Intercessory Prayer

De Mello: Intercessory Prayer

“It is extremely important that you become aware of Jesus and get in touch with him at the beginning of your intercessory prayer. Otherwise, your intercession is in danger of becoming not prayer, but an exercise of remembering people. The danger is that your attention will be focused only on the people you are praying for and not on God.”—Anthony de Mello in Sadhana: A Way to God (Image Books), p. 126.

De Mello’s book had a significant impact on my spiritual practices. The awareness exercises of my surroundings, my body, and my senses have been the most practical avenues for learning how to experience God’s presence. I knew of these exercises before and tried them without success, but they now have become an essential spiritual practice for me.

One more lesson to remember: Spiritual practices that were not meaningful in the past can become important later.

De Mello suggests that rather than envisioning the face or clothes of Jesus, we might seek a sense of Jesus in the shadows, calling him by as many names as we are led to. He recommends imagining Jesus in our prayers in an empty chair beside us. This can be one of the most consistent ways to experience the presence of Christ.

These intercessory prayer exercises can change how we pray and talk about prayer to others. We remember Jesus as the great intercessor, imagining Jesus’ presence directly beside us and visualizing those we pray for with Jesus laying hands on them.

The book’s last prayers deal with turning desires and prayers over to God one at a time—praising God at all times for everything, good and bad. This can also change our prayer practice and how we live our lives.

De Mello invites us to live and pray intimately, becoming part of the grand mystery of God’s love for us and all creation in the present moment. He believes this precious now, the present moment, is where God meets us.

Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com/

 

 

 

Schmidt: Ignatian Examen

Schmidt: Ignatius, Examen

Guest Writer Frederick W. Schmidt

“The Examen builds on the insight that it’s easier to see God in retrospect rather than in the moment.”—James Martin in The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life (HarperOne, 2010), p. 97.

“Rummaging for God” in our lives.

One of the central practices in Jesuit devotion—the one Ignatius of Loyola considered indispensable—was the prayer of Examen. Ignatius felt that the key to spiritual growth was cultivating awareness of when and where God had been present for us in the day’s course. It was so important, in fact, that he urged his followers to do the Examen, even if it cost them the little time they might have for prayer. 

One writer calls this “rummaging for God” in our lives. Rummaging is a wonderful, commonplace activity we have often resorted to when we have lost something: car keys, phones, and umbrellas have been among my favorites over the years.

The Examen is a practice that tells us something important about the spiritual life: Spiritual practice is preeminently about cultivating a sense of God’s presence. It isn’t about devotional piety or the number of hours we spend in overtly religious activity. It isn’t an anxious, endless effort to earn the love of God. The spiritual life is about cultivating habitual awareness of God’s presence that shapes and informs our lives.

Ignatius recommends two questions:

One: What were the events in your life today—the moments, conversations, and choices—that drew you closer to God and others in love?

Two: What were the events in your life today—the moments, conversations, and choices—that drove you away from God and others?

The answers to those simple questions invite us to evaluate our lives from a spiritual center. They are not about what feels good and what doesn’t feel good. Some things—such as addiction—feel good at first, but they invariably isolate us from God and others; by contrast, some things that don’t feel good, like asking for forgiveness, can draw us closer to God and those around us.

Instead, these questions raise our awareness of how patterns, habits, and choices shape our lives, and how, armed with that knowledge, we can learn to be more readily available to God and others.

Rummaging around in our lives for God can be the source of inspiration, encouragement, strength, gratitude, and renewed sense of spiritual purpose. That’s not a bad result for an activity that usually leads to discovering dust bunnies and lost umbrellas.—The Rev’d Dr. Frederick W. Schmidt.

Serenity Prayer

Serenity Prayer

“God, Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And Wisdom to know the difference.”—Reinhold Niebuhr.

My grandmother kept a copy of the Serenity Prayer on her bathroom mirror. Today I honor her by doing the same. I remember visiting her as a young girl and reading the prayer in her bathroom every morning. What I mainly remember is that I thought, “This is a ridiculous prayer! If there is a problem, I know if I try hard enough, I can solve or fix it!”

Many years later, many trials later, I have learned the truth of the Serenity Prayer the hard way. There are so many things I cannot change. The only thing I can change is myself and my reactions to other people and situations. I cannot change others. I try to share my firsthand experience with spiritual friends, but others like myself often need a firsthand rather than a secondhand experience to see this truth.

I wonder if it took my adoring grandmother as long as it did me to discover and learn to live the truth.

I wonder if she had as many setbacks as I often do—thinking I can change situations and others.