on prayer and religious life

A commenter to an earlier post asked "is daily mass a requirement for your Order?". Which made me think, why not write a not-so-little post about prayer and how I’m feeling drawn to living a life of prayer in a community rather than on my own.

It was purely by accident that I found myself drawn to a life of prayer. Even after I returned to the Church, I found it "hard to pray" because "I didn’t know how." But then my mom got very sick and my capacity to handle it on my own got very slim and I received an amazing grace. I realized just being open to God’s love was prayer. Asking for help was prayer. Being quiet was prayer. And so that’s how it started. That’s when I also realized I’d always "known how to pray." Some of my most amazing prayer experiences in life had been on rambling walks with God. Prayer is really about building a relationship with God. There's more than one way to do that.

And so I started down the path of building that relationship. I got to know God through contemplative prayer. I also started doing a lot of spiritual reading, getting to know God through the likes of Henri Nouwen, John Dear and Thomas Merton. I also started going to daily mass whenever possible during my lunch time. Spending that time with a community of faith and with that Jesus guy was a highlight in my day.

Eventually, I had to admit to myself that my prayer life was one of the highlights of my day. When I woke up I looked forward to hanging out with God. Lunchtime and bed time as well. This was one of many clues I had that maybe I should look into religious life. Wouldn’t it be great to be part of a larger rhythm and pattern of prayer. So that even when you were praying on your own, you were praying with a community?

I’m also looking forward to growing and deepening in my prayer experiences as I move further along this path. I know I’ve only scratched the surface. Another reason to have a community with which to journey on the path.

So, to answer your question Martina, I turned to my trust copy of the groovy sisters Constitutions. (Each religious community has a document, approved by the Vatican, which guides their life of faith together). The sections on prayer touch on personal prayer, communal prayer, and prayer with the church:

"We commit ourselves to daily personal prayer. We nurture our life of prayer by reflective reading, particularly Scripture, by periods of solitude and silence, and by an annual retreat." (Constitutions 29-30)

"Our daily communal prayer embraces a variety of forms including reflection on Scripture, the seasons of the Church year, and the needs of the world. Our prayer is a response in faith to God’s actions in us and a vital expression of our lives together." (Constitutions, 31)

"As part of the local church and united with Christians all over the world, we gather to proclaim the mystery of salvation through liturgical prayer, worship, and celebration. … Whenever possible, we participate in the daily celebration of the Eucharist so as to be drawn more deeply into union with Christ and with our sisters and brothers." (Constitutions 32-33).

In the end of this section, the Constitutions highlight why it was I felt drawn to prayer and religious life to begin with: "In all our efforts to be a community for mission, we acknowledge our interdependence with one another and our reliance on the love and fidelity of God to lead us into the way of peace."

Whew! That turned out to be quite a treatise. Hope it is illuminating to those who find such stuff interesting.

Now, off for one of those long walks with the big guy.
Susan