May 22, 2005

Spending time with God in prayer is the key to effective ministry.

We are called by God through our baptism. Many of us were baptized when we were infants. Therefore our parents and godparents responded to that call for us. But it is our responsibility to respond to that call by the way we live. We can live the call by responding to a series of other calls in our lives. Some are called to be married, others to remain single, and still others to be priests or religious.

Those of us who were raised during the pre-Vatican II era will recall being taught with the Baltimore Catechism. This catechism was composed of many questions and answers about our faith. At that time many Catholic children learned about their faith by memorizing the response to each question.

Let us reflect on one question and its response: “Why did God make you? God made me to know, love, and serve him in this world and the next.” Over the years I have come to a better understanding of what this response means for me.

I believe that prayer plays not only an instrumental part in that response but also is key to how we live out that response—“to know, love, and serve God.” It would be very difficult to love and serve someone if we do not know him or her. What better way is there to know someone than to communicate with him? Isn’t that what prayer is—communicating with God?

When we communicate with people, we get to know them. The same is true with God. In prayer God reveals himself to us.

The more we get to know him, the more we are aware of his unconditional love for us. We respond to that love by serving God and his people.

As a child I don’t remember praying together as a family other than attending Sunday Mass together and saying our prayers before and after our meals to ask God’s blessing and to thank him for our food. My parents did teach us our prayers, though. At school we would begin each day with the morning offering, and at the end of the day we concluded with a prayer thanking God for the day. One of the sisters taught us a good way to remember to say our prayers. She told us to place our shoes under the bed at night so that when we were down on our knees putting our shoes under the bed, we would remember to say our night prayers, and in the morning when we were looking for our shoes, we would be down on our knees and that would remind us to say our morning prayers.

Every year the Serra Club distributed prayer cards with a prayer for vocations. Each class would say this prayer together. It wasn’t until my freshman year that I thought seriously about a religious vocation. About 35 miles from my home was a boarding school for young girls who were aspiring to be sisters. After visiting the school and meeting several of the sisters, I decided this was what I wanted to do. My parents were somewhat reluctant at first, but with a little coaxing, they gave their consent. I began classes in my sophomore year.

It was at that time I learned other forms of prayer and about the importance of reading the Scriptures and other spiritual reading. Needless to say, after graduation I joined the Sisters of Mercy.

We need to pray not only to help us respond to our call but also to sustain our call. Most of us get caught up with the busyness of our work. In his book The Gift of Peace (Loyola Press, 2001) Cardinal Joseph Bernardin discusses how that was true of him. He explains that our work can be a prayer, but it cannot take the place of prayer. We need to set time aside to be with God. If we do not do that, our ministry cannot be effective.

Jesus himself gave us a beautiful example of that. He would take time to withdraw to the mountains and the desert to spend time in prayer and solitude. We might not be able to go the mountains or desert, but we can find a quiet place, taking a few minutes to relax and let go of whatever might be preoccupying us at the moment.

When we do this, we experience God’s presence and allow God to speak to our heart. Because of our openness God reveals himself to us and awakens in us his self-giving love and thus sets in motion the reciprocity of love, moving us to give ourselves to him.

In closing, I would like to challenge each of you not only to pray for yourselves—that you may respond to God’s call and be sustained in that call—but also to pray for others to pray for you also. For I firmly believe that not only my prayers but also the prayers of others for me help me serve God and others in my call.

Sister Yvette is the diocesan coordinator of Vocation Promotion for Religious. She serves as a pastoral associate at St. Therese Parish in Clinton.