Praying the Hours and Angels

 Praying the Hours and Angels

“We are always meeting deadlines; we are always running out of time. The message of following the monastic hours is to live daily with the real rhythms of the day. We learn to listen to the music of this moment. We learn to dance a little in our hearts, to open our inner gates a crack more, to hearken to the music of silence, the divine life breath of the universe.”—David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B., in The Music of Silence: Entering the Sacred Space of Monastic Experience (HarperCollins, 1995).

The Music of Silence is an invitation to journey through the day by keeping the monastic hours in some manner. Each of the eight hours is prayerfully described by Brother David, often using the images of the Fra Angelico angels. 

I take this book off my shelf and two cards drop out, both from deceased spiritual friends. The one from Nyna Keeton is an encouraging note about some of my writing. Another from Joanne Meadors is on a card from the San Marco Museum in Florence, Italy, depicting the Fra Angelico painting of the angel beating the drum from The Tabernacle of the Linaioli. The angels playing the harp and the trumpet are also on a card from another spiritual friend with whom I have lost contact. 

There is also a photograph of the musical Fra Angelico Angels on the altarpiece at the Pierce Chapel at Trinity Cathedral, Little Rock. I remember I went to Florence solely to see these angels. Also, between the book’s pages is a Forward Day by Day pamphlet about following the monastic hours. Our young son, John, picked it up from a tract rack when we visited Pat Murray and his family at All Saints Russellville when our children were growing up. John brought it to me and said, “Mom, I think you will like this.”

 This was my first introduction to the hours over thirty years ago. Years later, I would read so many of Phyllis Tickle’s writings about her experience with the monastic hours.

A book full of angels and memories still being communicated from spiritual friends, many I no longer physically see—calling me back to the spiritual life we shared.

Watch out for cards and notes you leave in books for unknown reasons. They may become messages from angels unaware, especially if they are brought to you by children.

Love Never Dies Again

Love Never Dies Again

“But soon we shall die, and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living, and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”—Thornton Wilder in The Bridge of San Luis Rey (HarperCollins, 1927), p. 107.

In his Foreword to The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Russell Banks reminds us that at the memorial service in New York for British victims of the attack on the World Trade Center, British Prime Minister Tony Blair read these closing sentences of Thornton Wilder’s novel. Of course, we hope that those we love will always feel our love throughout all eternity. But we also want to tell them about loved ones, such as our parents, siblings, and grandparents, that they may not have known.

Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, and Wilder, in this novel, both tell us that the best of love for each other never dies. This is a mystery, but I know in my heart it is true.

February 12th was my mother’s one-hundredth and two birthday. We did not always appreciate each other, but I still feel her love today. My parents died before I was ordained a deacon and before the birth of any of our grandchildren. Though my parents are not physically here, their love still surrounds us.

All the people in the picture at my parents’ wedding are now dead, but I so often feel lifted up by their presence in prayer and love. There are days when I feel a love whose only source may be the God of love. Sometimes, I sense love from specific individuals who have died.

I think of the group of women with whom I have been reading books once a week for more years than I can count. After a recommendation from one of our members, Lisa Brandom, we read Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey on our literary journey. I feel the love of each of these women every time we meet. One friend reminded us she would keep coming, even if we only read the phone book.  

I now know I will feel their love in my heart for years to come, even after we can no longer meet.

Love is all we have to contribute to this life that will be lasting. Love is all we will carry with us into the life of the resurrection. Love is the bridge between these two territories.

Remembering September 11: Father Mychal's Prayer

Remembering September 11:

Father Mychal’s Prayer

“Lord, take me where you want me to go;

Let me meet who you want me to meet;

Tell me what you want me to say, and

Keep me out of your way. Amen.”—Fr. Mychal Judge, O. F. M., Chaplain, New York Fire Department, World Trade Center Death Certificate Number 1.

This now-famous prayer of Father Mychal Judge, who died at the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001, was continually on my mind yesterday during our country’s moment of silence. We all paused respectfully as we heard the names read of the almost 3000 people who died that early autumn morning in four coordinated attacks on this country. Flags were at half-mast.

Mychal Judge, a Franciscan friar and Catholic priest serving as a chaplain to the New York City Fire Department, was unafraid to become part of the messiness of life. After the first attack, he prayed over bodies in the streets and then went into the lobby of the North Tower, which became an emergency command post. He was killed by flying debris when the South Tower collapsed.

His biographers say his dying prayer was, “Jesus, please end this right now! God, please end this!” The iconic photograph of five men carrying his body out of the North Tower has been described as an American Pieta, comparing it to another Michael’s statue of Mary holding the dead body of Jesus in St. Peter’s, Rome, or to a lesser-known work of Michelangelo, Deposition with Joseph of Arimathea [with thanks to Barbara Crafton for making this connection].

Father Mychal was also appreciatively remembered as a staunch supporter of LGBT rights and as a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous for twenty-three years. Another 3000 people attended his funeral. Father Michael Duffy closed his homily at that service with, “We come to bury Myke Judge’s body, but not his spirit. We come to bury his hands but not his good works. We come to bury his heart but not his love. Never his love.”

Michael Daly, Daily News (New York), February 11, 2002.

Shannon Stapleton, September 11, 2001, Photojournalist.

Stephen Todd, Daily Ponderables, September 11, 2017.

“Slain Priest: ‘Bury His Heart, But Not His Love.’” September 8, 2011, NPR morning edition.

Remnants of Twin Towers Newseum

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