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A Beautiful Moment
I had a touching experience a few days ago which left an impression upon me. We had a visiting priest, who has ben here for the last few weeks and who is aware that I pray the Divine Office before the morning Mass. This particular morning, he asked me had I already prayed Morning Prayer and I said I had not; he then asked if it would be alright for him to join me in praying it. Of course, I was delighted and said ‘yes’. And so we sat there, before the Tabernacle in a Church which was still empty apart from us, and we prayed that Hour of the…
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The Turn Of The Clock
Meteorologically, it is now autumn, even if officially we are still in the dying embers of summer. And it is at those turning points of any year that I tend to take a look back and review what has been happening since the last time I undertook such an endeavour. I find that as a general rule, my conclusions tend to be mixed. Spiritually, my devotions haven’t changed and nor do I foresee any major future change to these – aside from the Mass, the Rosary is the primary spiritual devotion and I am still using a variety of little meditation books as a way of gleaming as much spiritual…
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Lord, Open Our Lips
I read the other day a quip someone had posted online – ‘the days where I feel least inclined to pray, are the days when I most need to pray’. There is truth there at the superficial level – but there is a deeper truth present also. And this deeper truth is that we need to pray every day. Prayer is not – or rather, should not be – a chance and intermittent encounter with God, one we do some days but not others. If our prayer is to be authentic and to achieve what it is designed to do, then it is offered daily and we see it as…
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Jeremy And The Psalms
One of my favourite prayer forms is the Book of Psalms, not least because these are undoubtedly the very same prayers used by the Lord during His earthly life among us. The Psalms are ancient and very beautiful and they occupy a singular place in the heritage of Christianity and Catholicism, featuring prominently in the Liturgy and in the official prayer of the Church, the ‘Divine Office’ or ‘Liturgy of the Hours’. Now, for some time I have been following an artist online, called Jeremy Thomas, who came originally from Ebbw Valley in South Wales. A school teacher for many years, Jeremy also has a degree in graphic art and…
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The Gift of Prayer
Prayer is a funny thing. Sometimes it seems to come to us relatively easily, while at other times it requires of us the greatest effort. At one point it is filled with delight and joy and illumination – yet at other points, it can seem we are calling into the void, and it leaves us cold and untouched. I suppose this might be one of the reasons many people can find prayer difficult – there is not always an obvious return. But then, neither should there be; if our purpose in prayer is nothing more than what we receive back at the affective or sensual level, then we have missed…
