Abandonment prayer

I like this prayer from Father Dolindo Ruotolo, who wrote as if Jesus were speaking (emphasis mine):

Shut your eyes and say with all your soul: Jesus, You take over. Don’t be afraid, I indeed will take care of you, and you shall bless My Name, in humility. A thousand prayers do not equal only one act of abandonment; don’t ever forget it. There is no better novena than this: Oh Jesus I abandon myself to You, Jesus, You take over.

There's also a novena version.

Make use of suffering

Beautiful

Thanks to the PBS airing of Carole King's Tapestry concert in Hyde Park, today's prayer is Beautiful.

You've got to get up every morning
With a smile in your face
And show the world all the love in your heart
Then people gonna treat you better
You're gonna find, yes you will
That you're beautiful, as you feel

Waiting at the station with a workday wind a-blowing
I've got nothing to do but watch the passers-by
Mirrored in their faces I see frustration growing
And they don't see it showing, why do I?

Chorus

I have often asked myself the reason for sadness
In a world where tears are just a lullaby
If there's any answer, maybe love can end the madness
Maybe not, oh, but we can only try

Chorus

To Will One Thing

A prayer from Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing by Søren Kierkegaard.

Father in Heaven, what are we without you?
What is all that we know, vast accumulation though it be,
But a chipped fragment if we do not know you?
What is all our striving?
Could it ever encompass a world,
But a half-finished work
If we do not know you?
You, the One who is one thing and who is all. 

So may you give
To the intellect, wisdom to comprehend that one thing
To the heart, sincerity to receive this and this only
To the will, purity that wills only one thing
In prosperity, may you grant perseverance to will one thing
Amid distraction, collectedness to will one thing
In suffering, patience to will one thing. 

You that gives both the beginning and the completion
May you early, at the dawn of the day,
Give to the young the resolution to will one thing
As the day wanes, may you give to the old
A renewed remembrance of that first resolution
That the first may be like the last
And the last like the first
In possession of a life that has willed only one thing,
To know God.

Stages of spiritual travel

Father William Meninger recently spoke at the Assisi Institute's inaugural Kriya conference and shared the "necessary stages" of spiritual travel: purification, illumination, and union (emphasis mine). 

In the first stage, purification, we confront our demons, attachments, and aversions. Through rituals, religious observances, self-discipline, and formalized prayers, we largely overcome our self-destructive tendencies, and we begin to hunger for a deeper, more personal experience of God. This hunger is often described as the "dark night of the senses," because those things that once brought us pleasure no longer do so.

In the second stage, illumination, we practice meditation, live simply, and devote ourselves to a God-realized Guru. In this stage, we enjoy moments of illumination, experiencing God as peace, joy, love, light, silence, and liberating insight. But as wonderful as these experiences are, they are not the final frontier because they imply a subtle but distinguishable line of separation between God and us. Sooner or later, God stops the flow of these sweet consolations, and we find ourselves experiencing the "dark night of the soul." Often, we are tempted to think that God has abandoned us, or that we have done something to push God away. However, this is not the case. God is lovingly preparing us for what is beyond: mystical union, or samadhi.

I think the "dark night of the senses" hunger is what has enabled me to find meaningful recovery.

The method of Centering Prayer

Contemplative Outreach has uploaded videos of Father Thomas Keating presenting the basic method of centering prayer. Check the CO site for workshops or groups near you who may offer workshops not on the CO calendar. They also have a centering prayer app (iOS or Android).

Your one wild and precious life

This is a lovely poem called "The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver. It's not a prayer, but maybe it should be one.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver

St. Anselm's prayer

O my God, teach my heart where and how to seek You,
where and how to find You.
You are my God and You are my all and I have never seen You.
You have made me and remade me,
You have bestowed on me all the good things I possess,
Still I do not know You.
I have not yet done that for which I was made.
Teach me to seek You.
I have not yet done that for which I was made.
Teach me to seek You.
I cannot seek You unless You teach me
or find You unless You show Yourself to me.
Let me seek You in my desire,
let me desire You in my seeking.
Let me find You by loving You,
let me love You when I find You.

Matthew Kelly's spiritual habits

From Resisting Happiness:

• Believe: Have faith that holiness is possible, and everything you do every day leads you closer to or further from the-very-best-version-of-yourself and the holy life God wants for you.
• Ten minutes a day: Create a daily habit of prayer.
• Hour by hour: Offer every hour of your life to God as prayer, especially your work.
• Free your mind: Spend time reading the Bible and other spiritual books.
• Serve powerfully: Get outside yourself by finding ways to make a difference in the lives of others.
• Mass: Attend daily Mass once or twice during the week to develop a deeper love for the faith.
• Fasting: Deny yourself in small ways many times a day so that God can fill you with spiritual strength.
• Reconciliation: Confess your sins regularly and open yourself up to spiritual coaching.

We're reading this book at my church for book club. Chapter 26 (on delaying gratification) has my name written ALL over it.

Thomas Merton prayer

Thomas Merton's prayer from Thoughts in Solitude:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Heart of Christianity

Cynthia Bourgeault quotes Kabir Helminski, a modern Sufi master. "I realize that I quote it in nearly every book I have written, but I do so because it is so fundamental to the wisdom tradition that I have come to know as the authentic heart of Christianity."

We have subtle subconscious faculties we are not using. Beyond the limited analytic intellect is a vast realm of mind that includes psychic and extrasensory abilities; intuition; wisdom; a sense of unity; aesthetic, qualitative and creative faculties; and image-forming and symbolic capacities. Though these faculties are many, we give them a single name with some justification for they are working best when they are in concert. They comprise a mind, moreover, in spontaneous connection to the cosmic mind. This total mind we call 'heart.' 

The heart is the antenna that receives the emanations of subtler levels of existence. The human heart has its proper field of function beyond the limits of the superficial, reactive ego-self. Awakening the heart, or the spiritualized mind, is an unlimited process of making the mind more sensitive, focused, energized, subtle, and refined, of joining it to its cosmic milieu, the infinity of love.

Or as is found in Matthew 5:8:

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

The Will of God

Thomas Merton on the will of God, one of the "fine ideas in Guardini on Providence:"

the will of God is not a ‘fate’ to which we submit but a creative act in our life producing something absolutely new ... something hitherto unforeseen by the laws and established patterns. Our cooperation (seeking first the Kingdom of God) consists not solely in conforming to laws but in opening our wills out to this creative act which must be retrieved in and by us -- by the will of God.

The Welcome Practice

The video above is a wonderful explanation of the Welcome Practice developed by Mary Mrozowski, one of the founders of Contemplative Outreach and an associate of Fr. Thomas Keating.

As nicely explained by Wisdom Way of Knowing, the practice has three steps:

1. Focus or ‘sink in’ to become aware and physically present to the particular experience or upset. Bring your attention to what is happening as sensation in your body. Without analyzing or judging yourself or your state, inwardly tune into what is happening as the physical embodiment of the experience. Don’t try to change anything at this stage – just stay present. ...
2. Welcome and lightly name the response that is being triggered by the difficult situation (such as “fear” or “anger” or “pain”). Acknowledge the response as sensation, and recognize that in this moment, if the experience is not being rejected or repressed, it can be endured. Ever so gently, begin to say ‘welcome’ (such as “welcome fear”, etc…) ...
3. Transition to a ‘letting go’, whereby the intensity of the situation can recede. This enables the natural fluidity of sensation to come and then go. ...

Archbishop Romero’s Prayer

A lovely prayer, written by the late Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw. It was renamed Archbishop Romero’s Prayer after his 1980 assassination.

A Step Along the Way: Archbishop Romero’s Prayer 

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

Amen.

Fr Basil Pennington on centering prayer

If you are at all interested in centering prayer, this is a must-watch introduction by one of the fathers of the modern practice. It's a bit dated video-wise (it was filmed in 1991), but the content is well worth it.

Note: there is a glitch in the editing. Right around the 22:10 mark (until about 50:00) the video shows a late Saturday AM session on lectio divina. The Friday evening intro to centering prayer starts around 50:30. The lectio section "fits" around the 1:59:00 mark.

No time to watch? Check out the online transcript.

Thomas Merton on contemplation

From The New Man:

If we would return to God, and find ourselves in God, we must reverse Adam and Eve's journey, we must go back by the way they came. The path lies through the center of our own soul. Adam and Eve withdrew into themselves from God and then passed through themselves and went forth into creation. We must withdraw ourselves from exterior things, and pass through the center of our souls to find God. We must recover possession of our true selves by liberation from anxiety and fear and inordinate desire.

From What is Contemplation? 

Why do we think of the gift of contemplation. infused contemplation, mystical prayer, as something essentially strange and esoteric reserved for a small class of almost unnatural beings and prohibited to everyone else? It is perhaps because we have forgotten that contemplation is the work of the Holy Spirit acting on our souls through His gifts of Wisdom and Understanding with special intensity to increase and perfect our love for Him. These gifts are part of the normal equipment of Christian sanctity. They are given to us at Baptism, and if they are given it is presumably because God wants them to be developed.... But it is also true that God often measures His gifts by our desire to receive them, and by our cooperation with His grace, and the Holy Spirit will not waste any of His gifts on people who have little or no interest in them.

See this for more.