Prayers of the Faithful

When our office manager took sick last year, I took over the preparing of the Prayers of the Faithful for our parish's weekend Masses. I had been toying with the thought of taking it on for a while, anyway, so when she was getting sicker and couldn't keep up with her work, I volunteered to take them off her hands.
I don't really write them, for the most part- I use a couple of books from a publisher, but adapt them and borrow from other places if they don't sound right. I don't want to add my own agenda to the prayers, but I do always go by the rule that the prayers of the faithful should represent the prayers of all the faithful- they should be prayers that everyone can agree with. I also change things like this: "for all who teach about the love of Christ...may they something something..." I make that "they" a "we" because I want to remind everyone that WE are all supposed to be teaching the love of Christ. That kinda thing.
Every week as I listen to someone read the prayers I've put together, I worry that they'll sound ridiculous, or that the lector will stop and the middle and say "wait... no, um, that doesn't make sense. Whatttt?" or something like that. I want them to sound sincere, applicable, and personal for our community. This weekend it dawned on me- we should be praying for the babies who are baptized each month! Of course!!! So, long story long, the Prayers are always a work in progress.
Monday, my pastor said "Oh I need to talk to you about the Prayers of the Faithful after the meeting." I wondered,  had my almost-all Father-theme prayers that weekend pushed the limits? (There had been one for the fatherless, men who long to be fathers, and those who have lost children... I thought it was so beautiful and thoughtful- reaching out to the very people who might feel alienated by Father's Day.) But he didn't have a comment on the content, or even the writing- he wanted me to make a change to the closing prayer.
This is the prayer that the priest says after the lector has finished the other intercessions. It's something like "Oh Lord, Oooh you are so big, so absolutely huge..." and it brings the POTF's to a conclusion, whereupon we all say "amen." But my pastor said that people didn't seem to know, lately, when to say "amen" because the conclusions didn't end with the pavlovian Catholic cue, "forever and ever" or "through Christ our Lord..." so he asked me to be sure one of those phrases will be in there to end the closing prayer.
I find this interesting- we're so used to just saying our lines on cue that it's not enough to listen to the prayer to know when to say "amen." And there are people who would land on both sides of the argument: that A) we need to stretch people to listen more intently (prayerfully?) to the Prayers, or that B) we should encourage people to develop the reflex of saying "amen" whenever they hear the phrase "forever and ever." Maybe both. Either way, next week, I'll be making that change in the Prayers.

God as Perfect Parent

There's a thing that I can't get off my mind. It came to me on 9/11, at Mass in Maine, near my hometown. It's not exactly 9/11 related, but I got to thinking when the priest, during the homily, asked "where was God that day?"
You know, too, that this has been a year full of bad news, for people that I know and love. It's been the kind of year that makes a person wrestle with her faith. I never did lose faith but all along, since almost exactly a year ago, I have had a vague understanding that I was coming to know God in a whole new way.
Anyway, I was in Mass that day, thinking about how God works, and this is what came to me:

I am not a parent but I have seen this happen, so maybe you have too. Picture a young child, a toddler, who's pinched his finger. When little kids pinch their fingers, they cry like their heart is permanently broken. Their pain is REAL! I know, because I've had my finger pinched too. This child's mother responds by holding her child and soothing him. She knows that the child's pain is real, because she's experienced it too. She doesn't do much to fix the pain though, and she doesn't remove every possible pinching thing from her child's existence. She has the perspective of many years. She has a whole lifetime of experience to know that, although the pain is real, it's temporary. Seen in terms of a lifetime, that pain is practically nothing!

Here's another thing I've seen. Teenagers get their hearts broken, and feel like it's the end of the world. I remember so many teenage girls over my years in ministry, who were absolutely crushed by some rejection, some hurtful thing that a boy did. I know that their pain is REAL, because I've experienced that pain myself. There is nothing you can do for a heart-broken teenage girl but listen to her and love her through it. I know things will get better and that the world is not better because I have the perspective of time. I almost wouldn't even want a teenage girl to go through her teenage years without having this experience, however truly painful it is.

So, it occurred to me, if the experience of a lifetime helps me have perspective about the pain that we all feel in youth, then how must the experience of ETERNITY give God perspective about the pain we all feel in life? Maybe this explains, in a way, why God doesn't intervene the way we would want Him to, when we're in trouble. Like the toddler, or the teenager, we turn to our parent and beg them to take the pain away and never let us be hurt again. But the parent, even if He could, doesn't. He knows that however real our pain is, it's temporary. Not just temporary, but God knows that in terms of a eternity, our life-time pain is practically nothing.
We can't believe it because the pain is so REAL. It's hard to imagine in the moment, or the lifetime, that this amount of pure and real pain will ever be dwarfed by anything.

God knows our pain is real, because God has experienced pain. And God knows that we can't see beyond our very real pain enough to say "aw heck, this pain is really insignificant, compared to eternity!" It's not our job to have that perspective, but it is God's.

So if this is true, then I know it has implications for my prayer life, and my relationship with God. I can stop asking God to fix things because I know God doesn't do that. It's not a question of whether God could fix things, and whether God won't fix things, but that God doesn't have to fix things for me, any more than a parent would splint a pinched finger or home-school their teenager so as to avoid her having any romantic relationships. God simply loves me through my very real pain and knows that I'll figure it out when I have more perspective.

How, then, do I pray? I think... we can look at our young people again. The toddler runs to his mother and cries, accepts her comforting. The teenage girl does a lot of crying too, and turns to someone who will love her through it (this is where Youth Ministers earn their stars!). When we are hurt in this lifetime, we run to the arms of our God, who almost wouldn't even want us not to have this experience... who knows that in terms of eternity, this is so temporary... who loves us through.

(I'm not totally settled on this new theology, I'm still mulling it over. But it's giving me a new way of thinking about God that I'm kind of liking. It's probably heresy. I dunno. Don't call the pope just yet, let's work this through a little more.)

Palanca

My friend Kristen and I have had numerous conversations about the thought of palanca. It's the spiritual practice of offering up a sacrificial action to help another person in prayer. I don't know if that's a good description, but the gist of our conversations has been that we're not sure we get palanca, or see how it works, and struggle with the implications of it-- that is, if walking with a pebble in my shoe would bend the will of God, well... what the heck?
But now, I get it because someone I love is very sick. Suddenly, I am anxious to do palanca- I want to do something- ANYTHING- to help Katherine. I want to feel pain and suffering if it means that she doesn't have to. I want to do anything to help. I want to give give give to make sure that she gets.
And it dawns on me that I don't know how or if palanca works, I don't know how or if prayer works, and somehow that doesn't matter now- I am coming to see that doubt is for the safe, the secure, the comfortable. Katherine's mother said to me "we'll beat this, because there's no other option." And to me, there's no other option but to turn to God and fall on Him and offer what I can offer, so I will do it, whether I get how it works or not.

Lord, please...?

If there's been a theme for this past year for me, spiritually, it's been prayer. I know I've written here about this struggle that's been plaguing me- the battle between head and heart. I am glad to say that my faith in God, in God's existence, has been rock-solid. I am amazed that my belief in God has not been shaken through the last 14 years of working for His Organization. (You know, I was told many years ago that if one can work for this Church and keep one's faith, it was probably a miracle.)
But this confusion about how things work, how God works and how prayer works, has really really tripped me up. I'm watching a corny football movie right now, and when the coach prays for his team to win, it's practically a reflex on my part to mutter "let's just hope no one is praying for the other team!"
See, I am not sure I want it to be true that God will change the results of your football game if enough people pray in the right direction. I understand and believe that God knows better than we do, what is best for us and for the people around us whose lives our lives touch, for history, for the universe. I get it, I really do, that God is not going to let my loved ones live forever because heck, if everyone lived forever, then how would that work?
But my inability to pray unabashedly has had repercussions on my relationship with God. It led me to walk the thin line between honoring God's supreme power to choose our fates and an inability to trust that God wants to give me the things I ask for... aw crap, it's even hard for me to type that sentence. Why should I get what I want? Lots of children are starving everywhere- why don't they get what they want? In that light, again, I don't know if I want to believe in a God that would give me a great parking spot while a child goes hungry, her prayers unanswered.
You can see how this spins me around.
But a few weeks ago, we read (and did LEX) about the reading where the friend bangs on his friend's door after the door has been locked, asking for food, and because of his persistence the friend gets up and gives him what he wants (It was Luke 11:13). In my research, I found that the better translation of that word was not "persistence" but "shamelessness." The reading is about Jesus teaching His disciples to pray- and the message is, pray shamelessly.
I have been trying it out, praying shamelessly- (not ridiculously, I am still not praying for my team to win or for great parking spots) but I am asking for good things for the people who I love. And, I'm working hard (and it is hard work) to trust that God's happy that I'm asking and that I can leave my concerns at His feet, and trust that God will address it in whatever way God sees fit.

Ask, and keep on asking.

This Sunday's Gospel is about prayer. In Luke's version, Jesus' disciples ask him to teach them how to pray. He teaches them what we call the Lord's Prayer or the Our Father. But then comes the kicker: He tells them to ASK for what they want. And, He seems to say that if we don't get what we are asking for, we should KEEP ASKING.
This touches on one of my spiritual tender spots.
As a kid I was, I think, trained not to ask for things. In fact my Mom, in her special way, advised me to keep my expectations low, so that if things turned out well, I'd be so glad! I remember, too, visiting former neighbors at their apartment one Sunday after Mass. The old couple had a big bowl of candies on the coffee table, and kept offering them to me- and I accepted every one! I was told on the way home that when people offer things to me, I should say no, thank you. Later, visiting our uncle who loved to make things out of wood (like little outhouses...!) I was scolded for turning down his offer of an outhouse, because it hurt his feelings. I remember clearly being VERY confused about this. Don't ask for things, don't accept things when they're offered, but then again, sometimes, do.
I also remember from my childhood hearing a sermon that really clicked with me. The priest said that we are not to pray to God and ask for things like we ask Santa for Christmas presents. He told us to pray "Thy will be done." It sounded right to me, and that's how I have prayed for many many years.
But in Sunday's Gospel, in Luke's version, that line of the prayer is not included! Jesus just advises us to ask for what we want from God, or at least for what we need, and not to quit until we know we have been heard. It seems to go against everything I've been taught about asking.
In a way, I want to ask God. I want God to know what I want, need, wonder about- and I want answers from God. But... I can't imagine that my prayer is going to change God's mind. So, if God already knows what we need (which is what Matthew's Gospel says in introducing his version of the Lord's Prayer) then why bother?
But Jesus says ASK, and ASK is my word of the year, so... I'm gonna start asking.

Why pray?

I love this image.
I don't know about you and your theology, but the fundamental God-question I wrestle with constantly is how God works/how prayer works.
I want to thank God for all the good things that happen to me, but I think... if I give God credit for the good things, don't I have a right to blame God for the bad things? But I don't want to do that- and, more importantly, I don't believe (or want to believe) in a God who does things to me, at all- good or bad. I do believe that God could do things to me, or, for me... but I find it harder and harder to believe that He does.
This image is right in line with my thinking. If God isn't going to help these people who are willing to die a very ugly death for Him, why would he give me sunny weather for my day off? He didn't save His own Son from crucifixion... what makes me think He will do my bidding?
But, I want to ask. I want to turn to God and ask for what I need- and Jesus told us to, for crying out loud... I have been told to pray and ask for God's will to be done. Fine, of course I want that (and I always have some suggestions about what God's will should be, in case He's curious) but, how can I think that my prayer will have any effect in God's will? I imagine God's will will be done, whether I pray for it or not. So I pray to God to conform my will to His. So far, I haven't seen much evidence of that prayer being answered in the affirmative.
The parent image is always the one I return to- and use my own parents as models for how it works, maybe. I know they have a will for how I'll live my life, but don't move to control it. I know they love and forgive me when I screw up. I know they would have loved to make my life in their care to be a wonderful, pain-free existence, but that they knew it wouldn't be good for me in the long run to live that way. I know they would love for me to turn to them in my sorrowful and fearful times, even if all they could do was love me through them.
But the problem remains; How to pray?
What used to be long chats with God in prayer come down now to three sentences:
Thank you God. (For Jesus, for my life, for whatever else!)
I love you, God. (because I do)
Conform my will to yours. (just in case)
But when the chips are down (or, the lions released) I still ask for help. I figure if Jesus can ask in the Garden of Gethsemane, I can too... (of course we all know how that turned out)

Light a Candle For Me

Today, in the middle of a baptism ceremony, I was outside the doors of the chapel waiting for the last stragglers to arrive. An older man approached me and said "where can I light a candle?" I said "I'm so sorry, but we don't have candles to light here." I explained that the bank of prayer candles that we had before had burned, and now we don't have it. (So many church fires have started from those candles. It seems like every church I know has had a fire or two from those candles. It must be impossible for churches to be insured to have those candles anymore.) He said "What?? No candles to light?" I said "no, I'm sorry, but it burned down!" (this was a bit of an exaggeration- there was a fire, but it was extinguished pretty quickly, from what I'm told. But I wanted him to know that we didn't take the candles out just for the heck of it, but only because it's dangerous.)
He was angry! He said "have things changed that much??? This is the third church I've visited, and the other two were locked!!! What the heck?!?!"
I was stuck. I understand wanting to light a candle. But here we were, just outside of the baptism, and I was suddenly having to explain to this man, who clearly hadn't been in a church in many years, who desperately wanted to light a candle for his prayer. I just said "I'm so sorry. I'll pray for you." He harumphed and headed to the elevator.
I love the act of lighting a candle, love the symbolism of it, and do it whenever I get the chance, in the churches we visit on our days off. But the candle, well, it's just a symbol. The important part of the whole thing is the prayer! He could have just dropped to his knees in that hallway (or stayed standing, for crying out loud) and prayed to God and it would have been just as much of a prayer as the lighting of those candles.
It's so easy to get into habits in prayer- I can certainly relate to that. And in a church with lots of rules and rituals, it's easy to land on those rather than remember that God just wants to hear from us- with a candle, with a rosary, with a cry, with a song, with a letter... with a plea for help from behind the steering wheel. I know that man felt frustrated today, and I know I didn't help him, but I also know that God heard his prayer, candle or no.