Getting Ready to Pray                     

Many things are more easily said than done. “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” And, “Everything is small stuff.” “The main thing is to keep the main thing,” These are quick-and-easy things to say, but the doing is less so.

We move from experience to the next adventure and try to stay balanced, but keeping the “main thing” clear as the “main thing” takes wisdom and patience. Whatever is a “small stuff” today might be a “big stuff” tonight. Living our Christian faith is definitely not a quick-and-easy way of existing.

Living the Eucharist is one of those not easy “main things.” But gathering together with other strugglers can dictate a sense of proportion or resizing. Jesus gives his Body and Blood to us so that through us his “main thing” of blessing us in our “sweating” and attempts to stay balanced will be humanly possible. As we prepare for the Eucharist, we might pray with the “big stuff” of each day, and hour, and see if there is any grace for us to live this Christian possibility.

Some Thoughts 

We hear in our First Reading from the Prophet Ezekiel. It begins with God speaking to the prophet with a simple image. When a country is in danger of being attacked, a watchman is appointed to give warning about the approaching enemy. The image continues with the alarm being sounded and some hear it and prepare, others pay no attention to it.

The Gospel is an instruction by Jesus to the disciples about, not confrontation exactly, but about the sacredness of community. The well-being of the others—the family, the community, the office—becomes the reason for prophetically attending the faults of one of the community.

I may have written before about a Jesuit companion, who in my early years, rather casually announced that he was going to tell me my twelve major faults. Twelve? Major?? Faults??? I was not aware of any, even minor, faults. He had not prepared his presentation nor tested my availability to such a revelation. I do wish I could remember even one of them now, these fifty years later, but I do remember him.

I have a dear friend and when she has something to announce to me, I have learned, through errors and errors, to just listen, ears open and mouth shut, lest I want to defend myself and prove her wrong. The good part is that what she tells me is that I would be more helpful to the larger communities of my life if I could be attentive to such and such. I usually am grateful and deeply embarrassed.

I could come up easily with more than twelve items for correction within the others I live with. Thirteen of them are probably more my ego-centered perfectionistic, tidiness-centered issues. None of us is the Certified Public Accountant for everybody else.

We are not to let everything go by as if they were nothing. The question for me is whether I really love the community, family, whatever, and really believe that this particular behavior is hurting the relationships around us as well as the person involved.

What Jesus did not say, and I wish he had, is that the first step is praying and then facing one’s own selfishness involved in one’s fault-finding. What is it about me that is being inconvenienced or upset? Jesus also did not say that we should approach the other when we feel the other is available and ready for our prophetic announcements.

This process is as important as is our sense of relationships and community. Jesus is aware of the human frailty among his disciples and future followers. We need help to become aware and accepting of ourselves so that we can contribute even more gracefully and generatively to our families and communities.

Like a deer that longs for running waters, my soul longs for you, my God.
(Psalm 42:2-3)