Prayerful Remembrance
By: Br. Joel McGraw
De La Salle tells the Brothers that the first thing to learn on entering the community is to learn how to pray… and to pray! Prayer is the “back and forth” between us and God. We speak to God. God speaks to us. We listen to God. God listens to us. Prayer is interior and exterior. It is silent. It is vocal. It is prepared. It is spontaneous. It is part and parcel of the Brothers living in the presence of God. Prayer in community is vital. And so is the Brothers’ private prayer! Both the communal and the private prayer feed one another. Both are necessary. We are not hermits. We are not monks. We are communal religious and prayer in private and in common is a vital part of the community life. Spiritual reading, the rosary, the liturgy of the Hours and the liturgy of the Eucharist all feed into the Brothers’ life of prayer to make it rich, to make it fruitful.
This prayer does not change God. God’s relationship with us is perpetual… it is love. Our prayer does not improve God’s relationship with us. It is already perfect. But our prayer changes and improves us and our relationship with God. It changes the persons for whom we pray. When we include in our prayer the names of persons “on our list”… there is power. It is not magic. Each day when a Brother mentions by name a person for whom he is praying, the Brother himself is changed. He is closer to that person. There is power in that!
When a Brother contacts a person on the anniversary of the death of someone in that person’s life and says, “I remembered that person today at Mass, at prayer..,” don’t think that person is not moved, is not given encouragement, given life, by that small gesture, that small effort. When persons ask us to pray for a special intention, we do not ask God to make some change in that person’s favor.
We put the person in our mind and heart and hope for the person to accept his or her situation, to keep hope, to stay encouraged, to do what is possible to get better, to accomplish a goal. When we pray for the people of Ukraine, our prayer makes us more thoughtful, more caring, more attentive, more sensitive. This encouragement is not magic, but it is power. It is the power of prayer, the power of love.
Our thoughts in prayer can range from thanksgiving, contrition, faith, love, adoration, remorse, to the presence of God, union with Jesus, invocation of the Holy Spirit, invocation of the Blessed Mother Mary, and ultimately to simple attention which has no words, thoughts, or actions. It is just resting quietly in the presence of God. In a sense, it is an anticipation of our lives in heaven with God. Not doing! Just being!
Time for such prayer increases when a Brother moves from the educational apostolate of teaching and administering. There is no diminution of the Brother’s prayer life, but rather an increase. Brothers do not retire from the life of prayer. If anything, they grow in their prayer life and they grow in their prayer and interest for others.
Each day in community when we pray for our benefactors and friends, we are giving power to them and to ourselves. It is the power of attention, care, and love. We are growing in the presence of God and in the presence of others. So often these persons in our prayer are our former colleagues, students, and their families. Our “teaching” continues but in a different way and perhaps in a more fruitful way. Our classroom teaching got the soil ready for the garden of our relationship with these men and women to whom God led us in the apostolate of Christian education of youth. Those relationships grow. We and our former students and their families and our colleagues grow in the presence of God. We grow through prayer. Our communication with God grows. Our love for God grows. And God’s love for us continues… in perfection as it has always been.