Pastoral care group

2025 Prayer

“Lord, love the Other through me.

Let me love the Other through You.

And be loved by You through the Other”

1- I knew a priest who had three sons who were like Angels. And I asked him, 'Father, how did you manage to instruct them so that they are like Angels?' - one even received ordination and the other two are chanters in his parish. 'How did you manage to make them become so devout and so beautiful in their manner, in their ethos?' And he answered me, 'Father, I never taught them anything.

But from their infancy, I used to go and kneel by their bed for half an hour in the night and pray for them. And I told God all the things I wanted to tell them, and He put them in their hearts.'

I think the same principle may apply for our parishioners. Let's tell God all the things that we want the parishioners to hear, and if we approach them with that prayer in our heart, surely their heart will be touched and informed, as St Paul says (Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. Ephesians 4:29). We can first tell God what we want to tell them; we pray and leave the matter to Him.- Elder Zacharias of Essex, Remember Thy First Love pg 387

2- Spiritual listening is a contemplative undertaking and not a problem solving task. It is essentially prayer.... Spiritual listening as a comtemplative discipline pushes us...to a level of listening beyond our own powers of analysis to the grace and the gift of divine life itself... To listen this way is to listen with heart and mind opened wide. It invites us to be changed along with those to whom we listen. - Wendy Wright, “Desert Listening,” Weavings 9:3 (May-June 1994), 10.