Past Week Reflection
I was remembering this past week. I know, sometimes I do not remember what I had for lunch yesterday and I am trying to remember a whole week. Oh, well. We had our Cluster Mission last week. It was Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings. Each evening we had a special member of our cluster share their witness of prayer. It was an incredibly positive experience to listen to how others pray and what prayer has meant to them in their lives. Often, we want to say we are not good at evangelizing but if we remember evangelizing is sharing how Jesus works in our lives, we are then all evangelizers. We can no long say “We do not know what to say!” because we are just sharing our life experiences. We already know the words. We lived them. They are in our hearts. We walk the walk and talk the talk. Of course, we stumble, but we get right back up and try again. We are not hypocrites but recognize our shortcomings and work to continuously improve growing in relationship with our Lord.
Another great experience over the four evenings was having so many people participate in the Evening Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours. The Liturgy of the Hours is a prayer for lay people although many think it is just done by religious. It is fascinating to me to think that every time I pray the Liturgy of Hours prayers, I enter prayer with millions of other people. All of us praying together develops a cloud of prayer to encircle the earth, offering praise and worship to our God. It really is something special.
Just as a gentle reminder, if you are struggling to keep place in the book, today is Saturday of the third week. You would look for week III, Morning Prayer on page 252. And remember, Sunday begins on Saturday night with Evening Prayer I of week IV. Sunday night would be Evening Prayer II of week IV. You can do it. Find a time to pray with others any hour of the day or night.
We set our clocks ahead an hour tonight. Remember the opportunities for Stations of the Cross at any one of our four churches. Some sad news, Fr Kevin Gordon passed away Thursday. I know he was loved by many in our cluster. I have not heard of any funeral arrangements at this time. We will announce what we can at the masses this weekend. I pray the next storm stay South of us. I will have to remember to ask the school children to stop praying for snow this week. Some more rain to wash things off would be good.
May the Lord bless you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen