineyard's church planting magazine interviewing Episcopalian Phyllis Tickle. The gist of my thoughts are about praying because it's "what we do" as opposed to because we feel something when we pray, or to "get something," etc. The ecumenical aspects of liturgical prayer come out as well. -------------------------------------------- Liturgical Prayer > Thoughts (from 06/23/2008) Skimming through a copy of Cutting Edge (the Vineyard's church planting magazine - I'm still on the list apparently) lately and ran into an excerpt from a 2002 interview with Phyllis Tickle about prayer - specifically about praying the office. The quote I want to share is just a great, brief synopsis about praying in this way from Phyllis as she answers a question from the interviewer. I'll include both question and answer. Talk a little bit about the nature of praying with fixed-hour prayer.That's a great quote. Phyllis is a member of the Episcopal Church and has done a ton to promote the practice of praying the office. She developed a prayer book called The Divine Hours which helps people do this. I've prayed with people using her book but I don't use it myself. I use the 4-volume Liturgy of the Hours. I need to "use" it more. The term "fixed-hour prayer" doesn't quite fit with me yet on praying the office. There isn't a specific time Liz and I, or just I pray. I'm sure in the future more set times will emerge in our practice but right now that's not the case. It's the rhythm of doing it that's probably more important I would think. I love that answer to the reporter's question - "Not one damn thing." Awesome. Here's what she basically means - we don't pray this way in order to get something out of it - not to feel anything or sense how amazing we're becoming. We do it because that's what you do. You have a rhythm of prayer in your life because you have His Life inside you. You keep in flowing. The water moves and it keeps moving. Technically, in the end, I suppose we do get something out of it - being in the flow of contact with God in His Word, with the Church - just not in the way people think when they ask a question like that. So, if you pick up this habit (and it takes a while), don't expect to have a very exciting experience as you pray. Now, it may feel like something every now and then, but that's not what its about. And yes, there's an Episcopalian talking to a Vineyard magazine about practices that have been a part of her Anglican heritage and of the ancient Catholic heritage for a long time. This way of praying is catching on all through the whole Church's proverbial circulatory system, down the capillary ends. Most Catholics barely know what praying the office is, it has so long been only something that the clergy or monks did, even if the Catholic Church has stated a desire that the entire membership pick up habits of prayer like this and pray them together. I doubt most Anglicans or Orthodox take advantage of the deep, liturgical prayer traditions in their arenas either. Saying that is not about dissing anyone - it is simply, for me, sad. It's spreading out, though, and that's a very good thing. We can pray in this way together, all of us. It can be a unifier of sorts. It's a deep, fruitful river we can all connect ourselves to and allow it to irrigate us as one common crop of God. Labels: liturgical prayer, prayer, re-post 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | January 08, 2010 > 10:50 AM though the yield of the olive fail For though the fig tree blossom notThese two bits from Morning Prayer sort of shined through to me as I prayed them. They are kind of "light in the darkness" sections. This happens to me often, even when I've allowed my habit to break of praying the Office for a bit - I step back in and God is waiting there for me. He always knows where I am, where my mind and heart are open, where they are closed. Even then, He holds the keys to every door. We know this - He is faithful even when we are unfaithful. If this were not true, even what hope we had would be in vain. But it is not in vain. Often, I believe, we think of "those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death" as "someone else." Those poor people. Really, it's all of us, to one degree or another. Progressively, hopefully, we are being shown and we see more of His Light. He shines in our darkness and we are transformed, healed, made whole. And His Peace awaits us - and I'm not talking about "heaven" here - rather, the Peace of God which can and will fill and take hold of us right now. The fullness of God's Life is not for the sweet by and by. It may end up there, but that fullness is His will for us now, that our lives would be transformed now - not for a special few, but for all of us. May the tender compassion of our God continue to shine on our darkness. Labels: liturgical prayer, spiritual formation 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | October 08, 2009 > 3:42 PM rainy day thoughts These are always kinda dangerous, but oh well. I'm going to include at least a couple of links to other blog posts here as well - thanks to those who posted them...
Labels: liturgical prayer, photography, random thoughts, vocation 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | July 09, 2009 > 9:14 PM new oremus episode  I recorded a new episode of the Oremus Podcast today - an interview with my good friend, Bryan Sherwood - and beware of inappropriate Latin usage - ha! Peace. Labels: liturgical prayer, oremus 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | June 17, 2009 > 9:09 PM oremus Well, this is something that's been on my back burner for a while now and I thought this was as good a time as any to just get it started. Oremus means "let us pray," basically, in Latin. For our purposes here, it's a new podcast that I'll be doing about liturgical prayer and monastic practices for everyday Christians "in the world." This is something I've been thinking about doing for a while, almost a year. I actually sat down out back and recorded the first podcast last September and never did anything with it. I guess now I'm doing something with it.Praying the Liturgy of the Hours has been a very good thing for me for several years, even as sporadic as my practice has been sometimes. And I've loved being able to introduce this kind of prayer to others along the way. I have felt as if that, along with thinking about some other ways of living monastically "in the world" are a part of my personal vocation - part of it. So this will be some part of living that out for me. I hope it proves to be helpful for anyone who listens. The first issue is ready to go. I've set up a simple site to house the podcast episodes. You can check that out here. The podcast is also now available, all one episode of it, on iTunes. You can subscribe to the Oremus Podcast through this feed. The first episode is basically an introduction to the what and why of it, I pray one of the little hours from the LOTH, etc. I hope, in the future, to be talking about some "how-tos" of praying the Office, other contemplative ways of prayer/meditation, interview friends from different Christian traditions who pray in this way, etc. I'm looking forward to it. Pray for me that I keep to this and make it a regular thing. Labels: liturgical prayer, oremus, podcasting 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | 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
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permalink | e-mail me | May 22, 2009 > 3:10 PM let's blog > life update  Yes, I'm still drinking coffee - approximately one cup every morning, sometimes two. This is probably more symbolic of "life goes on" than anything I suppose. There are certainly times when, generally speaking lately, life sucks - but it still goes on. We still manage to get up and do whatever it is we do during the day. All our kids are still at home, although a couple of them are hardly "kids" any more. I think I like that. I know you're supposed to be a good, tough parent who wants their kids to move out on their own and be independent young women and men, taking on the world, but give me a freakin' break! No, I can't say that I'm happy about that idea. Do I want them to be good and healthy, spiritually sound, Christian adult people? Sure I do. I just like having them close. The "letting go" thing is very difficult for me. It's baseball season again and that means family schedule chaos around here. My 15 year old son, Conor, has played some form of baseball since he was probably 4. He's in his last year of city league ball this year - Babe Ruth League - and we're in the swing. Practice and ballgames very week - some of the normal drama that goes along with baseball teams and leagues at this level: parents, coaches, players all hollerin' at each other, agendas, blah, blah, blah. All these things are reasons I'd never be an umpire or a baseball coach at this level. Sitting on the sidelines is better than going to jail for bustin' somebody in the mouth. Sad, but that's how it can be. Conor, though - this is a boy who is not too affected by all that. He likes playing and has fun even when others are bent out of shape. Good for him. He's playing first base this year and has done well. So, we're half-way through the season - fold out camp chairs, sunflower seeds, gatorade - moving right along. That's a beet there - well, the leaves of a beet plant, the beet is growing in the dirt (which is what they taste like if you ask me). I don't like beets, but Liz does, so we grow them. It's garden time. That's a good thing. It's Liz's passion, and has become a good thing for me as well. I tend to concentrate on the tomatoes for some reason. Now, I don't like to eat raw tomatoes either, just cooked in various forms, so go figure. It's very monastic work for me to putter around the garden - watering, tending, making sure the weeds don't take over, etc. We garden organically, so things are a bit messier. No weed killers, pesticides, fertilizers - none of that. There are good, healthy, natural ways to do all that. But you do have more bug holes in your leaves, more weeds or grass growing randomly and you might not have giant, mutant-sized fruits and veggies. It's fine, though. We still have several jars of canned tomatoes from last year, and it looks like we'll have even more this year. The rest is as follows: beets, red onions, potatoes, green bell peppers, jalepeno chilis, cucumbers, corn, and 3-4 different kinds of tomatoes (mostly Roma). I'm still making rosaries and selling them from time to time, so listen, go buy you one or two, or get some for presents. They're cool rosaries - seriously. :^) The sales seem to come in spurts. Advent and Lent were big times, and another time when Michael Spencer got his Baptist head handed to him for promoting the horrid practice of praying with prayer beads - aagghhh!!! Kind of hilarious if it wasn't so sad, but such is the screwed up Body of Christ on earth I reckon. So, I thank those of you who have supported my rosary-making habit by purchasing or encouraging your friends to buy my hellish prayer beads. Please don't stop now - there are so many pockets not holding one of these fine pieces yet in the world. :) Church - yep, still a part of it. I haven't jumped ship yet. I certainly have that urge sometimes, but I'm sure I'm not alone. I've picked back up the mantle of (now let me be canonically correct here) Extraordinary Minister of the Holy Eucharist - aka, Eucharistic Minister - Lordeee. I like doing that. It's just a small, simple thing, but something I like. I've been helping on the formation committee for small groups, or small faith communities in the parish. I've got the experience to be able to help in some way, so I'm doing that. I'm a bit idealistic, I find, when it comes to these things, so I get a little frustrated, but that's fine. It's not all about what I think it should be for sure. The most "exciting" thing I've been doing is helping initiate the practice of praying the Liturgy of the Hours in our parish - to teach people what it is, how to do it, how formational it can be. So, we're starting by praying Vespers together with an intro session on June 7th - nice. My Deacon friend, Tim, and I have been working on this thing and it's coming to fruition - good stuff. And of course, off in the distance, in my heart and in my head, is a bell ringing on a foggy morning, friends walking together to pray the Morning Office, their lives being formed together into His Image...Labels: church, gardening, kids, liturgical prayer, rosaries 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | March 03, 2009 > 10:44 PM lenten ramblings 1 I don't really know what to write about, but I'm tired of not writing, so here we go. Lent has begun, only one week in but going OK. I think I like the sort of stripped down nature of the Mass during Lent - Sunday Mass I mean. A little more silence - a bit more "monastic" - I like it - go figure. I'm not on the computer on Fridays during Lent, so no e-mail returns or Facebook or anything. I'm not ignoring you, just going through a little torture, seriously, but I'll be fine. :) In our parish, we're doing Compline (Night Prayer) from the Liturgy of the Hours each Sunday night at 9pm. I went for the first Sunday - not very many people at all, maybe 25? It was great, though - again, very monastic, no musical instrumentation, very simple, very cool. This little thing - this is what I'm excited about. I'm getting in cahoots with my Deacon friend, talking about how we can get praying the Office woven into parish life and into the lives of everyone. Yes, I am definitely excited about this possibility. I've been making a lot of rosaries lately. Thanks very much to all of you who've ordered. I do hope they are well used and help to enhance your prayer lives. It has been good for me to create and make these rosaries for people - to do something useful and productive. It does help financially for us right now and for that I am grateful. I went to my parents' house on Sunday afternoon, ate lunch with them and helped them fix their gutter. AND, I made my Dad (didn't take much makin') go with me to a little gas station store near their house so we could both buy our new fishing/hunting licenses for this year. Our license expires at the end of February of the next year, so we got ours early this time. So, I'm legal - no excuses! I have been tying flies. I was seriously watching random fly fishing videos on YouTube tonight. It's time. I told my Dad I figured out one advantage to him being 71 years old - a freakin' $5 combo license! Including everything! Good Lord. I'll put that up against my $40 any day. I don't mind paying my dues, though, supporting the conservation efforts of the state. Don't fish without a license! Of course, my Dad was nice enough to buy mine too this time, so he paid both our dues. :) Labels: fishing, lent, liturgical prayer, rosaries 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | February 14, 2009 > 6:57 PM prayer as formula I wonder what many of my readers thought as they first saw the title of this post in their feed readers. Hmm. You may have thought I was going to decry praying formulaically. Well, not so much. Presently, I'm talking with a couple of people in our parish about how to implement praying the Liturgy of the Hours for members, for everyone. Very exciting conversation that I'm grateful to be involved in. So, I have "homework" about all this, a book I was loaned to look through to see what good stuff we could find in it to use. It's called Company of Voices: Daily Prayer and the People of God, by George Guiver, C.R. I want to share a lengthy quote (for a blog post) from the chapter called Formula. Very good stuff. Prayer and language are so dominated by form and formula, that the difference between liturgy and extempore prayer can only be one of degree, not of kind. To heighten the element of formula is to put in concentrated form one of the basic factors of the way we communicate. A German writer, Emmanuel von Severus, sums up much of the Church's wisdom on liturgical prayer when, reflecting on experience in the hard wartime years in Germany, he says:Like I said, very good stuff. We need to take opportunities to pray in many different ways. We should "pray without ceasing." In order to do that, we need to realize that prayer is many different things, many ways to communicate with God - internal, external, spontaneous, silent, liturgically formulaic, etc. I love the idea of praying something like the Daily Office as our skeletal structure of prayer. Of course we will put proverbial meat on those bones with many other forms of prayer, but we can always have that basic structure to keep us standing, using it as something we have been given, as a gift, which is not dependent on our ability to cook anything up, stir anything up, how we feel, or anything like that. Labels: liturgical prayer, prayer 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | January 20, 2009 > 5:41 PM unwearied The Antiphon for the Psalm of Monday night's Compline (Night Prayer) is as follows... O Lord, our God, unwearied is your love for us. Each time Monday rolls around and I'm praying this before I got to sleep at night, I linger at the Antiphon for just a bit, and sometimes repeat it. Unwearied, it says. God is not worn out by us. He is not impatient with us. The love of our Lord for us does not grow tired - ever. That's hard for us to comprehend. Some of us just flat cannot comprehend it. I believe it. I "see" it - not fully, of course, but I do, and my heart is grateful. I am a pretty decent Father, I think. But, I get weary of it sometimes. It wears me out sometimes. I'm a pretty good husband most of the time. I love my wife very much. But my love for her is sometimes weary, sometimes it's just not what it could be. As a friend, I don't know what I am. That's hard for me to say. I feel out of practice lately. But I know I am not unwearied by it, by people, even those I love dearly - maybe tired of being what I'm supposed to be to them. It's probably good that I realize that, though - that I am not yet perfect - that I am still a failure sometimes - that I am not what I was created to be yet. If I were to have the attitude that I had nowhere to go, then perhaps I would stop traveling. I have a long way to go and therefore, I am very thankful that He who deals with me has an unwearied love for me. Labels: liturgical prayer, personal, spiritual formation 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | November 21, 2008 > 9:09 AM snow and the reading  Now that's what I'm talkin' 'bout! Real live snow in November. "Real live" is enough to cover the ground and stay around the next day. We don't live in Michigan or Buffalo here so give us a break. This is not common for us in November. And for us snow lovers, it's exciting. We're like little kids who keep running to the door to look out and see if it's still snowing by looking under the street lights outside - wait, that's exactly what I kept doing last night - ha! Anyway, it's cool. May it continue to come and bring us a real live Winter this year. A reading from the letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians (4:29-32) Never let evil talk pass your lips; say only the good things men need to hear, things that will really help them. Do nothing to sadden the Holy Spirit with whom you were sealed against the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, all passion and anger, harsh words, slander, and malice of every kind. In place of these, be kind to one another, compassionate, and mutually forgiving, just as God has forgiven you in Christ. This was the reading from today's Morning Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours. Every now and then something stands out to you as you pray or read in the Office. Today's reading was like that for me. It made me sad. As I read this aloud, I had a slight feeling of hopelessness come over me as concerns the whole Christian community. It was a sinking feeling of "O Lord, how can this ever happen? We're not even close to listening to this. This is just not going to happen." Forget all of mankind in it's fallen brokenness, look at us, the supposed People of God. It's pitiful how we treat each other, how we speak of other people, to our siblings in Christ, not to mention those outside of Christ. I can't even speak kindly or act in a compassionate way toward my own family sometimes. And listen, these are the simplest, the most basic of instructions about how we are to behave, we who have been branded with the name Christian. This is baby stuff and we want to go on to some kind of higher things, "more important" things when we can't even learn how to gum our food and swallow it. I think we just need to settle down and listen - close our mouths and eyes, grab hold of what shred of humilty we can find and learn the Way. Lord Jesus have mercy on us. Labels: christian life, liturgical prayer, weather 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | August 02, 2008 > 9:59 AM liturgical prayer > recall  Two years ago, almost exactly, I hosted a small liturgical prayer seminar in our home. My friend Pete Matthews was my co-conspirator. We asked our friend Dave Nixon to come from Cincinnati to help lead the discussion. It turned out a very helpful time both for those of us who were already familiar with this kind of prayer, as well as for some who weren't.A week or so ago, Peter posted 3 Reasons to Pray the Daily Office, which reminded me of the seminar and the fact that I recorded it as it happened and posted the files on my blog. So, I'm reposting them again here in case anyone's interested in listening in on some conversation about liturgical prayer. It gets very interesting in places. Again, they're not short, and the sound quality is not professional, but it's worth a listen I think. Let me do this too: I'll post my original sort of disclaimer I put as I offered these files before... There were about 15 people present from various church backgrounds, all sharing their own stories and experiences as they relate to liturgical prayer, community life, etc. I'm sure a couple of things were said in reference to some denomination or tradition or another. Please don't take offense - we weren't making grandiose "statements" as a unit about anything. Just wanted to make that brief disclaimer. I hope the content of the seminar is helpful to someone. Peace.> Liturgical Prayer Seminar - Part One (approx. 20mb > Liturgical Prayer Seminar - Part Two (approx. 18mb) Somehow, I feel as if part of my vocation in life is to help people understand things like this, this kind of prayer, this sort of life-rhythm, among other things. It seems I've been doing this for the last few years. I pray that God gives me the Grace to continue doing so. Labels: catholic, ecumenism, liturgical prayer, liturgy, prayer 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | July 18, 2008 > 10:34 AM my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Ant. 1 We saw him despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with infirmity.I prayed Terce this morning (the mid-morning prayer in the Office) instead of the Morning Prayer. I'm glad I did. I feel now as if it was providential. This is what stood out to me - well, nearly the whole thing, there's only one section of a Psalm in the little hours, but these parts particularly stood out to me as I have felt like this lately. I have often found myself in the Psalms. I'm sure we all can here and there, and that's why they're there for us. So this time, I find myself inside the cries of Jesus, both prophesied and actually, as well as of the writer of the Psalm. And even though these words sound painful, and they are, to read them in conjunction with my own inner goings-on is comforting. Labels: liturgical prayer, prayer 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | June 27, 2008 > 4:24 PM liturgical prayer options I started thinking about different ways that many of us pray liturgically. There are several options for Christians who wish to pick up this habit of prayer. I thought I'd lay out a few here to give people an idea what's available. All these links are to Amazon but there are plenty of places you can get hold of these books. Before that, I'd like to share a quote from Thomas Merton I found today while skimming through a book of his letters, The Hidden Ground of Love. The quote is from a letter written to a woman named Etta Gullick, who studied theology and later taught on prayer for a while at one of the colleges at Oxford. Apparently she had asked him to write something about "progress in prayer" - this was his answer - very interesting and worth chewing on. Progress in Prayer: all right, if you like, I will think about writing something on it, but it is a ticklish subject because the chief obstacle to progress is too much self-awareness and to talk about "how to make progress" is a good way to make people too aware of themselves. In the long run I think progress in prayer comes from the Cross and humiliation and whatever makes us really experience our total poverty and nothingness, and also gets our mind off ourselves. But I will think a little about it. I have a real repugnance for writing things that tell everyone specifically how to do something or other spiritual now.So, as long as you don't abuse these resources and try to keep track of your progress in a little notebook or something, here you go...  Benedictine Daily Prayer: A Short Breviary  Celebrating Common Prayer  Celtic Daily Prayer  Christian Prayer (1 volume liturgy of the hours)  Shorter Christian Prayer (from the above - M., E., and N prayer)  The Book of Common Prayer  The Divine Hours  The Glenstal Book of Prayer  The Liturgy of the Hours (full 4-volume set)  The Missio Dei Breviary  Venite: A Book of Daily Prayer Now, I haven't used all of these. I use the 4-volume Liturgy of the Hours. Liz has the 1-volume Christian Prayer, and we have several of the Shorter Christian Prayer around for if we ever have a prayer party. I have a copy of Celtic Daily Prayer and the Glenstal Book of Prayer. I haven't used either regularly. I like the Glenstal book - it's a brief one. It's from an Irish Benedictine Monastery, has lots of helpful prayers as well as versions in the Irish language. I've modified the Evening Prayer from that book into a little booklet for our family to use together. Anyway, there are some options. Hopefully that's helpful. technorati tags > liturgical prayer, fixed hour prayer, liturgy of the hours, prayer Labels: liturgical prayer, prayer 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | June 23, 2008 > 12:03 PM liturgical prayer > thoughts Skimming through a copy of Cutting Edge (the Vineyard's church planting magazine - I'm still on the list apparently) lately and ran into an excerpt from a 2002 interview with Phyllis Tickle about prayer - specifically about praying the office. The quote I want to share is just a great, brief synopsis about praying in this way from Phyllis as she answers a question from the interviewer. I'll include both question and answer. Talk a little bit about the nature of praying with fixed-hour prayer.That's a great quote. Phyllis is a member of the Episcopal Church and has done a ton to promote the practice of praying the office. She developed a prayer book called The Divine Hours which helps people do this. I've prayed with people using her book but I don't use it myself. I use the 4-volume Liturgy of the Hours. I need to "use" it more. The term "fixed-hour prayer" doesn't quite fit with me yet on praying the office. There isn't a specific time Liz and I, or just I pray. I'm sure in the future more set times will emerge in our practice but right now that's not the case. It's the rhythm of doing it that's probably more important I would think. I love that answer to the reporter's question - "Not one damn thing." Awesome. Here's what she basically means - we don't pray this way in order to get something out of it - not to feel anything or sense how amazing we're becoming. We do it because that's what you do. You have a rhythm of prayer in your life because you have His Life inside you. You keep in flowing. The water moves and it keeps moving. Technically, in the end, I suppose we do get something out of it - being in the flow of contact with God in His Word, with the Church - just not in the way people think when they ask a question like that. So, if you pick up this habit (and it takes a while), don't expect to have a very exciting experience as you pray. Now, it may feel like something every now and then, but that's not what its about. And yes, there's an Episcopalian talking to a Vineyard magazine about practices that have been a part of her Anglican heritage and of the ancient Catholic heritage for a long time. This way of praying is catching on all through the whole Church's proverbial circulatory system, down the capillary ends. Most Catholics barely know what praying the office is, it has so long been only something that the clergy or monks did, even if the Catholic Church has stated a desire that the entire membership pick up habits of prayer like this and pray them together. I doubt most Anglicans or Orthodox take advantage of the deep, liturgical prayer traditions in their arenas either. Saying that is not about dissing anyone - it is simply, for me, sad. It's spreading out, though, and that's a very good thing. We can pray in this way together, all of us. It can be a unifier of sorts. It's a deep, fruitful river we can all connect ourselves to and allow it to irrigate us as one common crop of God. technorati tags > liturgical prayer, fixed hour prayer, liturgy of the hours, phyllis tickle Labels: ecumenism, liturgical prayer, prayer 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | June 13, 2008 > 12:59 PM though the fig tree blossom not My friend Bryan reflects on how the Psalms speak all our human emotions as we pray them in daily prayer today. It made me think of what stood out to me this morning in our Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours. Off and on, I struggle with very similar emotional and mental "down" times as well. This little portion of the Canticle this morning was appropriate: For though the fig tree blossom notThis kind of thing happens fairly often to me as I pray the daily office. Real things that I'm going through just jump out at me and come alive. That piece from Habakkuk above is an example. It's not about feeling God and being happy. Even the last part there about God being my strength, is a statement, as I see it, of faith - faith even in the midst of the proverbial terraces producing no nourishment. And that business about continuing to rejoice in the Lord isn't about an emotional joyful feeling bubbling up. It may well at times but this is about a choice to keep on walking even though you're not quite seeing the end very clearly - even though all your bones and muscles ache - even if you have to walk slower sometimes, you keep walking. technorati tags > liturgy of the hours, liturgical prayer Labels: liturgical prayer, prayer 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | May 05, 2008 > 2:40 PM on may 5th or thereabouts Get ready for some prime blog rehash! You've got to dip back into your archives sometimes to keep things rollin' you know. So here we go. I went back to several previous May 5th posts, or as close to May 5th as I could get. One is an awesome two-part series which is very relevant to (and seeded mind you) my recent post about union with God. There's another soteriological post in the list too - woo hoo! What can I tell you - these are the things I think and wrestle around with in my mind. I may have even evolved a little more since some of this, but I think it's still good. Some of the comments are interesting too - if you get froggy, try to read them as well - even if they say there are (0) comments, they're there.
technorati tags > union with god, christian mysticism, soteriology, theology, salvation Labels: catholic, liturgical prayer, liturgy, spiritual formation, theology 0 comments
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permalink | e-mail me | February 26, 2008 > 1:20 PM his accomplishment > mccabe > powerbook Scattered title, I know, but there are a few things. I haven't blogged in a bit so I'll make this a multi-tasking post. First, in this morning's Morning Prayer, one little bit jumped out at me. This same bit has awakened in my spiritual eyes before. I saw it again today. O Lord, you mete out peace to us,"...it is you who have accomplished all we have done." Amazing statement. Whole systematic theologies have been written to try to explain this, or discount it, or something. It kind of falls in that area of mystery I think. Well, have we done it or has God done it? What's the deal? Is it up to me or up to Him? How is it that He has accomplished something that I have done? Weird, isn't it? Yes, it's weird. Lots of things about God and how humans interact and relate to and with Him are very, very weird. Some of these things seem paradoxical. How can both be true? Because -- they just are. To explain "how" is to try to fit something into our minds that just won't presently fit. Trust. Faith. This is what we need in these cases. And yes, I said presently fit - because I firmly believe God did not create us to be so limited. Our minds were created to know as He knows. We're just broken. We're in the process of getting fixed though. Until then, let's try to find some rest in that statement - let the weight lift off our shoulders - HE has accomplished all we have done.  I just bought this book: God, Christ and Us by Herbert McCabe OP. I just got it yesterday so I've only read a couple of pages, but it seems good so far. He's actually talking about faith in the first chapter, so it fits the above topic. He's talking about Hebrews 11. Here's a little quote:For the author of Hebrews, faith has to do with what we do not yet see, what we hope for. It has to do with what is over the horizon. If you like, it is what lures us on to journey over the horizon to look at what we cannot yet see. ...Here, faith is all about trying to understand. It is about not being content to understand the things that are obvious, the things we can already see. It is about trying to understand what we do not yet see. It is about setting out on a journey to explore what we have not yet seen.Seems like good stuff so far. I'll let you know as I go along. If you're a FaceBook-y and are interested in liturgical prayer or monastic prayer, spirituality and practices, I've started a FaceBook group called Liturgical & Monastic Prayer. Hopefully it'll be a cool little place to pool that common interest, encourage each other, and share resources. Feel free to join if this is something you're interested in.  Ahh, like a little kid, I'm kind of excited about a few upgrades I've been able to do to my PowerBook G4 (Aluminum) this week. Hee hee hee! We got a good chunk back as a tax refund already, so other than paying stuff off, I talked to Liz and earmarked an amount to use so I could beef up my computer. If I'm going to be working on it, I sure can't afford to buy a new one, but I can at least optimize what I have. So, all for around $350, I was able to buy a new battery, a new AC adapter/charger cord, max out the RAM with 2GB of memory, and get a 500GB external firewire hard drive. Niiice. I did my shopping to find good deals. Everything is new but not necessarily Apple branded and the hard drive was on sale. Everything is here and working great so far except the memory. I'm anxious to see what kind of performance enhancement that will make to my system. OK, that's it for the geek report. Peace.technorati tags > lent, god's grace, herbert mccabe, daily office, powerbook upgrade Labels: computers, lent, liturgical prayer, theology 0 comments
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