I've been pondering..."What exactly is a prayerful life?"...
I've been trying my best to logicalise the purpose of prayers..in a theorical manner. Some ways to make it understandable and for laymen to easily remember its purpose.
What does a prayerful life do? In the most sensible form...that actually makes sense to laymen, to people of other religion, to non-prayerful people, to non-church goers, to non-believers of Christ, to free-thinkers...
How exactly does a prayerful Life work in everyone's lives?
Perhaps i'll just have this as a start...a Part 1 to my blog on prayers..because i know so little of my faith in Christ...
1. Prayers allows me to focus on ELTs....
Every Little Things in Life.. and recognise certain things really happens as a miracle.
E.g. A friend of mine, who is a catechism teacher in our church, sustained quite a bad fall 2 weeks back. She was walking towards the bus stop, and she saw the bus coming! She told herself to calm down, don't run, and just walked fast. BUT STILL....She tripped and fell flat on her face! Her fall was so bad, that she had open wounds with part of her skin on her hand torn out, her toes also suffered bruises..
But you know what?? Instead of cursing and swearing like everyone else normally would do, she prayed and thank God that she did not suffer anything worse than this...
2. Prayers puts our Life into a positive perspective...
And continuing from the previous example, it is like a paradigm change, a RADiCAL change.
The word RAdical, comes from the word, "root". A change from the insides of yourselves, a fundamental change. If you're used to a pessismestic life, where you curse each weekday morning, have monday blues, swear at anyone who crosses your path on your bad day, when disasters befall upon you and you blame everyone but yourself...start to pray...pray for reflections, meditate, pray for people who have lives who seemed worse that yourselves, etc..
3. Prayers makes me appreciate things i've always taken for granted...
The prayers before meals, has always been symbolical to me, whenever i have a good time on my own, or with church friends to pray our meals together. Its marks Respect for the food that we have, and also, that the animals we have eaten, for their souls to depart through the mercy of Christ our Lord. Whatever pains and torments they have gone through, May they enter Heaven and enjoy a life everlasting with Lord our Father.
4. Prayers as a group, made me more aware of the World issues and pray for the Good...
When we are in the Eucharistic celebrations (Mass), or during RCIA sessions or talks, sometimes Father will talk about World issues and relate it to what our fundamental values in Christ teachings are..
E.g. The AWARE issue.. The whole thing about sexual education etc.. It is only until the Christifideles Laici talk which was held by Father Terence, that i realised that the Pope once asked our ArchBishop Nicholas Chia, "Why is it that Singapore didn't have a Peace and Justice centre??"
The Peace and Justice centre is a non-profit institution which works on the interconnected issues of economic and racial justice, peace, and human rights through education, advocacy, training, non-violent activism and community organizing. Our SINGAPORE government has SHUT IT DOWN! In...God knows when?? I don't say that i support the once-new leaders of AWARE, but they were truely modern-time martyers for good cause in the process..If they had not bring up the case about the standards of sexual education in Singapore, MOE would still be living in a state of.."Everything is goody and alright" kinda mentality...
5. Prayers allows me to find strength in whatever weakness i am in or having...
I feel weak whenever i start thinking how sad my dear's life has been, and seeing how he is still living in his own world, living by the day, unsure about his future.. I do not know how to help him, but just pray for him daily over the mornings (whenever i wake up and prepare for sch, i think of him..) over the night (before sleep) and random times (whenever i encounter some things interesting, he will just pop into my mind, and i wanna share with him), and during intercessary prayers (especially during St Anthony's Novena..my special intentions for him)..
Dear Lord, our Father in Heaven, help me with my little faith...
Holy Saint Anthony please assist in interceding my prayers to Jesus...
Inspire the Holy Spirit in him and bring him back to Christ...
Thank you, in Jesus Christ most precious name,
Amen.
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