Church: A Place Where Mystery Happens - #17

Every parish provides for the needs of its people. In fact, church law recommends that the people should take initiative in making their needs known to their pastors. This applies to the devotional needs of various groups in the parish and to the development of personal prayer and piety by families in their home. I'd like to make a few suggestions about devotional prayer.

Opportunity for Eucharistic adoration will begin again at St. Malachy. This will allow people to spend time in quiet reflection, meditation, and contemplative prayer in the presence of the Lord. This kind of prayer could be enhanced by centering prayer, by various litany prayers, and by meditation texts on the Eucharist taken from early Christian sources, sermons, and texts that are found in the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours.

Eucharistic adoration does not exhaust the treasury of devotional prayer. A variety of simple and dramatic ways of praying the Stations of the Cross are now available. The fourteen stations were intended to be a substitute for walking the way of the cross in Jerusalem. A person or groups of people walked from station to station in prayer and meditation, and imaginatively placed themselves in to the scenes. Often the 14 crosses had an art piece that helped situate the scene. Parishes have experimented with this devotion in Lent and with youth groups. They have used drama, candlelight, and slides. Some, including Pope John Paul II, have tried to use stations that are as historically accurate as possible.

Catholics have also had a deeply affective devotional life with Mary, the Mother of God. In fact, many Central and South American countries have a shrine or a church specially dedicated to Mary. Parishes have done a lot to restore Marian devotion through the scriptural rosary and times spent before an icon of Mary. Some parishes have displayed traditional and contemporary art devoted to Mary. For example, one parish used an alcove space to display a different Marian art piece for each month of the year. At the end of the year, the assembly had seen twelve pieces of art. Many had taken time to meditate in front of the art and to read about the people who had created the art as a spiritual link with Mary.

Recently, in many places, people have gathered for Taizé prayer. Taizé is a town in southern France that has become famous because of an ecumenical monastic community that began there after the Second World War. Monks at Taizé are Reformed Christians, Lutherans, Anglicans, Catholics, and Orthodox. Youth from every country flock there because the community features reconciliation and universal fellowship. What has become known as Taizé prayer is quite simple. A cross or crucifix is placed in the midst of the group. Prayers written at Taizé, gorgeous short chants are sung over and over, silence, and spoken word as used as the cross or crucifix is passed around from person to person. This prayer is quite inspirational.