Jerry Rousseau's Message
Worthy Brothers:
Attached for your reference/reading is a copy of our Worthy Lecturer's presentation given at our member meeting last week.
It was a very informative presentation and informed us we can access the Liturgy of the Hours, aka Divine Office via an app on our smart phones. You can download an app onto your smart phone and access the Divine Office that way. The app is free on an I-phone.
Fraternally,
Rick Graff
It’s Jan. 1 and you leap out of bed full of joy, eager to face a new year and a new life! Yeah. Right. More likely, you wake up at noon, groggy from too much champagne. Happy New Year. Whatever way you welcome 2022 — I’ve reached the age where I’m usually asleep when the ball falls in Times Square. This is also the time of year where many of us make New Year’s Resolutions.
While a lot of us want to stick to that diet or dust off that treadmill — the one you got two Christmases ago and that now serves as a sturdy place to hang damp laundry — let’s be honest. By February, most resolutions are history. But take heart! There are other options, other resolutions. Yet, we can easily overlook one of the most important ones. And, it’s so simple, so basic, so fundamental to our lives as Catholic Christians.
I’m talking about prayer. Before you try to cut out the carbs and start counting those 10,000 steps, consider a few ways to jumpstart your prayer life. It’s easier than dieting, more convenient than exercise — you can do it anywhere! — and you might find yourself shedding unwanted indifference and building up muscles of faith. If you want to use the new year to create a new you, prayer is a terrific way to start. So here are a few ideas to get you going. These are practices that have enriched my own life — and I hope they’ll do the same for you.
1. Practice gratitude. Begin every day with this simple idea: Thank God. You can never go wrong by embracing an “attitude of gratitude.” Blessed Solanus Casey, the Capuchin priest who ministered with such humility in New York and Detroit, used to offer this timeless advice: “Thank God ahead of time.”
When you awaken, whispering a simple prayer of gratitude for the time we have been given can change our approach to the day and make the impossible seem possible. . Seize the day with a firm, grateful grip! After all, as someone once put it, “Nothing is impossible with God.” I’m a living witness to that saying.
At night, thank God for all he has brought you that day — the good, the bad and the ugly. Recognize that the greatest gift of all is life itself, and that life comes with both joys and sorrows. Being thankful for all of it can adjust our perspective. Gratitude is an attitude that can change everything.
2. Pray the basics. Got a minute? Try these three little prayers. These are really the trifecta of Catholic prayers, among the first we ever learn: The Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary and the Glory Be. Take a minute — it doesn’t take much more than that — to offer these three prayers as you start your day.
Feeling anxious, unsettled or worried? Here’s another prayer, with just five words: “Jesus, I trust in you.” All of these individually might not sound like much. But, trust me (and trust God!), they can change your perspective and lighten your load.
3. Pray for those around you. The basic idea is to pray for those you walk past, those you meet, those strangers living and working in buildings you encounter in your daily journey. You can also Intercede on behalf of your neighborhood. Pray for the families on the block, the men emptying the garbage, the unseen nurses tending the elderly or the sick. Pray for the workers who built the houses, or who poured the concrete or who trim the lawns.
4. Pray the Liturgy of the Hours. Feeling ambitious? Start praying the Liturgy of the Hours. This can be daunting; just ask any seminarian, deacon candidate or religious who is getting started with this venerable “prayer of the Church.” The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops describes it this way: “The Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office or the Work of God (Opus Dei), is the daily prayer of the Church, marking the hours of each day and sanctifying the day with prayer. The Hours are a meditative dialogue on the mystery of Christ, using Scripture and prayer. At times the dialogue is between the Church or individual soul and God; at times it is a dialogue among the members of the Church; and at times it is even between the Church and the world. The Divine Office ‘is truly the voice of the Bride herself addressed to her Bridegroom. It is the very prayer which Christ himself together with his Body addresses to the Father.'”
In print, it is a four volume collection of psalms and prayers to be prayed at certain times of the day. But if you want an easy way to get into it, the Liturgy of the Hours can be as close as your cell phone. There are apps available that organize everything for you — such as iBreviary — and they can make it almost effortless. You can have a breviary in your pocket. All you need to do is take the time. You can thoughtfully pray Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer each in about 15 minutes. It really is a beautiful way to “sanctify the day” and give focus and structure to your life. Try it!
5. Read spiritual books. There are so many great books: books on the Saints and their lives; Bible in a year series (or podcasts like those of Father Mike Schmitz); or classics such as Augustine (“Confessions,” “The City of God”), Francis de Sales (“Introduction to the Devout Life”), Thérèse of Lisieux (“Story of a Soul”) and Pope St. John XXIII (“The Journal of a Soul”) offer insights and ideas that can stir the imagination and uplift the heart. Don’t just read them; pray them!
6. Pray the Way of the Cross. Follow the Way of the Cross. It’s not just something for Lent. This beautiful and enduring devotion is most popularly prayed during Lent, when our minds and hearts turn to the Passion of Christ. But who says you only have to do it before Good Friday? The journey to Calvary is one for all time, for all circumstances and for all people. It is for anyone who has walked the difficult road of life, stumbled, fallen, gotten back up, and faced setbacks and pain and suffering. What you can gain from this way of prayer is immeasurable. Taking 15 or 20 minutes to follow in the footsteps of Christ and meditate on his suffering and death can give perspective and focus to our lives.
7. Befriend the saints. Get a new saint to be your friend whom you can make your personal patron for the new year. He or she can be a wonderful inspiration throughout the year.
8. Pray unceasingly. I encourage you to seek to be aware of God’s presence everywhere, in all things (as the Jesuits might say). Brother Lawrence, who wrote “The Practice of the Presence of God,” said: “I possess God as peacefully in the commotion of my kitchen, where often people are asking me for different things at the same time, as I do when kneeling in front of the Blessed Sacrament.” If he could do it, so can we. Want to ‘pray without ceasing’? Begin by making every act, every gesture, every task a form of prayer. Give it to God. Offer it at the sink, in the garage, in the garden. Any work, offered with love to the Lord, can be a prayer, if we intend it to be.
These are just a few ways to help make 2022 not just a new year but a new start. Can I hear an “Amen”?
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