#7: Prayer

I used to really enjoy prayer, but now I find it so dry and boring.  What happened?  Am I doing something wrong? 

I find it comforting that almost every saint confesses to having had a strong aversion to prayer at sometime in their life.  Even St. Teresa of Avila, known as our patron saint of prayer, after an initial deep fervor experienced 18 years of absolute boredom.  She said that sometimes she would have rather scrubbed the bathroom floor than spend a half an hour in silent prayer!   But even though she spent most of her life in the throes of the desert with only a trickle of consolation keeping her faith life alive, she still declares emphatically, “Believe me – and do not let anyone deceive you by showing you a road other than that of prayer.”  She said when it comes to prayer, we must be determined…in fact, we must be determined to be determined and allow nothing to derail us or discourage us from our determination to pray.

Mother Theresa’s journals, to the surprise of many people, recently revealed the same experience of dryness.  She says she had some sixty years of feelings of emptiness and desolation in prayer.   The pattern that we discover about prayer when we study the great saints and mystics, is that “prayer is easy only for beginners and for those who are already saints, but during all the long years in between its hard work.” (Rolheiser)  The “dark night of the soul” is a reality for most, if not all believers at one time or another.

So, if we find our prayer to be dry more often than not, we should take heart…we are in mighty good company. 

#6: Money

Why do we talk about money in church so often?

The short answer to this question is because Jesus talked about money often. Our relationship with wealth is without question one of, if not, THE most predominant subjects found in our scriptures and a central topic in most other mainline religions as well. There are over 2,400 verses in the Bible concerning finances. Jesus talked about money more than anything else except the Kingdom of God. Over half of Jesus' parables and 1 of every 7 verses in the Gospel of Luke talk about money or wealth. So, it's obviously important to our living out our faith and therefore more than fair game to talk about in church. In fact, we would be remiss if we didn't.

However, tithing is really not about money at all. God doesn't need our money. ALL things belong to God. All that we have and own is just on lend for a few years. Tithing is an issue of trust.

#5: Sign of the Cross

When did the sign of the cross originate? What does it mean? What is the significance of tracing little crosses on our forehead, lips and heart just before the Gospel is read at Mass? 

The practice of tracing the sign of the cross (right hand to forehead, heart, left and then right shoulder, sometime accompanied by the words “In the name of the Father, Son & the Holy Spirit, Amen”) is most prominent in the Roman Catholic Church (that would be us) but is also practiced in the Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Lutheran, Anglican, and Episcopalian churches.

The history of the sign of the cross goes back as far as Tertullian, an early church father who lived between A.D. 160 and 220. Tertullian wrote, "In all our travels and movements, in all our coming in and going out, in putting off our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, in doing whatever occupies us, we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross."

Originally, it was just a small cross traced with the thumb on the forehead. We don’t really know exactly when the practice changed to the full upper-body version, but we do know that the switch had occurred by the eleventh century A.D., because A Prayer Book commissioned by King Henry instructs to "mark with the holy cross the four sides of the body."

The sign of the cross can mean many things...

#4, part 2: Eucharistic Prayer

Could you explain what's going on theologically during the Eucharistic prayer? 

A friend of mine was recently telling a story about her college age son. I knew that she and her family had drifted from the church for a variety of reasons…some of them pretty good. Some of us may be wrestling with similar reasons ourselves. At one point in her story, as a sideline filler, she said very nonchalantly “and well, of course my Son doesn’t believe in Jesus.” 

I remember this comment because she really made belief in Jesus sound so passe’…so “last week.” She and her son, in her words are “spiritual, but not religious.” People who believe in God but not Jesus as God.

Now I’m all for a mature respect for people’s experience and beliefs. It is right and good that we seek and foster all that is common among the great religious traditions and promote what unites us not what divides. But, it got me thinking, what is so distinctive about being Christian anyway? Not in a judgmental, circle-the-wagons, exclusionary kind of way, but rather, concretely, how would the way I look at things and understand my purpose in life change if I didn’t believe in Jesus.