Except ..

 My posting last night said there is a local church all-day adoration, which ends with a short beautiful Benediction Service at 7PM.  Except, I went to mass there this morning and the priest said that for tonight only the adoration closing service would begin at 6:45P, because of a dinner starting at 7P.

So if any reader was thinking of coming just for that short service tonight, when you arrived it would be over.  On the plus side, I guess, is that with a dinner being held there at 7, I will guess that some of the dinner attendees  will also go into the church for adoration, so attendance will be larger than the few I witnessed there last Friday.

Can't You Give Me 10 Minutes?

 

A couple of you responded to my last blog posting, suggesting it would be a good thing for friends to gather together to talk, and specifically to talk with a key friend, God.  No one suggested any time or day to do this.

Tonight, I was at the Adoration Chapel saying my evening prayers, when I suddenly recalled some old saying: “Couldn’t you spend ten minutes with Me?”  Or maybe it was “Couldn’t you spend ten minutes in prayer.”   Regardless, that led me to recall the 10-minute worship service I attended last Friday (because of the snow) at nearby St. John Neumann Catholic Church, in Canton.  (I was a founding member of that church.)

My thoughts stopped there as my mind flittered with inviting people to come and pray with me for that 10 minutes.  It seemed a little silly.  But then I read one of my night prayer reflections is on Adoration of the Eucharist, using a book given me by a good friend.  And I read this prayer:

So, You see, my Savior, I love You.  I want to have You with me always as my dearest possession.  To be here in Your presence, to see You enter into so many hearts --- not only mine --- that were too much for me.  … So, I come, my Savior.  I fly to Your arms.  I lose myself completely in the infinitude of Your Heart.  But I come, too, to give You all the joy that man can give; for You desire even more ardently than I to see me at Your holy table.  Oh, so gladly do I come to give You half-an-hour’s Eucharistic happiness.”

Half-an-hour? 

“I hasten to You because You long for me … because You call me … seek me.  Yes, I fly to You; for You entice me with Your gifts; You encourage me to come with Your graces and promises … Here I am, Divine Savior.” 

Coincidently (tee-hee), tonight another heavy snow is beginning as I write this.  I will be, therefore, in the St. John Neumann’s church NLT 6:30P tomorrow (Friday) night with, I assume, a few others unknown to me.  It would be nice to pray and sing together to God with some of my friends (and His), even if for only the 10 minutes.  (That IS an invite.)

And there is one other thought that won’t leave my mind.  It’s my dying Protestant friend who insisted I take her to an adoration chapel, and the words she said afterward: “I can’t believe how much He loves me.” 

And I Heard God Smile

 Because of the snow-packed roads, I went to a nearby church to say my night prayers tonight, versus the Adoration Chapel I usually attend.  On Fridays, the nearby church has Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament all day, and so I didn’t think the atmosphere would be much different than when I attended the Adoration Chapel.

When I arrived at the church, the gold monstrance holding the Host was on the altar for adoration, but there was only one other person in the entire church.  I went in and talked to God and prayed my night prayers, and after a while a few more people showed up.  Then the priest came out, knelt before the altar and began a short Benediction and worship service.  The priest led the small group as we all sang the Tantum Ergo song of praise, and then led us in praying the Divine Praises.  And, then after blessing the people with the monstrance with host, the people sang Holy God We Praise Thy Name as the priest removed the host from the monstrance and placed it in the tabernacle.  The day of adoration at the church had come to an end.  That closing Benediction service only lasted 10 minutes, but it made me recall how when I was a child that same short service was done at the end of Sunday mass.  And people were dead quiet in the church, and no one left early.  Because everyone, especially us small kids, KNEW that was Jesus in that Host displayed on the altar.  I remember how as a child I was awed, every time.  And that’s how I felt today.  It was just a short service, and not many people, but staring at the Host there on the altar, I swear I heard Jesus’ smile.

I recall how last year how my cancer-ridden Protestant friend asked me to take her to the adoration chapel, and how she cried silently there for an hour, directly in front of the Host displayed there, and coming outside in awe said to me: “I can’t believe how much He loves me.”  And she died a few weeks later.  And I recall my most recent posting, and Fr. Riccardo’s saying how good it is for any group to schedule a regular time together with God, time together as all friends do.

Thinking on that short, beautiful worship service tonight, sparsely attended in the huge church, I wonder why local Bible Study groups, or service ministry groups, or even just groups of friends don’t schedule once in a while that short period time to be with God, together, as a gathering of friends.  I’m sure His smile would grow with the attention given Him. 

Can I Pray With You?

I’ve heard it said that “the family that prays together, stays together.”  There is a lot of data on successful marriages to support that.  I’ve reflected on that in the past, considering my marriage failure and the fact that we never prayed together.  I believe that instruction on the importance of praying together is now part of marriage prep classes at most Catholic parishes, and it is a good thing. 

Today I listened to ACTSXXIX podcast #165, in which Fr. Riccardo and his assistant Mary discussed the value of praying together.  I recall how when Fr. Riccardo was pastor at a nearby parish, he had people turn to someone next to them before mass, and ask them what they wished prayers for.  “Hi, my name is “---“, is there something I can pray for at this mass for you?”  Of course, that would be a good thing to ask before any religious gathering.  The point Fr. Riccardo was emphasizing was that prayer is conversation with God, and it is good for any group to schedule a regular talk with God.  He gave some good examples of office people doing that during the day.

The take-away point is that very often, when we are in some distress, we will ask others: “Can you pray for me?”  But right then is the time to pray not for me, but “with me” for the problem that concerns me.  In that 3-way conversation we can talk about the problem to God and each other.  Friendly talks like that build friendships, and we can have no better friend than God.

I recall the Scriptures where it is said “where two or more are gathered in My Name …” or that we are to “carry one another’s burdens.”  Praying with our friends should become a normal thing.  It is what the early Christians did.  Perhaps the falling away from the faith of many of our young people is because they don’t know God as a friend. Prayer is not natural for them, but it should be.  Our Christian faith is not a bunch of rules and boring Sunday gatherings, it is a way of living with our friends.  I’ve mentioned before how the word ‘religion’ did not come into existence until the mid-second century.  Until then, if you were called Jewish or Christian, it described the way you lived.  And part of that life was how you prayed, together.

 

 

I Need More Eyes

 

We had a foot of snow in Michigan one day last week, and now we are supposed to get another pile tomorrow evening.  I had thought the pile last week was the annual ‘big dump’, as I paid the neighbor kids to shovel it.  My snowblower died and I couldn’t see the benefit of buying another expensive one to be used only one day a year.  If we get any more ‘big dumps’, I may re-think that this summer (but if inflation spikes the prices, maybe I won’t.)

As a pre-snowfall blessing, today the temperatures rose to near 50, and we had a big melt-off, which not only flooded streets, but expanded the many new (and big) potholes.  I went to church to say my night prayers early, so I cold see the wet roads better.  Unfortunately, I spent most of my drive spying the big pot hole before I hit them.  And spying the on-coming traffic if I had to swerve to avoid the huge potholes, and spying the cars ahead, and watching the traffic signals as I approached them ---- I need more eyes!  And driving around during rush hour was a mistake, because even if I spotted a big hole before I hit it, I usually couldn’t swerve into the busy on-coming traffic lane to avoid it.

Sheesh!

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But I’m not complaining.  Today’s Scripture reading, my recent Bible Study class, and today’s Bible in a Year reading all talked about trusting in God.  Bad things may be happening, but we need to trust God to change things that are beyond our control, or that He will use them for our good.  In the book of Exodus, when Moses was on the mountain for a long time, the Jews made a golden calf in the desert, to worship the God like the Egyptians had worshipped their gods.  But God said: “What are you doing?  I’ve been telling you how to worship me.”  But if God didn’t seem to be around, the Jews wanted to be in control --- like Adam did in the Garden of Eden, and like we do today.  Things aren’t as we like or understand them, so we want to take control and “fix things” to our liking.  But the Divine Mercy prayer is “Jesus, I trust in You.”  Even if our sky is falling, that needs to be our prayer:  Jesus, I trust in You.

Trusting in Him means we are not in control.  We are not like God.  That is a hard admission to make for many of us.  And so, we just keep worrying about the potholes, even the little ones.  And wasting our time writing about them.

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And speaking about trusting and letting God be in control, yesterday evening my Bitdefender software detected that my blog website was infected, and it gave me a warning message not to go onto that site.  My blog of 15 years I could no longer access??  So, I tried anyway, and Bitdefender wouldn’t let me.  At first, I went looking into the Bitdefender information to see if there was a way around or a number I could call or email, but it was not obvious.  So, I called a geek friend and asked him to look into it.  Meanwhile I saw where I could send Bitdefender a problem notice, but it seemed to be telling Bitdefender there was a problem with their program, but I sent the notice to them anyway, telling what happened.  And, then I saw there were websites where you could pay $100 or more to have someone clean your websites if they became infected.  I went to sleep to think on it.  And this morning, I saw that my Bitdefender software now let me access my blog again, without any error messages or warnings.  My geek friend says that web servers routinely check for problems, and probably they cleared it.  Then, I got a note from Bitdefender saying they had taken care of the problem.  I’m not sure how it got fixed, but … 

I think God fixed it for me, and I needn’t have been worried.  But I DO recommend Bitdefender as a great computer protection software program.