Evening Prayer is a beautiful night of reflection that takes place twice a year, once in the beginning of Advent and then again in the beginning of Lent. It is truly one of my favorite nights at St. Raphael's - not because I have been so blessed to work on it, but because it gathers so many people from our Catholic community to sit all together before the true presence of our Lord, Jesus Christ. It is a time to receive and allow His love to pour over us through the Holy Spirit.
Click here to hear the talk that Father Dan Leary gave at Evening Prayer.
Click here to hear the talk that Father Dan Leary gave at Evening Prayer.
"Private prayer is like straw scattered here and there: if you set it on fire
it makes a lot of little flames. But gather these straws into a bundle and
light them, and you get a mighty fire, rising like a column into the sky; public prayer is like that."
~St. John Vianney
This quote is so beautiful because just like those small straws of hay, we are lit up with His love and goodness, but it is not until we come together to worship and praise and offer our prayers as a community that the real bonfire is created!
During Evening Prayer as the music is beginning, one candle is lit and gently passed to light the second candle and then a third and then a fourth .....etc etc. And within five minutes, the entire Church is lit up and all are singing. Visually it is beautiful and serves as a reminder to me how much we need one another and how much our lives affect one another too. How beautiful the body of Christ is when seen as a whole!
As an artist, I have always felt that God whispers His love and grace to me through visuals. The visual of Evening Prayer melts my heart and while I sit in the pew, I feel nothing but LOVE.
Love for life, love of my faith, love of of my family, love of my friends, and most of all - I feel His amazing love. Coming to Evening Prayer is about receiving that love. I now know, I can't love the way I am meant to love or let alone even want to love unless I,allow Him to love me first.
So as I reflect on the topic for Evening Prayer's talk, I ask myself...
Am I loving others Lord?
Am I living out Your love, the way You want me to?
When I get to the end of my day and I look at my to-do list and everything is checked off, I wonder...were all these things done in love?
I can only speak from the view point of a wife and mother, because it is the vocation I live right now. But as I ask God, 'Did I love my husband and children as best I could today'...I sometimes know the answer before I ask the question. Bedtime and tuck-in aren't always as loving as they should be. My mini-van isn't always so warm and fuzzy ( well maybe it is for the sea gulls and the small creatures I can't see that live there)!
The fifth homework assignment that suddenly appears just as I thought we were going to bed. The diaper that needs to be changed just as we are trying to get out the door. The flooded toilet and all the toilet paper rolls floating in the small flood.....am I patient, when my husband comes home and asks what I did all day....and I honestly don't know. How do I love and respond in love, when I don't feel loving?
I once had a friend say to me, "I could be a whole lot more loving if I didn't have so much to do. " I could totally relate. I too struggle to love when my laundry pile is tall enough to tackle me. Or when the bills seem so overwhelming and I just can't breath. I wish I could have answered this friend better... But the question was beautiful because it brought me to a place in prayer that brought His answer. The answer was simple.... Christ. You can't give what you don't have.
We are called to love as Christ loved...and that involves sacrifice and surrender of self. Christ greatest act of love wasn't when all things were smooth or even His way.
So when things go crazy at home or in our lives, I ask myself, 'did Christ run ? Or did He walk through it? Did Christ complain or did He silently surrender?
The other part to loving more fully is that my love is not enough. I don't nearly have enough love in my 'love tank' to love all that is required of me. When I try and run on my own efforts I always run dry...sometimes even before I get out of bed in the morning!
Fr. Augustine taught me that in order to be the loving wife and mother that I hope to be...I must love with His love....not Ginger's love. So I have learned to fill up on His love and allow Him to love through me. Fr. Charlie has taught us that 90% of faith is just showing up...plugging in to what is spiritual.
For me that is the Eucharist and visiting the Blessed Sacrament.
We have one room that is our main Christmas room and everyone does their part to decorate it. And once everything is in place - it is beautiful; but it's not until the extension cord is plugged in that the tree and everything around it becomes transformed.
It is the same with us and Christ...when we plug into Him, and allow Him to come alive in our hearts, that our ability to love becomes multiplied.
And that is what Evening Prayer is about this Advent. Plugging into our Lord, and allowing Him to turn on the light of our soul.
Fr. Dan's talk is called "God's Amazing Love".
And the question, I hope that every heart asks that night, as they listen to this wonderful priest speak is....
"Lord, how do You want me to live out Your love this Christmas?"
Hope to see you there.
God bless you!
That's beautiful, Ginger!
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