Community Prayer

Lord, our help and our guide,
make your love the foundation of our lives.
May our love for you express itself
in our eagerness to do good for others.
Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever.

I read that prayer at the closing of the Office of Readings this morning. The Office of Readings is one section of the daily prayers in the breviary, or Liturgy of the Hours, which is to be said daily by religious and is encouraged to be said by the laity of the Catholic Church. There are prayers there which are to be said throughout the day, the Office of Readings and Morning, Daytime, Midmorning, Midday, Mid-afternoon, Evening, and Night Prayers. The prayers to be said always include readings from the psalms; the prayers which Jesus prayed.

I find the daily prayers to be very comforting, and often am struck by a particular reading which speaks to a situation occurring then in my life. I often underline words which “speak to me.” I try to read and pray the prayers seriously, and with devotion, so I was somewhat chagrined this morning when I realized something about the prayers which I had never noticed before.

These lines in the above prayer were underlined, for they mean much to me: May our love for you express itself in our eagerness to do good for others. I sincerely mean those words when I pray them, and I sometimes stop and reflect on how well I am doing in that regard, but this morning I stopped for a different reason. I realized that I had just recently read and reflected on those very same words, and so I looked back in my prayer book at previous days. I found that that exact same prayer has been the closing prayer of the Office of Readings for every day of this week. Looking further, I found that for EVERY week, the same closing prayer is repeated for that week. The exact same prayer is prayed every day for seven days in a row --- and in the twenty or more years I have been READING those prayers I don’t ever recall noticing that before. So, just how much was I sincerely PRAYING those prayers and reflecting on them?? It gave me pause, and not a little frustration at myself and my efforts. If these were important words I was reading, and I believe them to be, why didn’t I remember them from day to day? I’m not stupid, but perhaps I am not as prayerful as I thought. As much as many of these prayers sincerely do impact me, perhaps much of the impact was just for the moment, and then quickly forgotten. If so, just how much am I really living out those prayers, and looking to do what I pray for?

The Liturgy of the Hours is a gift to the members of the Catholic Church. It is meant to be a book of Community Prayers, which can be said by individuals but are really meant to be said by a group of people. In religious communities they are meant to be prayed as a community, and in most they are. But for the laity, they are also intended as community prayers. They are meant to be prayed by husbands and wives together; they are meant to be prayed by families, together; they are meant to be prayed by parishes, together. They were designed to lead us in prayer, prayer as Jesus prayed. They were designed to be the prayers said where two or more are gathered.

I usually pray the Office of Readings, the Morning and Evening Prayers alone, for I live alone. I wish there were an opportunity to say them with others; I think they would have more meaning and increase my reflection on them if I could say and then discuss them with others. It would probably increase my loyalty to them also. I suspect most people who pray these prayers are like me, saying them alone. That isn’t a bad thing, it’s just that it could be better. I suspect that we don’t take seriously enough the advice that where two or more are gathered, I am there also. I think if we did more things, not just prayer, but more things in our daily lives, as a community, we would accomplish more things, and do them better.

We live in a time and a place where most of us don’t even know our neighbors names, much less regularly interact with them, much less still pray with them. If they had a serious illness, or family problem, or spiritual problem, we probably wouldn’t even know, much less be able to help. Or, I wonder, help even if we did know? I think this loss of community has greatly hurt us, and it is especially noticeable in times of suffering, when without our neighbors, we suffer alone. When we most need help, we are alone. And not only that, when we most need help, we are not doing everything we can to have God help us. I know that He hears our prayers when we are in need, but where two or more are gathered, I AM THERE.

Having lost our sense of community, few of us are really acting as the neighbors called for in the commandments; we’re not really LOVING our neighbors. If you recall, real love is about giving of self. Is that what we doing to our neighbors in need right now? I think if your sister were in danger of losing her home, you would offer to help her, or at least say: “Come stay with me in my empty bedroom if you have nowhere else to go.” Would you extend that same offer to your neighbor? I could try to make up other examples, but I know you see the point. When we lose community, we have lost a lot, and we all suffer because of it.

Like many of the problems facing our country and our Church, the solutions are not simple. In fact I sometimes find myself becoming irate when a discussion about our serious problems is interrupted by someone who starts out saying: “Well, here’s all you’ve got to do ….” ALL??!! There are no simple solutions to be described in 10 words or less! I find myself wanting to tell anyone who thinks they have such a solution, what an idiot I think he is. I struggle to stifle myself, because I know that anger is no solution either.

While today’s problems may be complex, and the solutions not simple, I believe there is something that we can do to make a difference, a real difference. We can do something in community, to and for our neighbor. We can DO something, something real, something physical, or something which takes our precious time. Perhaps we need to get to know our neighbor first, then that is the place to start. And once you get to know them, I think it is a rare neighborhood in which today there is not someone who is in need, serious need. You and your neighbors can be there for them, perhaps to offer them some work, perhaps to spend some time helping them, perhaps to offer them a place to stay in your home, perhaps to pray with them. They’re your neighbors. It means you will really have to give of yourself, but that’s what love means. If you are really trying to live the commandment to love your neighbor, you will have to give of yourself.

And then He will be there with you. The answer isn’t in Washington or in the state capital, it is in the mirror. We need to pray together:

Lord, our help and our guide,
make your love the foundation of our lives.
May our love for you express itself
in our eagerness to do good for others.