Prayer & Spirituality
May you be praised, Lord God,
for the printed word,
bread for our minds, light for our lives.
We give thanks for the talents and dedication
of all who serve the truth in love and
for all whose administration and technical skills
make possible the production of books,
newspapers, magazines and reviews.
We celebrate, Lord,
the modern marvel of television
which brings into the heart of our homes
the joys and pain of all human living.
Music, drama and laughter
are shared in ways undreamed of in the past.
May you be praised, Lord God,
for radio which soars on
the wings of the wind
and provides for each nation
an immediate channel for news,
views and entertainment
and a means of offering to the listening world
its own distinctive voice.
We celebrate, Lord,
the writers, artists, directors
and all those whose gifts light up
both theatre and cinema
and provide audiences
with heightened awareness
of their human condition.
We thank you, Lord God,
for the unending Pentecost of
your creative Holy Spirit
which enables your sons and daughters
to catch fire from your Truth,
Beauty and Goodness.
May the blind see, the deaf hear,
and the poor have the Good News
given to them
by all who rejoice in their God-given talents
and their gift of creativity.
Christian spirituality is the all-embracing sphere of life that tends towards God and seeks relationship, conformation and unity with him through the person of Jesus Christ. In a society that has become so secular, there is an ever greater number of persons who are seeking a deeper dimension of life in and with God. It may not seem the case, but many people are eager to discover that inner centre of their being where the Divine and their very being unite.
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"In the face of so many wounds that hurt us and could lead to a hardness of heart, we are called to dive into the sea of prayer, which is the sea of the boundless love of God, in order to experience his tenderness." - Pope Francis
Prayer is turning trustingly towards God and allowing oneself to be loved by Him whatever the circumstances.
Spirituality is as real as science. But that is not easy to understand or believe. We live in a world where what is real has been reduced to what is physical, to what can be empirically measured, seen, touched, tasted, smelled... When the surface is all there is, it is hard to be enchanted by anything, to see depth, to be deeply touched by poetry, faith, and love. But these are the things that we long for: depth, poetry, faith, love... Indeed we are made for love. We are made for intimacy with each other and with God. As St. Augustine put it, "You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." Ultimately, our restless aching is a yearning for God. We need to connect with God. We need prayer.
- From Prayer: Our Deepest Longing by Ronald Rolheiser
No-one is here by accident. Each one of us was sent here for a special destiny... Often the deeper meaning
of a fact emerges when it is read in a spiritual way...
To be wholesome, we must remain truthful to our vulnerable complexity. In order to keep our balance,
we need to hold the interior and exterior, visible and the invisible, known and unknown, temporal and eternal, ancient and new, together. No one else can undertake this task for you. You are the one and only threshold of an inner world. This wholesomeness is holiness. To be holy is to be natural; to befriend the worlds that come
to balance in you. - From Anam Cara by John O'Donohue
Pope Francis frequently draws our attention to the necessity of a personal encounter with God. In his encyclical The Joy of the Gospel, he writes: "I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord" (no. 3). The Pope's invitation is for every human being. Each person is created in the image of God.
Each of us is infinitely and unconditionally loved by God.
