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| The Statue of Our Lady over the altar in the Monte Casino Shrine at Saint Meinrad, Indiana |
On the sabbath we went outside the city gate along the river
where we thought there would be a place of prayer.
There are 33 references to pray and prayer in the Acts of the Apostles. Among their many acts, prayer is what they did most often.
Prayer is not just what we do when we're exasperated with children who won't be disciplined or traffic that frustrates our work. It is not what we do when we have nothing better to do.
For all my practice of prayer I've never known it to be a good habit. Or if it is, it sure is a lot harder to maintain than my bad habits. They seem to come as naturally as the rain, but prayer requires my daily decision to stop what I am doing -- what the body would rather do like sleep, eat or goof off -- and pay deliberate and close attention to God. If I do it habitually I am probably not doing it intentionally.
In today's story from the Acts of the Apostles our prayer -- that of Saint Paul and Saint Luke and those with them -- attracted the attention of Lydia and her servants. She was already a "worshiper of God" though not a Jew. (Jews don't wash their clothes on the Sabbath.) But she was charmed by the sight of these odd Jews gathering to pray in the Spirit and she wanted to know more.
Within a few minutes she was converted to the Lord and baptized.
People do pray in public places. I heard of one prayer klatsch that habitually met on a bus from the suburbs to the city. They gathered each morning in the back of the bus, opened their Bibles, shared their discoveries and asked God's blessings on each other.
Many Catholics pray each day with their pastor in the daily Mass. They may be thinking especially of their families but they pray for their parishes, communities and nations. I often recommend this practice to job-seekers with time on their hands. If unemployment is not to render them unemployable they practice the discipline of daily, scheduled prayer. When they finally find a job it won't be so hard to go to bed early and get up early again.
I recommend the rosary for those who must commute in the "monastic cell" of their automobiles. It's a cure for road rage. Rather than fume about those people who are in a hurry they pay close attention to the words of the Angel Gabriel, "Hail Mary, full of grace...."
Prayer is what Christians do. Without it we are salt without savor.
You have some beautiful pictures from the shrine near St. Meinrad. I have seen signs for the place, now I am determined to see it too, next time I am down that way.
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