| SPARK |
| August |
| 2004 |
The Spark is the Newsletter of the Fort Hood / Heart of Texas Cursillo. It is published by the Cursillo Community for the Cursillo Community
and does not reflect the opinion of the U.S. Government or any agency thereof.
and does not reflect the opinion of the U.S. Government or any agency thereof.
Categories of Prayer
By Deacon Fred Jones
H.O.T. Cursillo Spiritual Director
She was about to chew out God. The women said, “God, you come here right
now! You let him go. You are going to take care of him and bring him back safe.
Do you hear me? I’m telling you.” She was angry. She was hurting. She was
scared and confused. She was a mother, whose son just left on a cross country
motorcycle trip. He wouldn't listen to her reasoning or pleading. He got his bike
ready, packed up his supplies and took off on his “adventure”. The prayer didn’t fit
any category. This type of prayer never does; it was from the heart, born out of
love and desperation. Did God listen? God wouldn’t have missed it. God can take
our emotions; he certainly was able to deal with our sins.
Categories are not bad. They help us to understand. All prayer is good. We can
resort to formal prayer when words fail us. Jesus gave us a model. Other prayers
come partially or totally from holy scripture. We can use our own words. These
should come from our comfortable relationship with our Lord, not from the need to
flaunt our abilities, or to impress other people. The traditional divisions of
adoration, repentance, petition and thanksgiving are also an aid to see where our
prayer life is headed and perhaps why. Meditative prayer directs our thoughts and
energy to an aspect of our faith, the life of Christ, or a spiritual truth. Contemplative
prayer allows God to speak when we are empty of ourselves, and therefore open
to giving God our undivided attention.
There are rich sources of prayer. Holy Scripture(our bible), music, old prayers
from our early church community, and our liturgy constitute some of these. Many
times these sources borrow from one another and overlap. Silence is the richest
source. God dwells on the other side of silence. Can we disconnect in order to
permit God to be alone with us, or permit our self to be alone with God? Yes, we
are worthy of God’s presence and attention; not because we deserve it, but
because God wants us to have it.
Beyond the precious pearls of packaged prayer, we cannot restrict our prayer life
to what we say of don’t say. In the beginning of our day, we can dedicate
everything we do to God. Our time becomes our prayer. The liturgy of the hours
punctuates our day with God’s presence. Many definitions of prayer have been
offered. The regional Baltimore Catechism from the nineteenth century describes it
as “raising the mind and heart to God”. Prayer is not only our poor attempts to
reach out to God, but our necessary efforts to dispose our self to welcome God’s
Word which addresses us. Prayer is a radical openness to God.
Prayer cannot be limited to our understanding. True, we can only respond to that
which we know. But God cannot be confined to our capabilities. In prayer we
permit God to be God. What does this teach us about palanca? For our Cursillo
weekends, we present our prayers, individually and collectively. Despite its beauty,
palanca is not pretty pictures or cute sayings. Palanca is the power of prayer that
proclaims to the candidates that the community cares throughout the weekend, and
throughout life. Prayer extends this showing of care to the community throughout
the entire world. Palanca or prayer does not inform God of anything. It is not an
effort to replace God’s infinite caring, or to compete with it. Palanca offers the
collective and individual concern of our community by God's request, to God. We
seek. We knock, We ask. We trust that God is there for us and with us. God
expresses the divine embrace in and through our experiences, if we really know
how to enter into love.
Prayer takes us to places we don’t want to go. It put us in positions that we don’t
want to be in. If we let God be God, the answers may now always be in
accordance with our will or understanding. So be it. Amen. Sometimes, what
happens, hurts. Can we accept this pain in communion with the cross? The
resurrection is the easy part. It is the cross that is the difficult path to follow.
Where does prayer go? Prayer is this ultimate communication with God. Prayer is
the very part and portion of eternal life. The Mass is our perfect prayer. The Mass
brings together the paschal mystery (life, death, and resurrection of Jesus) from
the time of our Lord, and the eternal now, and places this mystery of our salvation,
on our altars. It transcends time. All our Sacraments are prayers. Just as the
“Holiness” presentation points out, prayer is not what we say or do; it’s who we
are- a people of prayer in relationship to God.
DeColores!
By Deacon Fred Jones
H.O.T. Cursillo Spiritual Director
She was about to chew out God. The women said, “God, you come here right
now! You let him go. You are going to take care of him and bring him back safe.
Do you hear me? I’m telling you.” She was angry. She was hurting. She was
scared and confused. She was a mother, whose son just left on a cross country
motorcycle trip. He wouldn't listen to her reasoning or pleading. He got his bike
ready, packed up his supplies and took off on his “adventure”. The prayer didn’t fit
any category. This type of prayer never does; it was from the heart, born out of
love and desperation. Did God listen? God wouldn’t have missed it. God can take
our emotions; he certainly was able to deal with our sins.
Categories are not bad. They help us to understand. All prayer is good. We can
resort to formal prayer when words fail us. Jesus gave us a model. Other prayers
come partially or totally from holy scripture. We can use our own words. These
should come from our comfortable relationship with our Lord, not from the need to
flaunt our abilities, or to impress other people. The traditional divisions of
adoration, repentance, petition and thanksgiving are also an aid to see where our
prayer life is headed and perhaps why. Meditative prayer directs our thoughts and
energy to an aspect of our faith, the life of Christ, or a spiritual truth. Contemplative
prayer allows God to speak when we are empty of ourselves, and therefore open
to giving God our undivided attention.
There are rich sources of prayer. Holy Scripture(our bible), music, old prayers
from our early church community, and our liturgy constitute some of these. Many
times these sources borrow from one another and overlap. Silence is the richest
source. God dwells on the other side of silence. Can we disconnect in order to
permit God to be alone with us, or permit our self to be alone with God? Yes, we
are worthy of God’s presence and attention; not because we deserve it, but
because God wants us to have it.
Beyond the precious pearls of packaged prayer, we cannot restrict our prayer life
to what we say of don’t say. In the beginning of our day, we can dedicate
everything we do to God. Our time becomes our prayer. The liturgy of the hours
punctuates our day with God’s presence. Many definitions of prayer have been
offered. The regional Baltimore Catechism from the nineteenth century describes it
as “raising the mind and heart to God”. Prayer is not only our poor attempts to
reach out to God, but our necessary efforts to dispose our self to welcome God’s
Word which addresses us. Prayer is a radical openness to God.
Prayer cannot be limited to our understanding. True, we can only respond to that
which we know. But God cannot be confined to our capabilities. In prayer we
permit God to be God. What does this teach us about palanca? For our Cursillo
weekends, we present our prayers, individually and collectively. Despite its beauty,
palanca is not pretty pictures or cute sayings. Palanca is the power of prayer that
proclaims to the candidates that the community cares throughout the weekend, and
throughout life. Prayer extends this showing of care to the community throughout
the entire world. Palanca or prayer does not inform God of anything. It is not an
effort to replace God’s infinite caring, or to compete with it. Palanca offers the
collective and individual concern of our community by God's request, to God. We
seek. We knock, We ask. We trust that God is there for us and with us. God
expresses the divine embrace in and through our experiences, if we really know
how to enter into love.
Prayer takes us to places we don’t want to go. It put us in positions that we don’t
want to be in. If we let God be God, the answers may now always be in
accordance with our will or understanding. So be it. Amen. Sometimes, what
happens, hurts. Can we accept this pain in communion with the cross? The
resurrection is the easy part. It is the cross that is the difficult path to follow.
Where does prayer go? Prayer is this ultimate communication with God. Prayer is
the very part and portion of eternal life. The Mass is our perfect prayer. The Mass
brings together the paschal mystery (life, death, and resurrection of Jesus) from
the time of our Lord, and the eternal now, and places this mystery of our salvation,
on our altars. It transcends time. All our Sacraments are prayers. Just as the
“Holiness” presentation points out, prayer is not what we say or do; it’s who we
are- a people of prayer in relationship to God.
DeColores!
An Approach to Formation
by Sharon E. Barnes
During the month of August, we’re all starting to gear up for the beginning of the
new school year. School is a place where our children learn to study, to
cooperate, to sacrifice, to discipline themselves, and to strive for excellence. In
short, it is a place and time of Formation.
At the Cursillo weekend, candidates are shown a stool with three legs. The top
of the stool represents the Christian life. The three legs represent the tools
needed to achieve this goal. Those three legs are entitled Holiness, Formation,
and Evangelization.
Does Formation scare you? Do you get an image of someone sitting in a pool
of light, late at night, surrounded by books and papers, furiously scribbling
notes? Do you get the impression that Formation involves big books with long
words written by people who can’t write a simple sentence?
If so, you’re not alone. Take heart: the best learning is not always in books.
Formation can happen anywhere, with any materials at hand.
There are “sermons in brooks” too. Barry McGuire, a Christian recording artist
popular in the 1970’s and 1980’s, tell us that he was excited to learn that the
moon shines with the reflected light of the sun. To him, this was a metaphor for
the Christian life. We are supposed to shine with the reflected light of Jesus.
Barry immediately decided that he was going to be a “full moon.” In another
source, I read about the Christian who learned about the concept of “shock
absorbers” in cars. He decided that it is up to us be “shock absorbers” in life.
Then there’s music. Much is being said these days about how Mozart makes
people smarter. But I have heard many wonderful concepts in other pieces of
music. Don’t try to put them in words. Words are not always best for these
concepts.
Words come in smaller doses, too. Take poetry, for example. I remember
counting rhyming words in elementary school, metaphors and similes in high
school, and more advanced concepts of imagery in college. But the moment
when I realized that a poem was saying something to me personally, imparting
the thoughts of a person who had lived in a different time but felt the same things
I felt and yet redefining the way I would always see those thoughts, was a
precious moment.
Of course, I’m not downplaying the role of structure in helping you study the
world. Did you know that movies are rigidly structured? Every movie presents a
situation in the first ten minutes. The next twenty minutes demonstrates the
problem, and at the half-hour mark, the characters are thrown the “switch” that will
have to be solved in the rest of the movie.
Try watching your favorite movie with the counter on and you’ll see what I mean.
At ten minutes, stop it. What’s going on? You may finally see what the movie is
about. I did this test first with Back to the Future. I thought that the movie was
about a boy who gets trapped in the past and has to figure out a way to get back
to his own time. At ten minutes, however, the mother and the children are
watching the father act like a goof-ball. Then I understood that the movie is the
replaying of an old dream that children can somehow redeem their parents. At
the end of the movie, the boy returns to his own time to find that his father is now
a happy, fulfilled man with the strength to carry his family to success.
There are pitfalls in this approach to Formation, of course. There are pitfalls in
books, too. That is why the Cursillo asks you to have a Spiritual Director. You
may be afraid to get one, afraid that he or she will insist that you read the Bible
from cover to cover, or stagger out of the library with the biggest books you can
find. But you may be surprised.
Just pay attention to what you’re doing now. Let Jesus lead you the rest of the
way.
DeColores!
by Sharon E. Barnes
During the month of August, we’re all starting to gear up for the beginning of the
new school year. School is a place where our children learn to study, to
cooperate, to sacrifice, to discipline themselves, and to strive for excellence. In
short, it is a place and time of Formation.
At the Cursillo weekend, candidates are shown a stool with three legs. The top
of the stool represents the Christian life. The three legs represent the tools
needed to achieve this goal. Those three legs are entitled Holiness, Formation,
and Evangelization.
Does Formation scare you? Do you get an image of someone sitting in a pool
of light, late at night, surrounded by books and papers, furiously scribbling
notes? Do you get the impression that Formation involves big books with long
words written by people who can’t write a simple sentence?
If so, you’re not alone. Take heart: the best learning is not always in books.
Formation can happen anywhere, with any materials at hand.
There are “sermons in brooks” too. Barry McGuire, a Christian recording artist
popular in the 1970’s and 1980’s, tell us that he was excited to learn that the
moon shines with the reflected light of the sun. To him, this was a metaphor for
the Christian life. We are supposed to shine with the reflected light of Jesus.
Barry immediately decided that he was going to be a “full moon.” In another
source, I read about the Christian who learned about the concept of “shock
absorbers” in cars. He decided that it is up to us be “shock absorbers” in life.
Then there’s music. Much is being said these days about how Mozart makes
people smarter. But I have heard many wonderful concepts in other pieces of
music. Don’t try to put them in words. Words are not always best for these
concepts.
Words come in smaller doses, too. Take poetry, for example. I remember
counting rhyming words in elementary school, metaphors and similes in high
school, and more advanced concepts of imagery in college. But the moment
when I realized that a poem was saying something to me personally, imparting
the thoughts of a person who had lived in a different time but felt the same things
I felt and yet redefining the way I would always see those thoughts, was a
precious moment.
Of course, I’m not downplaying the role of structure in helping you study the
world. Did you know that movies are rigidly structured? Every movie presents a
situation in the first ten minutes. The next twenty minutes demonstrates the
problem, and at the half-hour mark, the characters are thrown the “switch” that will
have to be solved in the rest of the movie.
Try watching your favorite movie with the counter on and you’ll see what I mean.
At ten minutes, stop it. What’s going on? You may finally see what the movie is
about. I did this test first with Back to the Future. I thought that the movie was
about a boy who gets trapped in the past and has to figure out a way to get back
to his own time. At ten minutes, however, the mother and the children are
watching the father act like a goof-ball. Then I understood that the movie is the
replaying of an old dream that children can somehow redeem their parents. At
the end of the movie, the boy returns to his own time to find that his father is now
a happy, fulfilled man with the strength to carry his family to success.
There are pitfalls in this approach to Formation, of course. There are pitfalls in
books, too. That is why the Cursillo asks you to have a Spiritual Director. You
may be afraid to get one, afraid that he or she will insist that you read the Bible
from cover to cover, or stagger out of the library with the biggest books you can
find. But you may be surprised.
Just pay attention to what you’re doing now. Let Jesus lead you the rest of the
way.
DeColores!
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