I started reading a new book on prayer today called, Kneeling with Giants by Gary Neal Hansen. It teaches how to learn to pray in different ways. Right away, in the second chapter, I came across a book title that he referenced called, The Genesee Diary by Henri Nouwen. My heart skipped a little thinking it could possibly be talking about the monastery in upstate New York in which my uncle is a monk. A little research on Amazon confirmed my hope and I took a small trip down memory lane from my childhood. Every few years all my dad’s family would travel to a huge old farmhouse in the Genesee River Valley of New York and we would spend the weekend together. Several times a day a group of adults, mostly my Grandma and Aunts, would dress up and race out the door to the Abbey down the road. Sometime during our stay the whole family would go together, usually for mass on Sunday morning, and we would worship together with the monks, listening to their chanting prayers from the Psalms, smelling frankincense burning, and sitting in hard, high back wooden pews straight out of the middle ages. I cherish the memories of those summers with cousins, and free-time, and being surrounded by family and prayers.

Prayer is the call to divine appointments

This summer I wanted to do an experiment in prayer and work with new ways to pray. To set a goal to work towards, I picked a journal, handmade by my sister, that is precious to me to write in. It was difficult to crack it open to start writing, but now I treasure it even more for the many things I have learned over the summer. I have written down heartfelt prayers, I have copied Bible verses that have jumped off the page and seemed to have been there just for me in that moment, I have prayed passages of scripture over and over for deliverance, I have sketched pencil pictures of the words on the page, and made page-long lists of prayer requests for people near and dear to me. But during the whole time, I was having a personal conversation between me and God. It was just the two of us.

“One of his disciples said to him ‘Lord teach us to pray'” -Luke 11:1

What I realized when I started to read Hansen’s book was that many people all over the world, including my uncle, pray daily with a collection of believers in unity. I am not Catholic by catechism, but my father’s family is. There is something settling and unifying about the way they say prayers as a whole, unified in thought and action as they pray to God through the saints. There is a sense of belonging and acceptance in corporate liturgical prayer that is sometimes glossed over in other denominations. I love the fact that prayers are continually raised, like the sweet aroma of incense, around the clock all over the world. To be part of a collection of believers that draws close to God with praise and thanks is humbling, but then to think that our prayers never end but are eternally before our Lord is awe inspiring. God’s mighty power is released through our prayers and he delights in our communication with Him. Amen!

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”  -Psalm 37:4