Year: 1211 It was not a rash choice. Clare had been watching with fascination as several young men from her small town left their comfortable homes to join Francis in an uncomfortable, radical new way of following God. On the evening of Palm Sunday, Clare snuck out a side door of her family’s mansion and…
Tag: Lent
A Monastic Practice for Hurried Lives: Soul Sculpting
Statio. For monastics it works like this. The bell calling you to prayer will ring in about 5 minutes, but you’re already at the chapel. Ahead of time. And just in time for Statio. You stand quietly in the hallway, or you may enter the chapel and sit down. In the quiet, you mentally recollect and…
Prayer Projects to Deepen Our Connection with God: #6 Lectio Divina with the Book of Nature
Long ago in the year 253 an 18 year old named Anthony was sitting in church when the reader stood up and read the words of Jesus, “Go, sell all you have and give to the poor and come and follow me.” (Matt. 19:21) Anthony took the verse to heart, sold everything he had –…
Prayer Projects to Deepen Our Connection with God: #5 Slowing Time
When Anthony Bloom was a young priest an elderly woman in her 90’s came to him for advice. He suggested she seek advice with someone wiser, but she said she had asked many people with no success and that perhaps Bloom in his young ignorance would by chance blunder and say the right thing. So…
Prayer Projects to Deepen Our Connection with God: Project #4: Simple Liturgical Prayer
Years ago when my daughters were young, my husband Evan and I decided that we wanted to have a family service every day. This new habit sounded challenging, so we decided to keep it as simple as possible. We picked a time, a room in our home, and the easiest format we could find. It…
Prayer Projects to Deepen Our Connection with God: 3: Praying With Our Body
The guys would crowd around the upstairs window and look down in the courtyard to watch him while he prayed. His prayer time looked more like a work-out. This ‘athlete of Christ’ prayed with his whole body. He would throw his arms straight up and become an arrow shooting to God. Then he would sprawl…
soulsculpting 