GETHSEMANI
“So Jesus came,
and they with him,
to a plot of land called Gethsemani;
and he said to his disciples,
‘Sit down here,
while
I go in there and pray.’
But he took Peter and the sons of Zebedee with him.
And now he grew sorrowful and dismayed;
‘My soul,’ he said, ‘is ready to die with sorrow;
do you
abide here,
and
watch with me.’
When he had gone a little further,
he
fell upon his face in prayer, and said,
‘My Father, if it is possible, let this chalice pass me by;
only as thy will is, not as mine is.
Then he went back to his disciples,
to
find them asleep;
and he said to Peter,
‘Had you no strength, then, to watch with me
even
for an hour?
Watch and pray,
that
you may not enter into temptation;
the spirit is willing enough,
but
the flesh is weak.’”
(Mt 26:36-41)
“Decisions require prayer;
major decisions require intense prayer.”
(John Paul II to a group of American bishops, 10 June 1988)
ONE MORE REASON
“Only prayer can prevent all our great succeeding tasks and difficulties
from
becoming a source of crisis
and make them instead the occasion and, as it
were,
the
foundation for ever more mature achievements…
Accordingly, and with a warm and humble call,
I wish the Church and all its people to devote themselves to prayer
—together with Mary the Mother
of Jesus—
as the
apostles and disciples of the Lord did
in
the Upper Room in Jerusalem after Christ’s ascension.
Above all I implore Mary,
the
heavenly Mother of the Church.”
(John Paul II, Go in Peace, 14)
PRAYING LIKE THE BELOVED SON
“The first series of petitions [of the Lord’s Prayer]
carries
us toward him, for his own sake:
thy
name, thy kingdom, thy will!
It is characteristic of love to think first of the one whom we love.
In none of the three petitions do we mention ourselves;
the burning desire, even anguish,
of the
beloved Son for his Father’s glory seizes us.”
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2804)
Take time to review and pray with
the
fourth section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
SILENCE
“Silence is an indispensable condition
for
keeping things and pondering them in one’s heart.
Profundity of thought can develop only in a climate of silence.
Too much chatter exhausts our inner strength;
it dissipates everything of any value in our
heart,
which becomes like a bottle of perfume
left
open for a long time:
only water remains with a slight touch of its
former fragrance.”
(F Suárez, Mary of Nazareth, 154)
We need “this esteem for silence,
this admirable and indispensable condition for
our spirit,
assaulted
as it is by such a deafening clamor…
O blessed silence of Nazareth!
Teach us recollection;
teach us interior life;
teach us to be docile to good inspirations
and
trustworthy spiritual guides.
Teach us the value of study,
of
meditation,
of
interior life,
of the
secret prayer that is only heard by God.”
(Paul VI, Address in Nazareth, 5 January 1964)
“For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from
him comes my salvation, …
for my
hope is from him.
He only is my rock and my salvation,
my
fortress; I shall not be shaken. …
O people … pour out your heart before him.
God is a refuge for us.”
(Ps 62:1,5,6,8)
“A constant danger with priests, even zealous priests,
is that they become so immersed in the work
of the Lord
that they neglect the Lord of the work.
We must find time,
we must make time,
to be with the Lord in prayer.
Following the example of the Lord Jesus himself,
we must always go off to some place
where
we can be alone and pray.
It is only if we spend time with the Lord
that our sending out
to others will be also a bringing of him to others.”
(John Paul II, at Maynooth)
“A priest … must take care to find time
to be
alone,
to be
still,
to be
silent,
to let
himself pray and reflect on his life.
It is strange that the busy priest, no matter how busy he is,
always
seems to be able to squeeze more people into his time,
but
unfortunately the last person to get squeezed in
is
often the Lord himself.
If you do not offer Christ prime time,
if he is not top of your list of appointments
every day
you
are heading for trouble.
The Lord always seems to be at the end of the line
waiting
to be seen,
waiting
to be heard by the feverish character
who
is so busy taking care of the Lord’s people.”
(G McGinnity, Christmen, 49)
LISTENING
“As the Beloved children of God, we are blessed.
Children need to be blessed by their parents
and
parents by their children.
We all need each other's blessings
—masters and disciples, rabbis
and students,
bishops
and priests, doctors and patients.
If the fact of our blessedness is not just a sentiment,
but a
truth that shapes our daily lives,
we
must be able to see and experience this blessing
in
an unambiguous way.
“For me personally,
prayer
becomes more and more a way to listen to the blessing.
When there is no radio to listen to, no TV to watch,
no
book to read, no person to talk to, no project to finish,
no
phone call to make, how does that make you feel?
Often it does no more than make us so aware
of how
much there is still to do that we haven't yet done
that
we decide to leave the fearful silence and go back to work!
It is not easy to enter into the silence
and
reach beyond the many boisterous and demanding voices of our world
and to
discover there the small intimate voice saying:
‘You are my Beloved Child, on
you my favor rests.’
Still, if we dare to embrace our solitude and befriend our silence,
we
will come to know that voice.
But if you develop the discipline
of spending one half-hour a day listening
to the voice of love,
you
will gradually discover that something is happening
of
which you were not even conscious.
You will discover yourself looking forward to the quiet time
and
missing it when you can't have it.
The movement of God's spirit is very gentle, very soft—and hidden.
It does not seek attention.
But that movement is also very persistent, strong and deep.
It changes our hearts radically.
The faithful discipline of prayer reveals to you that you are the
blessed one.
“One good way to listen is to listen with a sacred text:
a
psalm or a prayer, for instance.
I spent many of my half-hours of prayer doing nothing
but
slowly repeating the prayer of St Francis:
‘Lord, make me an instrument of
your peace.
Where there is hatred let me
sow love....’
In this way I also had a way to deal with my endless distractions.
When I found myself wandering far and wide,
I could always return to my
simple prayer
and
thereby listen again in my heart to the voice I so much wanted to hear.
(H Nouwen, Life of the Beloved)
“We come apart to rest awhile in Christ’s company,
savor his peaceful presence and, above all,
let him speak.
He will speak, if we have ears to hear,
for grace has its times
and a time for retreat is a most sacred time
for the promptings of Christ’s spirit in our
hearts.”
(G McGinnity, Christmen, 84))
THE PSALTER
“To show men how to praise him worthily,
God first praised himself;
and since he has deigned to praise himself,
man has discovered how to praise him.”
(St Augustine, quoted in Ap Const on the Divine Office)
“The Psalter is the book in which
the Word of God becomes man’s prayer.”
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2587)
“The Psalms constitute the masterwork of prayer
in the
Old Testament.”
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2596)
“Your prayer ought to be liturgical.
How I wish that you were given
to
reciting the psalms and prayers of the missal
instead
of private or special prayers!”
(St Josemaría, The Way, 86)
“All our Scripture, both Old and New Testaments,
is divinely inspired and is useful for
teaching,
as the apostle says.
But the book of psalms is like a garden
which
contains the fruits of all the other books,
grows
a crop of song
and so
adds its own special fruit to the rest.”
(St Athanasius, quoted in Ap Const on the Divine Office)
“The psalms have the power
to
fire our souls with zeal for all the virtues.”
(Pope St Pius X, Apostolic Constitution on the Psalter in the Divine
Office)
“I wept at the beauty of your hymns and canticles,
and was powerfully moved
at the
sweet sound of your Church’s singing.
These sounds flowed into my ears,
and the truth streamed into my heart:
so that my feeling of devotion overflowed,
and the tears ran from my eyes,
and I was happy in them.”
(St Augustine, Confessions)
MAKING TIME
The
Difference
I got up early one morning
and rushed right into the day
I had so much to accomplish
That I didn’t have time to pray.
Problems just tumbled about me,
and heavier came each task.
“Why doesn’t God help me?” I wondered,
He answered, “You didn’t ask.”
I wanted to see joy and beauty
but the day toiled as gray and bleak.
I wondered, “Why didn’t God show me?”
He said, “You didn’t seek.”
I tried to come into God’s presence,
I used all my keys at the lock.
God gently and lovingly chided,
“My child, you didn’t knock.”
I woke up early this morning,
And paused before entering my day.
I had so much to accomplish that
I had to take time to pray.
(Author unknown)
HEART TO HEART
Try turning the third person into second person (e.g. the Way of the
Cross).
CONTEMPLATION
While she was close to death, lying in her sick bed, St Thérèse was
asked:
‘I’m praying.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Nothing. I’m loving him.’
“Lord, teach me to pray!
My Mother,
may I
learn to be silent,
may I
learn to be still,
may I
learn how to listen to Jesus!”
C:\Documents and Settings\user\My Documents\RETREAT\crt_17AgonyintheGarden&Prayer.rtf
Revised 26 March 2005