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The Congregational Renewal Team will engage all of us in developing more fully our ability to pray alone and with others about the ordinary events of our lives. It will call us to a deeper involvement with our neighbours in a world of many religions and cultures. -Congregational Renewal Team
(Notes: A series of readings on renewal, with personal time for quiet, reflection and sharing ...)
Leader: Fan a new fire in us, O God All: And set free our unlived dreams.
Communities now endeavour to pray together in a way conducive to growth as a community of faith. In this context, communities who develop a careful rhythm of sharing and reflecting on God's word, especially in Scripture, are places of inspiration and challenge.
Some communities find time to carefully review their life in its many aspects on a weekly basis. This particular exercise builds a deep sense of intimacy and engagement with each other for the life, prayer and mission of the community.
There are still many communities who adopt a form of prayer which is faithful in terms of rhythm and unchanging style. It is incumbent on all communities to find ways of discovering whether the content, style, form and rhythm of their prayer lead to growth as a prayerful people.
Prayer:
The mission we receive from Jesus and Edmund calls us to pray ... O God, Living Fire You are ever fanning glowing embers. Open our hearts and minds to your presence and activity in all of life. Fire our spirit to ... accept ourselves, love our humanity, surrender to this time in history, feel the joys and sorrows of living, care for the earth, encourage the young, be compassionate to all, and practise gently the art of being brother and sister in an ever unfolding universe. Amen Congregation Renewal Team
Listening for God: Growing Spiritually In its turn, our experience in ministry leads us to a further refinement and deepening of our God-search. In other words, there will not be a god for the chapel or our "secret place", so to speak, and another for the world of our work. The integration of life, prayer and mission probably still remains one of the great challenges to our growth as Religious.
We believe that a community, gathered in faith, which shares its God experiences of prayer and mission, can meet the challenge. What has been referred to as sharing the word — 'the word of God' received in Scripture, prayer, theological and spiritual reading, ministry and the various experiences of life — would seem to us to be the most important spiritual task of our lives. We also believe that it may very well be the spur and the pathway to a deeper contemplative way of living.
Reflection : Reading the Clouds, Anthony J Gittins
We have no idea of what is yet to come, but to imagine that our best is behind us — institutionally or inspirationally — is to have already lost hope.
The terminus ad quem, the point toward which things are tending, is something quite new: It will not be discovered by drawing a line from the past to the present and then extending it into the future.
That may be a rational procedure but it is not God's way, for God's Spirit will make all things new. Leader: Fan a new fire in us, O God All: And set free our unlived dreams.
Listening for God: Community Our call to be brother is to consistently accompany each other with a deep sense of equality while we seek to share the meaning of what is deepest at the heart of this call. The call to all of us is to pursue faithfully the truth that lies not just at the heart of our personal lives, but also that of others.
This requires a deeply respectful and reverential stance before and with each other. Only if we act in this way can we claim that we are seeking with honesty and openness to listen for God.
Pause for Quiet, Reflection and Sharing
Petitions
*We pray for those who say they do not know how to pray: that they may not look for special words, but that they may speak the words coming from their hearts. Lord, hear us.
*We pray for those who have stopped praying because they did not get what they were asking for: that they may trust your words, Lord, assuring us that you always hear our prayers. Lord, hear us.
* We pray for contemplative religious whose life is given mostly to prayer: that they may be ever more aware of the meaning of their special vocation. Lord, hear us.
*We pray for ourselves that we may grow in faith and thus become more convinced of our need to pray. Lord, hear us.
Our Father ...Blessing: May the Lord bless us and put into our hearts, and on our lips, the prayer pleasing to Him. Amen
Br. Ollie Harkin (South Africa)
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Listening
for God: Prayer