Lenten reading

Maybe I should be embarrassed to admit how much I am enjoying Peter Kreeft’s Prayer for Beginners, which is very short and elementary, but I’ve been reading it slowly, chewing on one chapter at a time. Is my prayer life so rusty that this little book grabbed my attention? This line got me: “Reading a book about doing something can be an obstacle to doing it because it gives the impression of doing what you are only thinking about doing.” Guilty. In my head I know this, and most of what Kreeft writes is familiar, but my prayer life is easily derailed by telling myself things like “I’m doing lectio divina…”


So I’ve tried to read this little book slowly as a refresher course and practice what it says, although it is not really a “how to” manual, but an gentle prod to action: “…as Brother Lawrence would say, ‘practice his presence.’ . . .To pray is to know God by practicing his presence; and this is to live in reality, instead of in fantasy worlds we construct in our own minds, in which God is absent. One moment of prayer of weak worship, confused contrition, tepid thanksgiving, or pitiful petition will bring us closer to God than all the books of theology in the world.” This little book had laid around our house in its shrink wrap for years until a couple weeks ago. In fact it almost went in the give away pile before we moved, but I thought it might be helpful to the boys in a couple years. But it was me who needed the reminders. Maybe it is a little working of the Holy Spirit that I am only open to it right now.



Perhaps I am more open to its message because I have been going to an ecumenical Bible study at the Air Force base chapel that a friend invited me to attend. We are the only two Catholics, but there haven’t been any issues of denomination, other than the fact that we have a differently vocabulary, a different theological sense to words like “church” and “anointed.”


The first day I was confident, happy to be there, ready to share what I know. But after a couple of meetings, I no longer open my mouth so eagerly. I quickly learned that these women are powerhouses of prayer. You can tell they speak directly to God, and not to impress the other women at the study. Maybe it is because they have had to beg God for their lives that their prayer is so unselfconscious. For instance, I have gradually pieced together from what has been shared that our study facilitator, a happy, peaceful blond lady in the AF Reserves, was abused by her stepfather as an adolescent, had to go through the pain of accusing him in court, left home at a young age, and lived the high life for awhile before she finally gave her life to God. Her brother is still living life day to day, in and out of jail and the hospital, in need of prayer. Another lady, who is just as cheerful as a sunny day and who has the lilting accents of a proper Southern belle, has a husband who is a manic depressive substance abuser who drinks vanilla extract when he can’t find anything else. He has taken to sleeping with a gun and has ordered night vision goggles, but diagnoses other people’s illnesses for his day job. A third, instead of the drawl of the Southern belle, uses the two syllable vowels of someone from the backwoods to talk about her mama a lot. But she also has an advanced degree and has lived all over the US and in Europe with her husband who is an AF bigwig, while nursing her sickly children.



So behind the smiles and the genuine courtesy and kindness are some scars. And although I’m not sure any of them would articulate a “theology of suffering,” they seem clearly to have offered these pains to the Lord.



The topic of the study is hearing the voice of God, based on a study by Priscilla Shirer, who is the daughter of evangelical paster Tony Evans. To me, hearing the voice of God is the gift of saints and visionaries like Mother Teresa, people given a direct call. If I were asked a month ago if I hear the voice of God, I would’ve replied negatively. Of course, I don’t hear God’s voice: that’s the province of saints, and I’m no saint. But if nothing else, this study and this little book have been the highlights of my Lent, marked otherwise by glaring failures. (loved this quote from Anne: from her pastor, Fr. Dave Cooper in Milwaukee...“Flunking Lent is still a gift from God. When you do well following your Lenten observances, that isn’t goodness on your part. It is God who gave you the strength to do it. So, when you fail to have the strength to follow through on your Lenten observances, that too, is a gift from God.” ) If nothing else, they have me trying to quiet the distractions, silencing inner critics, preparing a space for God to work.

A prayer from St. Patrick, the extended version of his breastplate prayer, which begins:  "I arise today, through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, through belief in the threeness, through confession of the oneness, of the Creator of Creation.. . ." 

Time to make Irish soda bread.