In a previous blog entry weeks ago, I mentioned an online site called Sacred Space, a place I visit often, to take a few minutes out of a busy day in order to focus and pray.  The beauty of the site is that it guides you through prayer, but before beginning the prayer, every week there's an entry called something to think and pray about this week meant to provide you with a nugget to meditate on throughout the week.  It also serves to communicate great advice. So here I will share with you this weeks thought:

When the apostles asked Jesus, “Teach us to pray,” he taught them the ‘Our Father’. That is the beginning for all of us. One teacher’s advice on learning to pray was, “Say the Lord’s Prayer, and take an hour to say it.”  There is no word or phrase in it which does not repay if you mine it for meaning, and savour it. Even the opening word ‘Our’ - not just ‘my’ father, for I share you with the human race. Is there anyone whom I felt uneasy to claim as a sister or brother? Take the prayer slowly, breathing slowly as you relish it and are led into its depths. It sets the scene: each of us as a temple of the Holy Spirit reaching out to the Father through his son. Many of you who read this have gone beyond words to a sort of quiet presence. When Jean Vianney, the Curé of Ars, noticed an old peasant sitting for hours in his church, he asked him what he was doing. “I look at the good God and the good God looks at me.” That old man was well on his way.