My simple prayer

I have had a strong desire to play an instrument for quite a long time. I’m a soccer player and salsa dancer by trade, but this winter I finally picked up a guitar and have since been awkwardly plucking away at my guitar strings, trying to learn a few chords and figure out a few strumming patterns. Right now, my repertoire consists of a whopping two songs! One of them is a song that my mother would often sing to me when I was a little boy. It is called, “Abba, Father.”

And so as I have been familiarizing my fingers with the D chord and the G chord, I also have been mouthing over and over again these two words.

Jesus once invoked his Father in the same way in the garden of Gethsemane when he’s “overwhelmed with sorrow,” and “deeply distressed.” He begins his passion with a desperate gasp for help:  Abba, Father.

I’ve realized recently that all the burdens and moments of sorrow of my four years at SLU have been God’s invitation for me to gasp this same prayer that Jesus gasped.

And so now, as I come to a close in my time at SLU, I have found out what a great gift it is to rise each morning with this whisper of a prayer, to sweetly call upon the One who loves me. It focuses me; it centers my heart. I can rest in Him. So when I don't know what to say or how to say it, I simply call in his direction.  

Abba, Father.

Sito Sasieta is the Campus Ministry GROW Intern.

CONVERSION

January 25 marks the celebration of the Conversion of St. Paul – from a devout Jew named Saul whose only wish is to annihilate the early Christian Church to an influential Christian named Paul who desired that others know the joys and responsibilities of salvation in and through Jesus Christ.  What brought about this drastic change or conversion in Saul?  A real experience of the risen Christ that he could not ignore for it opened his eyes to the truth of the human condition and our need for right relationship with God, others, our self, and creation.

So close to our celebration of the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, it is interesting to note the observations of Michael Gorman in his book Reading Paul:
            “…one Sunday, on the January weekend when Americans commemorate Dr. King, the children’s sermon at church rehearsed the life of the civil rights leader, and I could not help but notice the similarities between his story and Paul’s.  Like Dr. King, Paul knew himself to be commissioned by God to preach and live a socially and politically charged message that

·         focused on the justice of God;

·         called for the inclusion of outsiders in the beloved community;

·         necessitated the rejection of violence;

·         implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, challenged imperial power;

·         meant living in the shadow of the cross and the power of the resurrection; and

·         resulted in much persecution, and eventually death.

This list suggests both the parallels between Paul and Dr. King and the shape of Paul’s life itself after his encounter with the resurrected Jesus.  Prior to that experience, Paul was a far cry from either Dr. King or the man that the encounter birthed.” (10-11)

So in the living memories of St. Paul and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this week, I encourage us all to think about how we have encountered the risen Christ in our lives.  Have we allowed this encounter to bring about our own conversion for the greater glory of God and in service of humanity?  Do we continue to open our eyes to the many ways the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ is trying to shape us into men and women for and with others?  Do we accept hardships as our part in the cross of Christ knowing that we who have died with Christ will also rise with him?  Let this be our prayer.

Erin Schmidt is the Campus Ministry Liturgy Coordinator.

HEY YOU...

This is from a web page I found that spoke a lot, very simple……

                                             Hey You.

yes, you. stop being unhappy with yourself. you are perfect,

stop wishing you looked like someone else or wishing people

liked you as much as they like someone else, stop trying to get

attention from those who hurt you. stop hating your body, your

face, your personality, your quirks. love them. without those

things you wouldn’t be you. and why would you want to be

anyone else? be confident with who you are. smile. it’ll draw

people in. if anyone hates on you because you are happy with

yourself then you say forget it. my happiness will not depend

on  others anymore.  i’m happy because I love who I am. i love

my flaws. I love my imperfections. they make me me. and “me”

is pretty amazing.

Br. Don Lee, S.J. is the Campus Minister in Fusz Hall. 

New Year, New Me

As a dedicated gym rat for over 20 years, I have gotten used to the same pattern happening every January: for the first few weeks of the new year, the gym is packed with people who made New Year’s resolutions to get in shape: people crowding around all the equipment (especially the water fountains), desperately trying to make it look like they know what they are doing, all the while leaving pools of sweat on everything they touch. By around the middle of February, though, most of these folks have figured out that this is hard work, and taking a day off to recover turns into taking three or four days off, and the crowd thins back out to its usual size. Gym owners everywhere love the new year because so many people buy memberships and never walk through the door again. They like the IDEA of getting in shape more than they like what it actually takes to get there.

The same things happen in all the usual areas of our lives: fitness, school, keeping up with friends, volunteering, keeping up with our spiritual lives. In particular, the first 9pm Mass each year is crammed to the gills – of course, we do have ice cream afterwards, so maybe that’s our fault – but I think that even going to church more regularly can be a hard pattern to form. Once a week is too infrequent to really ingrain the habit of setting time and space aside to refocus our lives. That doesn’t mean I am saying NOT to go to church, just that if the real goal is to be more mindful or to stay alert to the presence and action of God in our day-to-day lives, one hour once a week just won’t cut it any more than going to the gym once a week for an hour will make any substantial difference in your physical well-being.

I participate in a meditation group in town, and today the leader invited us to tie strings around our wrists in recognition of the new year. The strings stay there until they fall off in a few months, but in the meantime, those strings are long enough and in the way enough that a few times a day they bring us back to what we told ourselves we want to do differently this year. There’s the thing – becoming a new you is not a sprint. It’s a slow and steady articulation of reminders and pushing against ingrained habits and falling into old patterns and trying again.

If, like me, you take New Year’s resolutions with a serious grain of salt but you would like to make some changes in your life, try making a commitment to something simple, regular, and easily attainable. Do a quick exercise routine in your room or your apartment each morning so that you have at least done a few minutes of exercise per day. Commit to writing one email each day to someone you don’t connect with as often as you like. Download an app to make your phone beep every couple of hours, and each time it does, take a few minutes of mindful breathing.  Better yet, ask a friend to join you and hold one another accountable. Forming good habits is a challenge, which is why so many of us try and fail each year, but we can make small and lasting routines into the stuff of a new me, a new you, a new us.

Patrick Cousins is a member of the Department of Campus Ministry.