Community Prayer

Well, it was my turn on Thursday to lead the community Hour of Adoration. (We make our Hour of Adoration in common on Thursday, our community day as well as our day of prayer for vocations, and on the first Sunday of the month, which our Founder devoted especially to honoring the Holy Trinity through Christ, Way, Truth and Life.) Anyway, I always find it difficult to combine the two aspects of leading the community prayer while actually praying myself. I find myself wondering, "Is it time to incorporate a hymn? Is this theme actually consistent? Can anyone even follow this?"

I thought I had hit on something very helpful. I took my cue from the liturgy of the day, which was one of the more doom-and-gloom sets of readings, to tell you the truth, with Jesus weeping over Jerusalem and predicting its destruction for "failing to recognize the time of your visitation." It sounds like just the most awful impending judgment, and yet the whole point of the "visitation" is that God is in your midst. So the sin involved here wasn't just a matter of deeds done, but of a deeper kind of resistance against God; turning from his presence; refusing him hospitality. Sin and salvation are just a razor's edge apart, if you think about it.

Anyway, I used the Gospel and some passages from Robert Barron's "And Now I See" as the framework for our prayer time, which included praying Psalm 139 (Lord, you have probed me and you know me).

Oops.

I guess the "salvation" dimension wasn't as obvious and inviting as I had thought.