Tag Archives: prayer

The “Our Father” as fire

23 Saturday Jul 2022

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In the “dog days” – the time before the arrival of horses and guns – the Pikunii people (one branch of the Blackfeet nation served by our sister parish in Montana) used fire carriers made of hollowed-out bison horns to carry burning coals from one camp to the next in order to once again enkindle fire at the new campsite.  The persons chosen to carry the fire for the tribe were well respected members of the tribe who were known to be both mature and responsible.  To carry the coals was a critically important task because in many ways the life of the tribe (fire for warmth and for cooking) depended on these coals being safely transferred from camp to camp.  The coals had to be both protected as well as kept burning just enough through the journey so as not to go out. 

In the coals was also seen a connection to the past as the coals being carried were seen as coming from and connected to all of the campfires at all the campsites the people had made throughout their history.  The fire journeyed with the people. 

The tribes carried these coals with the greatest of care. 

How do we view the “Our Father”?  Is it just some interesting words, a nice part of our worship, nice thoughts given us by Jesus to think about or do we see it for what it truly is – fire. 

The “Our Father” is fire. 

It is a fire that we could not get on our own.  Tertullian wrote, “The expression God the Father had never been revealed to anyone.  When Moses himself asked God who he was, he heard another name.  The Father’s name has been revealed to us in the Son, for the name ‘Son’ implies the new name ‘Father’.”  (CCC #2779) Jesus alone brings this name to us and he gives this name and his prayer to us now through our adoption as sons and daughters of God.  Jesus entrusts this fire to each of us and he invites us into this relationship that is now – through grace – our common patrimony.  Now, we each must carry this fire throughout the journey of our lives.  We must cherish this fire, tend it, protect it and allow it to protect and nourish us. 

In the very beginning of the Church, Christians would stop and pray the “Our Father” three times each day.  They recognized that this fire that they held (which we now hold) pushes back the darkness of evil, sin and lies.  It overcomes the great deceiver and his lies.  It nourishes and brings refreshment to our weary and thirsting souls and it warms and protects us from the cold pain of injustices endured in our world. 

The Pikunii chose only those persons who were mature and responsible enough to carry the fire for the tribe.  This fire given to us by Christ both matures us and is received by us more fully as we mature in the journey of faith and discipleship.  The words of the Our Father are the same today that I first learned when I was five years old but the fire that I carry in those words today is very different – it has now been tended through all of the experiences, joys and struggles of fifty-four years of life.  It is the same for each of us, if we tend this fire that has been given us and if we also allow this fire to warm, nurture and mature us. 

How do we view the “Our Father”?  It is fire.  A fire given to each of us through our baptisms to carry and protect throughout the journey of our lives. 

Learning to worship God alone

04 Saturday Mar 2017

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tempationsIn Adam and Eve, the devil trips humanity up not just through the temptation to exalt ourselves by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (the sin of pride) but also through the temptation to reduce God to our limits.  The serpent plants the seed for this second sin in his reply to Eve, You certainly will not die!  No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is evil.

The devil introduces a doubt about God and God’s goodness.  There is some reason God does not want them to eat of this tree…  There is something God is holding back…  There is something that even God is fearful of…

If God is fearful then God is not God because there is then something beyond God which causes fear within God.  Scriptures tells us that God is love (1 Jn. 4:16) and also that perfect love casts out all fear (1 Jn. 4:18).  In God there is no fear, only love.  God is not bound by our limits.

During his trial in the desert, our Lord overcomes the temptations of the devil and the doubts the serpent seeks to plant by holding to the truth of a God beyond our limits.  When the devil took our Lord to the parapet of the temple and seeks to plant doubt by saying, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down and then even quotes scripture; our Lord quotes scripture back, You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test. 

We do not put God to the test in the way that we can test one another by trying each other’s patience and resolve.  God cannot be tested this way.  We put God to the test when we seek to bind God by our limits.  When, in this sense, we put God to the test we, in fact, show our limits, we do nothing to God.  God remains God whether we fully understand Him or not.  Christ will not put God to the test.  He will not limit God but will live rather in full trust of the love of the Father and full obedience to the Father’s will.

In my experience as a confessor as well as through my own stumblings in life, I have learned that one of the most corrosive aspects of sin in our lives is the seed of doubt in the goodness and true nature of God that can be planted by the evil one in our hearts.  God is like us.  God is fearful.  God needs to control.  God is jealous as we are often jealous.  God is a God of wrath.  God is somehow opposed to my freedom and fulfillment.  God is angry with me.  God is somehow “put off” by my weakness and failures.  Ultimately, God is not truly love…

The season of Lent and its disciplines offers us a time of both repentance and renewal.  As we begin this season I think it would be most beneficial to begin where our Lord begins – by not limiting God to our limits, by not putting God to the test.  To trust that God is love and that perfect love has no fear.

At the last temptation our Lord is taken to a high mountain and promised all the kingdoms of the world if he would but serve the devil.  Our Lord responds, Get away Satan!  It is written: “The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.”  Only God shall we worship and serve.  Lent is an invitation to follow our Lord and let go of any god we might be carrying around in our wounded hearts made in our limits in favor of the true God we are called to worship.

God is love and in love there is no fear.

The choices we make and their consequences.

11 Saturday Feb 2017

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sermon02The first reading from the Book of Sirach (Sir. 15:15-20) begins with a very direct statement,

If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you; if you trust in God, you too shall live; he has set before you fire and water to whichever you choose, stretch forth your hand.  Before man are life and death, good and evil, whichever he chooses shall be given him.  

We all have been given the ability and the freedom to exercise our will.  We can each one of us make choices and all choices have consequences.  We are all free to make choices but no one is free to deny the consequences of his or her choices.  How we choose to exercise our will can lead to either more life or can lead to death (in a variety of forms).

Earlier this week the priests of our diocese gathered for our annual study days and at one point the presenter talked a little about the physiological effects of prayer.  He shared that there are studies which indicate that the discipline of prayer is a factor in the development of the areas of our brain connected with attention, focus and compassion.  Prayer (a spiritual discipline) can positively affect our minds, our biology.  This makes sense for Christians because we hold mind, body and spirit together.  It is all connected.  The choice to pray and to enter into the things of faith, which is an exercise of the will, is a choice that leads to more life. 

Interestingly, the presenter also shared that there are studies coming out indicating that there is another choice we can make that negatively impacts the biology of the brain and that is the choice for porn.  Studies are demonstrating that persons who fall into this habit experience an over-development of the lowest level of brain functioning (the reptilian area of the brain) and less development of the areas connected with attention, focus and compassion. 

All choices have consequences – some lead to life and some lead to death.

Our God is a God of life and not death. 

Our Lord goes deep in today’s gospel.  (Mt. 5:17-37)  He is not content to remain on the surface but wants to go to the heart where healing is needed.  Christ is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets and he wants us to know that in our keeping of the commandments is found life.  So Christ calls us to look within – to look at the anger, the greed, the judgmentalism, the pride, the lust that can dwell there – and to begin making choices (by his grace) beyond those sad realities and temptations.  Choices made for sin all leave us locked within our small selves.  God does not want this for us.  God wants us to be turned outward – towards Him and towards our brothers and sisters.  Here is where life is found. 

One final thought.  It begins today – by the choices we make now.  Some of you know that I am not the most consistent in my jogging routine (more than partly due to my own choices, some poor) but I have been around enough joggers to know that you don’t just get up one morning and say, “Today, I will run a marathon.”  It doesn’t work that way.  To run a marathon you prepare months in advance and during those months you make daily choices – some choices are not “fun” and some are downright painful.  The choice to watch what you eat, the choice to plan and chart miles, the choice to run even when you don’t want to, the choice to not do other things when you need to get your running hours in, etc…  The race does not begin the day of the marathon; it begins the months before and it continues with all those daily choices.

We will all face “marathons” in life – times of struggle that will try and test us.  To begin trying to make the choices for life when the struggle is upon us is often just too late.  The choices for God and His commandments that we make today and parents, the choices you help your children to make today, are the choices that will see us through the marathon when it comes. 

Each one of us is free to make our choices but no one is free to deny the consequences of the choices we make. 

Before man are life and death, good and evil…

But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.   

Knowing who we are and knowing who God is.

22 Saturday Oct 2016

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pharisee-tax-collector-blogThere are two things that the Pharisee in today’s gospel (Lk. 18:9-14) did not know – two things that kept him from entering into true relationship with God.  This man, who prided himself on his religious observance and his fulfillment of his commitments in life, neither knew himself nor did he really know God.  The tax collector, on the other hand,  knew both and he went home justified.

There are two little short stories to share that can draw this out.  The first story is about an elderly, retired priest who was absolutely venerated in his small town for his kindness and holiness.  The priest was a member of the local Rotary club and he never missed a meeting.  Well, one day he did not show for the monthly meeting and he even seemed to disappear for a while.  No one knew where he was.  The next month there he was at the meeting again.  “Father, where have you been?” people asked.  “Well,” the priest responded in an embarrassed way, “I just finished serving a thirty day prison sentence.”  “What?  You wouldn’t hurt a fly!  What happened?”  “The story is complicated but to sum it up; I had bought a train ticket into the city.  I was standing on the platform when this stunningly beautiful woman appeared on the arm of a cop.  The woman looked at me and then turned to the cop and said, “He did it!  I’m certain he is the one who did it!”  Well, to tell the truth, I was so mesmerized and flattered, I pleaded guilty.”

There is a touch of vanity in the holiest men and women and they see no reason to deny it.  When we are honest we must admit that we are indeed a bundle of paradoxes: we believe and we doubt, we hope and are discouraged, we love and we hate, we are honest and we play games.  Honesty requires that we admit the dark as well as the light within ourselves (and the saints teach us how to laugh about what we find).  The Pharisee lacked this depth of honesty.  The tax collector, on the other hand, truly knew who he was – a man who had nothing to fall back on other than God’s mercy.

The second story witnesses to God and our ability to trust.  A two-story home catches on fire.  The father, mother and several children are rushing out when the smallest child becomes separated, gets frightened and rushes back upstairs.  The small child appears in a smoke-filled window crying.  The father shouts, “Jump son!  Jump!  I will catch you!”  The boy responds, “But I cannot see you!”  To which the father answers, “I know.  I know, but I can see you!”  The Pharisee, so focused on his own righteousness could not bring himself to jump.  He returns home not justified.  The tax collector, with head bowed, beating his breast, knowing himself a sinner and trusting in the goodness of God was able to jump into the mercy of God.  The tax collector returns home justified.

Thomas Merton once remarked that a saint is not someone who is good but someone who experiences the goodness of God.  Someone who knows who he or she is and who also knows who God is.