Prayer...A Nascent Transformation...

     The Hail Mary.
     Shall we pray? Sister Immaculata proffered.
     Hail Mary, full of grace.
     The Lord is with thee.
     Blessed art thou among women,
     And, blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
     Holy Mary, Mother of God.
     Pray for us,
     Now, and at the hour of our death.
     Amen.


     Seat of wisdom, pray for us.
     The prayer was a reverential invitation to understand words new to me.  I was never sure whether the words were, "Seat of wisdom, pray for us," or, "Seed of wisdom, pray for us."  Yet, somehow, that detail did not matter.  Both Seat and Seed confirmed a nascent transformation yet to be lived. 
     Hail Mary, Full of Grace.  
     As inexplicable as the Hail Mary's beauty on my first hearing 30 years ago is its beauty today.  Whenever an ambulance passes by me, the Hail Mary comes to my ears.  I do not recite it at other times.  Yet, at the moments of urgent need--the need of others--the Hail Mary is given to me to utter.
     I have no Rosary beads.  I do not know the Rosary.  I do not pray the Rosary.  Not by my judgment of its value.  Rosary has been in my vocabulary for nary three decades.  Maybe in seven more decades, I will know the Rosary.  Maybe in seven decades I may pray the Rosary.
     Others better versed than I could recite the precise chapter and verse.  Yet, I have heard it said that we need not fear, when  needs arise we shall be given the appropriate words to utter.  Whether spoken aloud, or held in my heart, confidence is given, and fears assuaged.  Blessed by and with a faith-filled worship community, and Christians who care deeply about the heart and soul--far more than structures they enter, no longer is prayer a formula I grab from off the rack.  I cannot explain its shape--its form.  Thirty years ago, a formula.  Today, a precious mystery.  Thirty years from now?  A precious mystery to be lived, not feared.

Prayer...It Makes No Sense to Me...

      On April 25, 1982, had you asked me, "what does prayer mean to you," I would have said, "Lord Make Me an Instrument of Thy Peace," "The Hail Mary,"  and "Peace be with You." 
     Formulated.  Off the Rack prayers ready for those wanting to wear religion on their sleeve.
     Not quite.  I had--I have--a deep love for each of those prayers.
     Without knowing his name, The Prayer of St. Francis, St. Francis was introduced to me by a Christian choir director in junior high school--in a public school, no less, much to the chagrin of my parents.  A Christian--not a Catholic--choir director.
     Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
     Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
     Where there is injury, pardon;
     Where there is doubt, faith;
     Where there is despair, hope;
     Where there is darkness, light;
      And, where there is sadness, joy;
      Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console.
      To be understood as to understand.
      To be loved, as to love.
      For it is in the giving that we receive.
      In the pardoning that we are pardoned.
     And, it is in the dying,
     That we are born to eternal life.
     My maternal grandfather--Ray, a man who abhorred anything Catholic--would be horrified to hear me say so, yet, his inheritance to me, "Don't feel sad when I die, I have made amends with everyone [with whom] I had differences," reaffirmed what St. Francis told me.
      Prayer.
      It makes no sense to me.  Words that speak such truth.  Words--it is in the dying that we are born to eternal life--far from affirmed in my childhood home, in my family--speak such truth to me.  It makes no sense.  Yet, they are true.

Crucifixion...Resurrection....

     May the peace of Christ be with you.
     It took me many years to utter those words without fear of crucifixion--crucifixion impaled by reason, and logic, crucifixion beyond any hope of faith to surmount.
     I was surrounded by the living of values Christ proclaimed.  Yet, that was not enough.
     There was an invisible stereotype that permeated our home.  Bible-thumping Baptist.  Evangelical.  Unwilling missionary work--infliction of conversion within our house.  Speaking of tongues.  The Holy Ghost--a white-sheeted being antithetical to reason and logic.
     I was surrounded by the living of the values Christ espoused.
     Yet, it took many years to shed my fear of crucifixion--crucifixion impaled by reason, and logic.  Resurrection.  How can you possibly reconcile that with any degree of reason, or logic?  How can you possibly live with any integrity, if you subscribe to the notion of resurrection?  How can you explain resurrection?
      Complicated, yet, simple--not simplistic, but, simple.  I cannot explain the resurrection of a body in logic's tomb.
      I was given a body beyond reason and logic to explain--to reconcile.  No reason--no logic--satisfied those who met my body to understand it--to understand me.
     May the Peace of Christ be with You.  The Prayer of St. Francis.  The Hail Mary.  These three prayers ground me.  Far beyond the words to convey, I had no hope of avoiding a mystery beyond reason, and logic to explain.
     Others better versed than I in the Bible could recite the precise chapter and verse.  Yet, I have heard it said that we need not fear, when  needs arise, we shall be given the appropriate words to utter.  Whether spoken aloud, or held in my heart, confidence has been given, and fears have been assuaged.  Blessed by and with a faith-filled worship community, and Christians who care about more than structures they enter, no longer is prayer a formula I grab from off the rack.  I cannot explain its shape--its form.  Thirty years ago, a formula.  Today,  a precious mystery.  Thirty years from now?
    Crucifixion.  Resurrection.  I cannot explain it.
    But...I can--I must--live it.  We can--we must live it.