Wednesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
October 11, 2023

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101123.cfm

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Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray. His prayer is simple and direct, like talking to your best friend over a morning cup of coffee.

What about us? How do we pray?

Most of our first learned prayers are a lot like Jesus’s simple Our Father. We praise God, giving thanks, and asking for what we need.

Then we grow up and get sophisticated. We may begin to “say” or read prayers rather than use our own words. While such a practice can deepen our understanding of prayer, it places a layer between us and our conversation with God.

Sometimes others lead our prayer in the community of faith. This too can enrich us as we are inspired by a shared faith. But, sorry to say, at other times such prayer, indifferently led, can leave us empty and even frustrated. The whole process can be a little like trying to have a private conversation in an elevator full of noisy people.

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Just as Jesus often went off in solitude to pray, this kind of prayer is our most intimate time with God – a time when God allows us to know God and ourselves in a deeper way. This sacred time alone with God may be spent in words, song, or the silence that speaks beyond words.

It is a time to be with the Beloved as we would be with our dearest, most faithful companion. We rest in the field of our experiences, letting them flow over God’s heart in tenderness. We listen with the ear of absolute trust to the secrets God tells us in the quiet.

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When we become deeply accustomed to this type of intimate prayer, it transforms our self-understanding. Our every thought, word, and action is in the Presence of God. It is God Who hears our joys, sorrows, fears, and inspirations rising up in our hearts even before we hear them ourselves. It is God Who holds us at the center of our lives in communion with all Creation. It is God Who breathes grace into our human moments in acts of mercy, joy, charity, and justice.

Father, hallowed be your name,
your Kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread
and forgive us our sins
for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,
and do not subject us to the final test.

Luke 11:2-4

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Poetry: Praying – Mary Oliver

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few 
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try 
to make them elaborate, this isn’t 
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which 
another voice may speak.

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Our Father – Leontyne Price