29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time are:

1. Exodus 17: 8-13
   
2. Psalms 121: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
   
3. 2nd Timothy 3: 14- 4: 2
   
4. Luke 18: 1-8

• Finding strength in prayer
  
• When I went in for pre-admission for surgery a few months ago, I chanced to walk by the hospital chapel.  It was profoundly non-denominational, but I somehow connected with the prayers that have gone up from that little corner of that vast hospital.  It felt holy.
  
• Is prayer ever wasted?
• If you are praying for something that is really not what's best for you, not what's in God's will for you, what do you think happens with those prayers?
• What do you think happens to you in those prayers?
• Is there a truly wrong way to pray?
• How do we know that we are praying to God, and not just ourselves?
  

• Some guardian
  
• I'm from the generation that watched in horror the TV footage surrounding the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.  In later years, as I learned bits and pieces of the protection that surrounds a sitting president, I wondered, if the president of the United States is not safe, who is?
• With God as your guardian, what are you safe from?
• How does that safety make you feel?
• Does that safety make you act more boldly, speak more truly, love more tenderly?
• Why is that?
  

• The right time
  
• "Timing is everything" as they say, and sometimes, opportunities open up in front of us to do the right thing when we least expect it.  Then the challenge is to seize the moment before it gets away from you.
• Can you think of a time/place when you feel as though you did just the right thing or had just the right thing to share with someone?
• Did you act on that?
• If you did not, what stopped you?
• If you did act on that impulse, how did it turn out?
• Either way, how did that experience change you?
  

• Weary of prayer
  
• It's easy to wonder whether prayer is having any effect.  We are a people always looking for gratification, feedback, reward for everything that we do, to the point that when we don't get those things, or don't recognize them, we wonder why we do what we do.
• On any given day, why do you pray?
• What good is your prayer life doing in your life lately?
• What would you like for your prayer life to accomplish?
• What do you think your prayer life is accomplishing in God's eyes?
  

• Preparation for Reconciliation
  

1. Can I pray even if I don't know how at the moment?
   
2. Where is God calling me to rely more on him more for protection?
3. How can I be more sensitive to God's leading?
   
4. What am I willing to do to make my prayer life more vibrant?

 Shalom!