By Sister Margaret McAnoy, I.H.M.

(This is the third in a six-part series)

My dear Tom,

Did you ever have one of those weeks when you wanted to take a month off just to absorb what you heard? Last week was like that for me!

I went a couple of times to a parish renewal and heard a priest expound on how we had to approach prayer as a discipline and I wondered, as I always do, about prayer being a “have to” rather than a “want to.” I attended a workshop on bereavement and was helped to determine my feelings about a lot of things – even feelings about prayer and what it is in my life.

In yesterday’s readings we reflected on the mountain-top experience of Jesus and how Jesus was affirmed by His Father but even He couldn’t spend His time enjoying the mountain. His Father sent Him to be with His people. I guess I just wanted to share some of these feelings and experiences with you. I know you’ll help me put them into some perspective.

My prayer goes in and out of “have to’s.” Until about two years ago I believed my prayer time each day impacted my day-to-day living but lately, the time I spend with my God in prayer is part and parcel with the times I spend with my God in His poor.

I think I already shared with you how overwhelmed I was when I realized that Yahweh says to the guest at the overnight shelters, “You are precious in my sight and I love you.” I was always sure He said it to you and to me – but to them? One morning in prayer I understood, anew, that we were loved equally. That one concept enables me to move freely among the guests; it allows me to touch and be touched by His loved ones.

You know that music and reading have always been two joys of my life – I’m not sure there’s life without them. Since last summer, my prayer has flowed from some reading, especially “Following Jesus” by Segundo Galilea and the song, “here I Am, Lord,” by the St. Louis Jesuits. The message of the book has helped me to simply evaluate my everyday actions in light of “am I following Jesus”? For me, what does it mean to follow Jesus? It means just spending time with Him each day both in prayer time and in action.

It means listening on the phone to a distraught mother. It means listening to a newly unemployed parent. It means calling on people to assist at the shelters. It means making myself ask people to act for the poor when I’d much rather do it myself and not have to ask. It means putting band-aids on gaping wounds and trusting others are working to alleviate the root causes of poverty.

I spend a lot of time, Tom, on putting Jesus’ statement, “Whenever you did it to the least of these you did it to Me” beside Gandhi’s belief that poverty is the worst form of violence. (Sometimes, I think my prayer really is a dangerous activity!) Then I go downtown and pass out numbers to the guests at Central Presbyterian and talk with the men going to St. Anthony’s and I sing to myself the refrain from “Here I Am, Lord.”

It goes, “I will go, Lord, if You lead me. I will hold your people in my heart.” How He holds Philip, who’s in jail this month and David who tells me he’s made a commitment to the Lord, “… but it’s a weak one and I wonder if He can really use me and sister, I don’t think I could stand on a street corner and preach – maybe I should just be the best David I can be ….” How He holds Mark, John, Betti, Elizabeth and Joanna and a host of other volunteers close to His heart.

I know I hold them close to mine! I do go because He leads me: it’s as simple as that for me. When I’ve spent time each day with Him I cannot not spend time with Him in His poor. At this time in my life I cannot do one without the other. Following Jesus in contemplation ALWAYS leads me to action on behalf of the poor.

I’ve rambled on Tom, and sometimes I do that in prayer too. I used to think prayer should be neat little “times” or packages I somehow presented to the Lord. Now, prayer is the beginning and end of the day times and an ever-growing consciousness of being lead through the day by His urgings. As you say, “… it’s no big thing”, I say prayer that leads me to act for and with the poor (for justice, if you will), is no big thing – it’s everything.

Thanks for letting me ramble – I cannot see getting a month off to put things in perspective. I can’t take a month off – I’d miss too much!