The final two paragraphs of Pope Benedict’s encyclical on Christian Hope, Spe salvi, fittingly turn our attention to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Star of Hope.  He references an early hymn which greets Mary, the Mother of God as “Star of the Sea”: Ave maris stella. (SS 49) This is a beautiful title for Mary as we consider the topic of Christian hope.  The Holy Father writes:

Human life is a journey. Towards what destination? How do we find the way? Life is like a voyage on the sea of history, often dark and stormy, a voyage in which we watch for the stars that indicate the route. The true stars of our life are the people who have lived good lives. They are lights of hope. Certainly, Jesus Christ is the true light, the sun that has risen above all the shadows of history. But to reach him we also need lights close by—people who shine with his light and so guide us along our way. Who more than Mary could be a star of hope for us? With her “yes” she opened the door of our world to God himself; she became the living Ark of the Covenant, in whom God took flesh, became one of us, and pitched his tent among us (cf. Jn 1:14). (ibid.)

As I read these words, I recall a particularly important point in my life in which Mary indeed served as a star of hope for me.  Perhaps I have shared previously that I was not always an intentional disciple of Christ.  Sometime during my college years, I had drifted from practicing my Catholic faith.  I was not angry with God, nor was I upset with the Church.  I just took my focus off of Him and followed my own pursuits.  As I was in the early years of my career, I began noticing a restlessness in my heart, a feeling of emptiness and hopelessness.  Something was missing in my life, which in reality, that something was actually a someone.  I recall vividly going to bed early on New Year’s Eve in 2004 with a heaviness of heart.  The next morning, the first of 2005, still feeling burdened, I looked next to my bed and saw a Rosary sitting there.  Prompted no doubt by the Holy Spirit and the intercession of Mary, I decided to reacquaint myself with how to pray the Rosary, and then I did.  Though there was nothing mystical or spectacular that happened, what had seemed so dark in my heart now seemed to not be so overwhelming.  It is as though there was a dim light the promised hope.  

I continued to pray the Rosary each day and that light of hope continued to grow and I began to be intentional about getting to know Jesus on a personal level.  As I look back on that time, I know that Mary played such an important role in leading me back to her Son.  Even though I have read this paragraph from Pope Benedict before now, this image of Mary as a “Star of Hope” resonates deeply now, and my heart is renewed with gratitude for Mary’s assistance in guiding me through the shadows into the bright light of Christ’s love for me.  Regardless of how confusing, difficult, or dark the journey may be for me, I know that I can always turn to Mary who always reflects the light of hope which invites me to trust in her Son.

The final paragraph of Spe salvi is a beautiful prayer to Mary, and it is well worth your read.  In the interest of space, I offer the final line as a prayerful plea to her to continue to show herself our Mother and our Star of Hope:

Thus you remain in the midst of the disciples as their Mother, as the Mother of hope. Holy Mary, Mother of God, our Mother, teach us to believe, to hope, to love with you. Show us the way to his Kingdom! Star of the Sea, shine upon us and guide us on our way! (SS 50)

Details, details… When reading the scriptures, it can be easy to gloss over little details that seem to be insignificant or repetitive. Very often, we need a great saint or insightful person to shake us out of whatever stupor we are in when reading the sacred words so that the full meaning can flow from the fountain of life that is the divine Word. One example of this happening to me comes in that most well known of passages: the Annunciation from the Gospel of Luke. 

In the first chapter of Luke, we hear of the Archangel Gabriel visiting the virgin named Mary to ask for her consent to be the mother of God. Mary humbly asks, “How can this be, since I do not know man?” (Lk 1:34). Luke records this as the response: “The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God’” (Lk 1:35). Simple enough. Still, whenever I read this passage, I tend to conflate the two actions of God here into one phrase, seeing them as simply parallel lines: The Holy Spirit will overshadow you. 

There is nothing wrong with reading this verse the way I just described. It is possible to interpret them as a Jewish way of speaking in parallel, repetitive phrases to emphasize a point. We see that all the time in the Psalms, and in like manner, Luke could simply be highlighting the power of the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. In my case, I did not even consider another way of reading them until I came across a commentary passage in the writings of St. Bonaventure. 

St. Bonaventure clearly sees this verse as describing two actions of God: One action: the Holy Spirit coming upon Mary; and a second, simultaneous action: the power of the Most High overshadowing her. Near the beginning of his short work, The Tree of Life, St. Bonaventure explains, “When she gave her consent to him, the Holy Spirit came upon her like a divine fire inflaming her soul and sanctifying her flesh in perfect purity. But the power of the Most High overshadowed her (Luke 1:35) so that she could endure such fire.” In this fascinating description, St. Bonaventure sees God as both descending upon Mary to incarnate the Son of God in her womb, and at the same time, powerfully accustoming her to receive the Divine presence of God in perfect peace, enduring the fire of God’s life and love. 

As an addition here too, I cannot help but be reminded of the invocation to the Holy Spirit in the prayer to the Holy Trinity by St. Elizabeth of the Trinity. St. Elizabeth calls out to the Holy Spirit, recognizing that His desire for each of us is to become little “Christs” in the world, Christians in name and in truth. She prays, “O Consuming Fire, Spirit of Love, overshadow me so that the Word may be, as it were, incarnate again in my soul. May I be for him a new humanity in which he can renew all his mystery.” Though only the Blessed Virgin Mary was privileged to bear Jesus bodily in her womb and to be his mother in the flesh, every Christian is called to bear Jesus to the world by being a member of his body and living His life, death, and resurrection in the world in our own lives. He chooses to come to the world in us and through us, and he joins us to his body by the power of the Holy Spirit, ordinarily working through the sacraments. 

The Holy Spirit once came upon Mary and the power of the Most High overshadowed her. May that same Holy Spirit come upon our Church to fill us with the fire of his life and his love. May he draw us ever more deeply into the mystery of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son. May we rejoice at the birth of our King, and may he be born ever anew in our hearts and in our lives. Come, Lord Jesus! Come, Holy Spirit! Lead us to the Father!

Over the past several weeks, I have had a more-frequent-than-normal exposure to death.  Just before Thanksgiving, within a span of six days, we had three funerals here at the Cathedral.  We also unexpectedly lost two of our diocesan priests, Father Joe Ring who was 66 years old, and Father Daren Zehnle, who was just 47 years old.  Both of these priests were in active assignments, so their loss is all the more difficult.  I am also aware of members of our parish who have lost loved ones unexpectedly in the past month.  Finally, over the past week, I had the privilege of offering the Last Rites to two individuals who were coming to the end of their earthly journey.

Throughout all of these experience with death, reflecting on how they affect me personally, and how others are affected by those deaths, there is a line from the funeral liturgy that keeps coming back to me.  It comes from one of the options for the Preface in the Mass for the Dead.  The line goes like this: “Indeed for your faithful, Lord, life is changed not ended.” (Preface I for the Dead) As human beings, made in the image and likeness of God, we know that an essential aspect of our humanity is that we exist in relation to others.  First and foremost, we exist in our relationship with God, who is a communion of persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the Blessed Trinity.  We also exist in communion with the many relationships with others here on earth – our family, our friends, and indeed all of humanity.  Therefore, when we express that in death “life is changed, not ended”, we can most certainly apply that to these relationships.  When we or a loved one dies, our relationships may be changed, but they are not ended.  

The Holy Father reflects on this in the next paragraph of Spe salvi as he continues his treatment of Purgatory, addressing how those relationships, changed but not ended, continue to be united especially through our prayer for them:

The belief that love can reach into the afterlife, that reciprocal giving and receiving is possible, in which our affection for one another continues beyond the limits of death—this has been a fundamental conviction of Christianity throughout the ages and it remains a source of comfort today…we should recall that no man is an island, entire of itself. Our lives are involved with one another, through innumerable interactions they are linked together. No one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone. The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do and achieve. And conversely, my life spills over into that of others: for better and for worse. So my prayer for another is not something extraneous to that person, something external, not even after death. (SS 48)

As the pope notes, this belief of the connection that remains after death is a source of great comfort to us as we struggle with their physical absence in our lives.  If this bond is not broken with death, we can be filled with hope and joy about the promise of what eternal life in Heaven will look like as all of those relationships that began in this life,  first with God, and then with others, will be brought to a fulfillment that surpasses anything we ever experienced on this earth.  In that regard, we find new peace in the words of St. Paul about our Christian hope in what awaits us, namely that “hope does not disappoint.” (Rom 5:5) While we still struggle here with that separation and may naturally feel sadness, disappointment, uncertainty, etc., let us be reassured in our faith which believes that in death, life is changed, not ended, and that the Lord continues to keep us united to Him and one another through the gift of His grace and love, present most especially in the Eucharist, where we meet Him and our loved ones each time we come to Mass.

Later this week, we will come to the seventeenth day of December. This day is one that catches my attention as it comes year by year. First of all, it is the traditional feast day of the Prophet Daniel – that great saint whose name I share. It’s not a feast we celebrate on our calendar, but it is nonetheless his feast day. Second, this day is the beginning of the final part of Advent accentuated in the prayer of the Church by the “O Antiphons” sung at Evening Prayer in the Divine Office. Between these two meanings behind December 17 there is a thematic connection which sheds light on the hope of the people of Israel and the joy of the coming of the Messiah. 

In this latter part of Advent, the Church turns her focus very intentionally from the second coming of Christ at the end of time to his first humble coming in the flesh. The Church enters, through her liturgy and prayers, into the expectant hope of the people of Israel. They desired more than anything that their redeemer would come to set them free. The “O Antiphons” strike to the heart of this longing with Old Testament imagery taken from the great prophets.

“Come!” is the great cry from the heart of God’s people. Come and set us free! Come and give us light! Come! O Wisdom of God, O leader of the House of Israel, O Root of Jesse’s stem, O Key of David, O Radiant Dawn, O King of all nations, O Emmanuel, Come! Each of these messianic titles we can read clearly as fulfilled in Jesus Christ. He is God’s Wisdom, Emmanuel – God with us, the radiant dawn, King of the nations, springing forth from Jesse’s family tree. 

We want to grow in our desire for his coming to birth in this world. It is good for our souls to enter that depth of longing and thirsting for the coming redemption. Jesus came and his coming can seem so ordinary to us now. In reality, however, it was necessary and it was redemption. We go back, then, in our imagination and in our prayer and rest with the people of Israel in their hope and yearning. The longed-for Messiah is coming, and the Church cries out with Israel, “Come!”

Though there were many prophecies concerning this messiah throughout the Old Testament, some even as far back as in Genesis, the longing of the Israelites and the more precise prophecies come out in the writings of the prophets. Each great prophet gives us varying “facets,” you could say, of the messiah. For example, our understanding of Jesus as the good shepherd is built not only on Jesus’ words in the Gospels but on the writings of Ezekiel; much of our understanding of the work of Jesus’ atonement through suffering is built not only on Jesus’ suffering recorded in the Gospels but on the writings of Isaiah about the suffering servant. 

The Prophet Daniel too gives us a unique angle on this Messiah in a way that prepares the way near the end of Advent. The angel Gabriel appeared not only to Mary but to Daniel also (Daniel 8:16). Daniel sees a vision of this messiah being a “son of man” but also being given power and dominion and an everlasting kingdom (Daniel 7:14). This future leader will be a King over a Kingdom that will overshadow and overpower all other kingdoms on earth, and he will be like a rock not hewn by human hands (Daniel 2:44-45).

Gabriel announces the coming of the new King. He is coming, and with Israel, we can desire his coming. Come, O King of Kings, rule over us and keep us in the peace of God’s Kingdom. Amen.

As Pope Benedict continues his treatment of this sometimes confusing and difficult topic of Purgatory, he offers a consoling and hopeful explanation of what this purifying fire of Christ might be like.  He writes:

Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. (SS 47)

Perhaps our first thought of what encountering the gaze of Christ at our judgment might be like is something frightening to us.  We might think of a disappointed, disapproving gaze, similar to what we may experience from others in our lives when they are not pleased with something we have done.  Let us recall, however, that when admitted to Purgatory, we have died in the state of friendship with the Lord.  We are not His enemies.  Rather, who we encounter is the God who is love.  Therefore, His gaze, thought it may be penetrating and perhaps painful, is a gaze of love and a gaze of mercy.  Of this gaze, the pope continues:

His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God. (ibid.)

An image from the Gospel comes to mind as I reflect on the effect of the gaze of Christ.  It comes in the context of the Passion after Jesus had been arrested.  Jesus had told Peter that before the cock crowed the following morning, he will have denied Him three times.  Though Peter insisted that he would remain faithful, when faced with the prospect of suffering persecution for his association with Jesus, he indeed denied the Lord three times.  In Luke’s Gospel, the moment after this third denial is described in this way: “Just as he was saying this, the cock crowed, and the Lord turned and looked at Peter; and Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, ‘Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times.’ He went out and began to weep bitterly.” (Lk 22:60b-62)

The look of Jesus on Peter was not a look of condemnation or ridicule, but a look of mercy, a look of love, which penetrated Peter’s heart, melting away the falsehood of his own strength, his thinking he would remain faithful to the Lord in the face of trial.  The gaze of Jesus helps to burn that pride away so that Peter can begin again from a place of humility and trust in the Lord, giving him the strength to continue following the Lord.  It was a painful experience for Peter, but it was transformative, and one that would prepare him to love Christ more.

When we go to confession, we would do well to pause and consider the love with which Jesus looks upon us, purifying our hearts with His gaze and words of mercy, giving us the strength we need to begin again and follow Him with greater humility and trust in His grace.

I was recently asked about the Vatican’s November 4 publication about Mary, the Mother of God. This document, called Mater Populi Fidelis, was published from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. I was asked, “Did this change the Church’s teaching about Mary? Can we still ask for her intercession in the same way?”

The short answer to those questions is “No, this did not change Church teaching,” and “Yes, you can still ask for her intercession like before.” Instead of changing a teaching, the document made a clarification about two proposed titles for the Blessed Mother: Co-redemptrix, and Mediatrix of all graces. The rest of this article will be a fuller (but still brief) explanation of what this document said. 

This document comes as a response to a (decades-long) request from theologians that these two titles would be approved as dogma by the Church. This approval would look much like the dogmatic proclamations of the title “Mary, Mother of God” at the Council of Ephesus in 431 or the title “Immaculate Conception” in 1854. The two titles in question, then, had been proposed as additional titles to be given this dogmatic affirmation – they have been used by saints and theologians historically and have found some use among more contemporary theologians. 

The primary difficulty with both terms – Co-redemptrix and Mediatrix – is the difficulty in precisely defining what they truly mean. In a very indirect sense, both are true. Mary cooperates in salvation history by giving the “Yes,” that brings about the birth of Christ. From Jesus comes redemption and all grace. In this sense, Mary is both a cooperator in God’s redemptive work and one through whom God’s greatest blessings have come into the world. 

In a more direct sense, however, both titles take on a meaning that is not true. Only Jesus Christ is the redeemer of the world. Mary certainly cooperated in God’s work, but Jesus redeemed us, not Mary. Because of this ambiguity, this title is forbidden from being used. The document states, “…it is always inappropriate to use the title ‘Co-redemptrix’ to define Mary’s cooperation. This title risks obscuring Christ’s unique salvific mediation…” (22). 

While the title “Mediatrix” is not forbidden from being used, it is more strictly defined. Again, Christ himself is shown to be the one unique “mediator” between God and man. This term, however, the document calls “inclusive,” meaning that Jesus does draw others into the work of mediation in a way he does not draw them into his work of redemption. The document quotes Pope St. John Paul II in his own Marian document Redemptoris Mater, when he writes that Mary “puts herself ‘in the middle,’ that is to say, she acts as a mediatrix not as an outsider, but in her position as mother. She knows that, as such, she can point out to her Son the needs of mankind.” Therefore, while she can be said to be a “mediatrix” (Latin for mediator), she cannot be said to be mediatrix of all graces. God can give grace apart from her, and he chooses to give some (and many) graces through her intercession.

Although the document, Mater Populi Fidelis, refuses to accept these two terms as dogma, it does offer a beautiful reflection on the motherhood of Mary. This motherhood embraces Mary’s cooperation in the redemptive work of Christ and reveals to us how exactly she acts as a mediator of Grace from the Trinity to us. Through her faith, she becomes the mother of the redeemer and our mother. It is in a motherly way that she acts as a mediator – taking away nothing from the priestly mediation of her son. We may go to her with confidence as our mother and trust in her unfailing intercession.

Mary, mother of the Church, pray for us!

As the Church begins a new liturgical year, the readings continue with the theme that characterized the end of the previous liturgical year, the Second Coming of Christ.  We often associate the Season of Advent exclusively with the first coming of Christ in His Incarnation.  This theme is taken up more intentionally in the final days of Advent, but it is the Second Coming of Christ that the Church invites us to reflect on with greater attention, for we do not know the day or the hour, thus the need to always be prepared.  This has hit close to home over the past few weeks here at the Cathedral as we have had a larger number of parishioners and family members of parishioners who have passed away, some of them rather unexpectedly.  We keep all of them and their families in our prayers in a special way.

As I mentioned in my article two weeks ago, we find ourselves in the final few paragraphs of Pope Benedict’s document on Christian Hope, Spe salvi.  In the sadness of the loss of our loved ones, we look for that light of hope given to us in the promises of Jesus Christ who has conquered death through His death and Resurrection.  In these final paragraphs, the Holy Father is reflecting on the Church’s doctrine on Purgatory, a topic which many shy away from as being something negative, but when we truly understand the beauty of this teaching, we cannot help but be buoyed up with hope.

In the previous paragraph, the pope noted the two extremes of where people can find themselves at the end of their lives as they stand before the judgment seat of Christ.  On the one hand, there are those who are utterly pure, filled with love for God and neighbor, and free from any sin, they enter immediately into Heaven.  On the other extreme, there are those who have definitively rejected God, lived for hatred and suppressed all love.  They have consciously chosen in life to be apart from God, and after death, they remain in that condition they have freely chosen.  But as the Holy Father notes: “Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life.” (SS 46) He then offers the following explanation of what he (and really the Church) presumes for the majority of those people of faith who die in friendship with the Lord:

For the great majority of people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil—much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul. (ibid.)

He goes on to explain how the firm foundation of faith in Christ upon which these lives are built cannot be destroyed by death, giving a firm hope in the promise of sharing in the victory of Heaven.  But those places of impurity need to be dealt with, and the pope appeals to the words of St. Paul who speaks of a sort of fire which burns away that which is not of God, so that souls can be fully pure and capable of being admitted into Heaven.  This “fire” of purification after death is Purgatory.  Though the image evokes fear and seems somehow at odds with a loving God, the Holy Father will explain in the next paragraph a way of understanding this fire in a way which is far more hopeful and consoling.

Psalm 63 is one of the most frequently prayed Psalms. In the Liturgy of the Hours, the liturgical prayer of the entire Church, which is prayed daily by all priests and religious, and many lay people, this Psalm is set for morning prayer for every major feast day. It begins with the Psalmist expressing a deep longing for God. God is like water for a desert land. It moves into a section of praise and then ends with deep sentiments of trust in God’s providential care. 

In the third verse of the Psalm (in the NRSVCE translation) we read these words, “Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.” This is a strong statement, to say the least. This “steadfast love,” is also sometimes translated as “mercy” or simply, “love.” The translation that Saint Augustine used when commenting on this verse in his Expositions of the Psalms goes like this: “Because your mercy is better than all possible lives, my lips will praise you.” These words are slightly different, and even stronger! Essentially, there is nothing better than this mercy.

Saint Augustine’s reflection on these lines mirrors a somewhat well-remembered phrase from the liturgy of the Mass. We hear in one of the prefaces for the Eucharistic prayer, “… although you have no need of our praise, yet our thanksgiving is itself your gift….” The very act of our giving thanks to God is a great gift to us from him. He grants us this gift of prayer, and it brings us blessings to thank him. 

In a similar way, regarding Psalm 63:3, Saint Augustine wrote these beautiful words:

“My lips would not be praising you if your mercy had not taken the initiative with me. Thanks to your own gift I praise you, through your own mercy I praise you. I could not praise God if he had not given me the power to praise him.” (Translated by Maria Boulding, Exposition of Psalm 63, 12).

Praise of God is a type of prayer that is entirely other-focused. We lift our minds and hearts to God, and in praise, we kind of forget ourselves. Because of our self-forgetfulness, when we praise God, we experience a joy that is unmatched by almost any other type of prayer. This joy is a true gift from God. The praise we give him is a true gift from God. Each of these gifts come, in their own way, from the depths of God’s heart. 

God wants us to turn to him with our whole being. He knows that in this life we can never truly forget ourselves entirely. We are body/soul creatures affected by sin, so we will always experience distractions and inclinations to selfishness. Praise as a practice of prayer, however, can turn our hearts toward God. Praise of him and his greatness can begin to strip away the earthly desires we struggle against. 

God has shown us mercy in our lives. We can thank him for that mercy, but we can also praise his Mercy. Your mercy is beyond all our understanding, O Lord. It is better than all possible lives. Your steadfast love is better than life itself. I praise your mercy, O Lord!

In October 2024, I attended a Pastor Workshop hosted by the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis.  In one of the sessions, one of the seasoned pastors from that archdiocese mentioned how he had developed the practice of offering an annual State of the Parish address the Sunday before Thanksgiving.  The thought was to situate his reflections on the previous year in the context of gratitude for all of the blessings they had received, serving as a reason to be hopeful for the year ahead.  Inspired by this, I offered my first State of the Parish homily last November on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and I am happy to continue that tradition this year as well.

Included in this bulletin, you will find an insert with some numbers which highlight certain aspects of the state of the parish over the past year, including financial numbers, sacramental numbers, and Mass attendance.  Though these numbers give some insights into the past year, they only provide a small part of what has taken place over the past year.  As I have been preparing for this weekend, reflecting on all that has taken place, there is a word that describes what I am feeling regarding the current state of our parish, and what I expect looking forward.  That word, likely not surprising, is hope.

Admittedly, my view may be somewhat biased toward this theme as it has been the underlying topic of all the bulletin articles that I have written over the past year, having offered a paragraph-by-paragraph commentary on Pope Benedict XVI’s beautiful encyclical on Christian Hope, Spe salvi.  My reason for examining this document is due to Pope Francis declaring 2025 to be a Jubilee Year of Hope, so that theme of hope has been very much front and center.

Though I will reflect more specifically on my reasons for hope for our parish in my homily for this weekend, I will highlight one here.  An aspect of this past year that gives me so much hope for the future is the large number of weddings in which I have been involved.  At one point, there were four weekends in a row with weddings here at the Cathedral.  I had the privilege of celebrating three of those, and though I did not celebrate the fourth, I had the joy of doing the marriage preparation for that couple.  In addition to the several weddings celebrated here, I also attended other weddings outside of the parish, most recently last weekend in Indianapolis for a former student of mine from the time I taught at St. Anthony High School in Effingham.  Related to these weddings is the joyful news from several other recently-married couples who have shared with me that they are pregnant or have welcomed new children into their families over the past year.

During a time when it seems as though Catholic weddings and baptisms have declined, this past year has shown that that trend is not a given, but that it can be turned around.  The skeptic might doubt such an optimistic view, but I see these instances as reasons to be very hopeful for the future of the Church, both here in our parish, and on a larger scale in the Church.  Please pray for these young couples and for their families.  They will be a key part of the future of carrying on the life of our parish that we have all been blessed to receive from those who have come before us.

In his commentary on Psalm 85 (86), Saint Augustine uses a very relatable image to describe an experience many of us have when we go to pray. We experience distraction. Sometimes distraction is not our fault, and sometimes it is maybe a little bit (or more) our fault than we would like to admit! I am going to quote this longer passage because it really only works as a whole and teaches a lot about cultivating some discipline in prayer:

“Imagine a man whose friend has begun a conversation with him. He wants to reply to his friend’s remarks, but then he sees his friend turning away from him and saying something to someone else. Who would tolerate such behavior? Or suppose you appeal to a judge, and arrange with him to hear you in a certain place, and then as you are addressing him you suddenly brush him aside and begin to chatter to your friend, will he put up with you? Yet God puts up with the hearts of all those people who say their prayers while thinking about all sorts of things. I will not even mention evil thoughts; I am leaving out of consideration thoughts that sometimes run on perverse lines, abhorrent to God. Simply to think about irrelevant matters is to dishonor him with whom you have begun to converse. Your prayer is a conversation with God: when you read, God is speaking to you; when you pray, you are speaking to God” (St. Augustine, translated by Maria Boulding, Exposition of Psalm 85). 

Again, while that is a longer quote, I think it is an excellent image for the way we often find ourselves distracted before God. When we pray, we can consider him a conversation partner. It takes some effort and discipline on our part but holding that attention on Him and His words can be a very fruitful place to remain in prayer. I remember a friend of mine in the seminary kept a quote up on a markerboard outside his room: “Prayer consists of attention.” 

To speak about prayer in this way is not to make prayer a thing purely of human effort. The attentiveness is a real cooperation in the grace of God. God gives the gift of that attentiveness to his presence and his word, and for our part, we must cooperate and do what we can to keep our minds on the Lord and free of needless distraction.

Distraction, we know, is a part of prayer. I have found that one of the best ways to “fight” distraction is to make the distraction itself a part of my conversation. If all I can think about when praying is the baseball game coming on later, then I tell that to Jesus. If all I can think about is what I said to someone earlier, then I tell that to Jesus. If all I can think about is the homily I am going to give in three days, then I tell that to Jesus. You get the idea. We are incarnate creatures and the thoughts in our mind are going to be a part of our prayer. When evil thoughts do come, as St. Augustine mentions, they are meant to be ignored, shunned, or given to Jesus as something to be destroyed, not tolerated. 

I find myself especially drawn to the last sentence: “When you read, God is speaking to you; when you pray, you are speaking to God.” St. Augustine is speaking here particularly about the scriptures. When we read these sacred texts, God is truly speaking to us. The scriptures are a perfect way to begin this sort of conversational prayer. We can read a passage and allow God’s own words to be a springboard into the conversation we have with him. That way we aren’t simply searching through the scriptures for an answer to a question we have. There is nothing particularly wrong with that approach, but it is so much simpler when we allow God to speak first and we respond. 

May the Lord free our minds and hearts to listen to him in his Word. Amen!