Prayer

Treasure in Jars of Clay: New Family Lenten Devotional

Steve · January 21, 2020 · 1 Comment

My wife, Sue, and I are pleased to announce the “birth” of a new co-creation. ‘Treasure in Jars of Clay’ is an ecumenical, 40-day family walk with Jesus through the holy season of Lent. At the center of this journey is a large jar (or maybe a bowl) around which your family can gather each day over the six weeks of lent for prayerful reflection and the chance to share with each other. Included in each time of prayer is one or two minutes of silence guided by this question: What is Jesus saying to you today?

The jar is a container into which you will place visible signs of your prayers, concerns, requests, and offerings. Anything relatively small can go into the jar, including written prayers to God, requests for forgiveness, coins (as an offering to be given away at the end of Lent), even a leaf or a small rock you might find while on a walk.

At the end of Lent, the jar can be placed somewhere in your home as a permanent reminder of your family’s commitment to a life of prayer and faith. Or, as another option, the contents of the jar can be burned as a ritual sign of your prayers rising like incense to God. Exactly what you do with your jar and its contents is up to you!

Today’s Word: Dazzled

Steve · July 18, 2019 · 2 Comments

Dazzled 2 — "Dazzled," calligraphy by Jenny Givens Deffenbaugh

“In my deepest wound I found you, Lord, and it dazzled me.” St. Augustine

I write a lot, I realize, about this idea of “finding God.” A good deal of the time, this discovery comes down to seeing the divine in the beauty of the world around us, in the kindnesses of strangers and friends, in the sacred burning bush moments of everyday life. And, to be honest, that’s all pretty easy stuff, as long as we’re willing to sit still, be quiet for a while, and recall these moments of God that happen every day, like clockwork, whether or not we deign to pay attention. But good for us for paying attention. Keep at it, for it’s the beginning of all prayer.

But then along comes St. Augustine, reminding us that he found God not in some eye-widening sunset, not in some breathtaking act of charity, not in some simple moment of prayer, kneeling in his cell or chapel, although certainly he must have found God in those places and moments, just like the rest of us. He found God — and was “dazzled” by God — in his deepest wound.

Sacrament and Service Go Hand in Hand

Steve · April 25, 2019 · 4 Comments

Fr. Tom Santen's chalice (made from a cannon shell). SJG photo.

My next “Faith Perspectives” column for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch appeared online yesterday and should appear in the paper on Saturday morning. It’s a reflection on the recent Holy Thursday liturgy and the link between sacrament and service, between sharing in the Eucharist and washing the feet of those around us. You can read my column below or online here: http://bit.ly/sacramentservice

Just a few weeks ago at the evening Holy Thursday “Mass of the Last Supper” at my parish, I sat and kneeled and prayed, contemplating the creation of the sacrament of the Eucharist by Jesus in that upper room so long ago. This simple sacred meal, in which Catholics believe bread becomes Christ’s body and wine becomes his blood, is celebrated daily by Catholics around the world as the true presence of Christ in our midst. It is our center, our gathering place, our source and sustenance.

But the mass and the scripture readings for that evening did not end with the disciples huddled in the upper room, prayerfully professing their faith in this new-found communal meal. For before they had much time to even ponder the meaning this new sign of the divine in the world, Jesus gives them something else to consider.

Goldfinches and God Arrive

Steve · June 10, 2018 · 12 Comments

IMG_8991 copy copy — A Lesser Goldfinch, photographed a few years ago in Jerome, Arizona. SJG photo.

“Beauty is the harvest of presence.” David Whyte

I have been up early the last few mornings enjoying the cooler early day before the heat and humidity of St. Louis summer kicks in. You have to grab the cool while you can get it these days.

Bird-watching and listening from my screened porch (where I seem like the one in the cage and the birds are free to fly) are especially fruitful in the morning, for the birds know what I know about the cool of the day. About a week ago I put up a new feeder just outside my backdoor for the American Goldfinches (Spinus tristis) that I occasionally see in the neighborhood. I hung it where it can be easily viewed from where I sit to read and pray and write, a place where I wait for God to show up just as I now awaited the arrival of my first visitors. Sure enough, yesterday morning I caught sight of my first pair of goldfinches.

Pondering as Prayer and an Act of Faith

Steve · June 2, 2018 · 4 Comments

Givens - Inspired by Spring — Waiting to Burst Open to the World. Newfields Museum, Indianapolis. SJG photo.

“The most fortunate are those who have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy.” – Abraham Maslow

A bright red male cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) just came to rest on a post outside the porch where I sit praying and writing this. It immediately grabs my attention, of course, because of its radiance and beautiful angular lines. I know its trilled, two-part call, for it’s a prayer of its own, a hymn of praise to the new day: cheer-cheer-cheer-purty-purty-purty. (Translation: Yay! It’s a beautiful new day!)