Bob Pazmino, my professor of Christian education at Andover Newton Theological School, has written a marvelous memoir. It’s a humorous, honest, faithful story of his days growing up in Brooklyn. He offers many nuggets to ponder. How about this one?

    “The weekly commitment to church attendance is a critical issue if church life is to be formative in the lives of both youth and adults.”

      How do we make this happen? Can we make it happen? Should it be our goal? Is the idea that weekly church attendance, and belief in Jesus as the Christ, an idea of the past, now relegated to the archives? There are many situations to ponder. Here’s one.

      I was brought up in a church-going family. All four of us went to church each Sunday with both of our parents. And yet, only the two oldest continue to attend church. The younger two (six years younger) are good people, but they have no part in church, or to my knowledge, in the Christian faith. This makes me wonder what effect the times in which we were raised has to do with church going and belief. My older sister and I were children of the fifties; my younger sister and brother of the sixties.  

      I believe that my weekly church attendance as a child made an important difference in my current involvement in church, and in my intentional journey as a person of faith. I agree with Bob that weekly church attendance is crucial for faith formation. But, this isn’t happening. What does it mean to individuals and to Christianity? Can the world express Christ’s message of love without intentional prayer and without opening up to the Holy Spirit? If God is still speaking, how will we hear God if we don’t take the time to listen. Church is one of the best places for that.

I often don’t know what’s going on with someone I’ve decided to pray for, and that’s just fine. I don’t need to know, but when I do hear of a blessing that has been bestowed upon them, I say a little prayer of gratitude for God’s small voice whispering to me.

    The other day I received just such a flutter of angel wings from a friend I’ve been praying for. Sandra, I’ll call her, has been a family friend ever since she was born. She is about ten years younger that me; our mothers were college friends, and our dads enjoyed each other early on. Now Sandra lives in an assisted living facility and has no family remaining. From my perspective, she is alone. She is not on the internet, and although I can leave a message on her answer machine, she never picks up the phone, nor does she return my call. Our mode of communication is the U.S.P.S.

     About six months ago I decided that I would write her name on my top ten prayer list every day. Occasionally I send her a postcard, photograph, or article, and since she has always practiced her faith and gone to church, I mailed her a copy of the service that I gave at my church a few weeks ago. At the end of June I sent her the July-August daily devotional, Upper Room.   

     I wasn’t surprised, therefore, to receive a little envelop in the mail from Sandra yesterday. In it she included ten file cards, each expressing a particular memory of my parents. These ‘jottings’ most likely were in response to the book I’m writing about mom.

    But what did surprise me was her heartfelt expression in following comment:

     “A very devout and kindly man and I meet daily for prayers, so we’ll add the Upper Room to our schedule. He has many challenges to cope with, but he considers prayer the best medicine until a cure for what ails him materializes.”

     What a beautiful window into Sandra’s life. She is not alone. I will definitely keep praying for her, as well as for her devout, kindly prayer friend. The story isn’t over. God is still speaking.

Schadenfreude, pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others, seems to run our lives more that we are aware of and certainly more than we want to admit. Every time (well, maybe not every time) I make a judgment I’m trying to put myself above someone else. I know, that’s a simplification, but I also know that there is truth in what I’m saying. It’s the very human way.

    I also know that I can’t shift away from this by myself. I need God’s grace, I need Jesus’ example, I need the Holy Spirit opening my heart. Love. It’s the Christian message.

Tomorrow I return to the cottage after the Thanksgiving holiday week with my family. I’m grateful for all the time we spent together and now I’m grateful for time alone. I’m continually amazed at how the busyness of life draws me away from prayer, and yet, how my faith is sustained by this non-prayer time. If I didn’t have community, how would I stay grateful? How would I know of people to visit and pray for? Where would I find strength to strive for the fruit of the spirit, which Paul tells us is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? (Gal. 5:22-23).

      My pattern is to be alone at the cottage praying for the fruit to enter deep within me, and then, to go out in the world to practice. I falter all the time but thankfully Christianity is a faith of hope. God forgives me again and again, offering me the trust to forgive myself.

    So back and forth I go, cottage to home, home to cottage, finding the fruit, losing it, and finding it again. I believe that cottage time, this extended time alone, tips the balance toward the good. Jesus went off alone to pray, and we must do the same. I go to the cottage but I also find other times and places in the midst of community. You see, the cottage is a metaphor for that time away with God. I pray that you can find yours.

An early morning (8:15) return to the Uffizi. With my pass I was the first one into The Rooms, the 13th and 14th century rooms, that is. Today’s mission: study Mary’s pose in annunciation scenes. Michael Baxandall, in Painting & Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy, describes “five successive spiritual and mental conditions or states attributable to Mary,” with disquiet and submission being the most common.

1. Disquiet
2. Reflection
3. Inquiry
4. Submission (humility)
5. Merit

     In disquiet, Mary has just heard the news. More specifically, she may show that she is reflecting on it; or maybe she is inquiring, as in Luke’s gospel, “How can this be…?” Regardless, her hands are outstretched in these first three states..

     in submission, however, Mary’s hands across her breast, indicating that she has accepted God’s call to bear the Son of God and that the spirit has entered her. In the fifth state, she is alone on her own merit, without Angel Gabriel. The annunciation is over.

     Although the Renaissance painter followed certain standards that were subjected to the interpretation of the viewer, everyone knew the general rules.

      As I wandered the Uffizi this morning, did I observe Mary’s disquiet in Botticelli?

Was Leonardo depicting an inquiring Mary?

Is disquieted the best way to interpret Simone Martini’s Mary?

I’ll have to go back to the Convent of San Marco and Fra Angelico’s Annunciation to find the most submissive Mary I know.

Like the nineteenth century Russian pilgrim in Way of A Pilgrim, I, too, have been intrigued with St. Paul’s instruction to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 4:17). And thanks to that pilgrim, I’ve been saying the Jesus prayer now for a couple of years as a way to do just that.

     Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a sinner.

     Until recently I omitted the sinner part. After all, being brought up Protestant, sinner was hardly a part of our vocabulary, much less our theology. But lately, due in part to reading The Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality, I am now including it, having surrendered to the idea and belief that I indeed am a sinner.

    What follows are quotes attributed to Father Maximos, an Anthonite monk and friend of the author Kyriacos C. Markides. I’ve repeated a few from a previous blog and included many more, which I will also add in the ‘Books’ section.

    It (the Jesus Prayer) is the practical way of mobilizing the mechanism of the heart to open up to Grace….embedded in the name of Jesus is the very power of God. By invoking, therefore, the sacred name repeatedly we invite the Grace of God to take possession of hour hearts and mind, protecting us from harmful effects.

    {The Prayer} opens the road for Grace to visit the heart. And when that happens, then the heart works by itself independently of whatever else you do. It enters into an ongoing relationship with God.

When you practice the Jesus Prayer systematically, it is as if you move about within a polluted city wearing an oxygen mask over your face. Nothing can touch you.”

When the spirit of the Jesus Prayer takes over the heart, only then do people get healed within the depths of their being. The flame of God has now been ignited in the heart.

Do the Prayer and God will take care of the rest. He will lead you to Him through the Prayer.

The first thing you need to do is to be convinced of the power of the prayer, that it is real and that it can affect not only you personally, but also those for whom you pray.

All sense of isolation, of being unloved, of being disliked, of being envied, disappears with the power of ceaseless prayer.

Through the Prayer you begin to commune with the living Christ, who is at the very depths of your being…The name of Christ itself has power. It brings tranquility to the soul.

When we get into the habit of continuous prayer, we can then get involved with several other activities simultaneously….Prayer goes on ceaselessly in the heart.

With the habitual recitation of the Jesus Prayer, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in the heart and gets activated there. It is beyond works and meanings.

It is metanoia (repentance) that will bring humility and it is humility that will pave the way for the acquisition of spiritual gifts, by necessity. That’s how the Holy Spirit works.

Only humility has the power to attract God’s Grace to the human soul…Humility renders the person immune to anger and incapable of making anyone else angry.