Turning Wait Time into Prayer Time

Dear Theophilous,

The biggest complaint seems to always be about the walk-in clinic… The wait can seem endless! Not only are you not usually feeling your best, and when you add in the crying child (sometimes your own), it can take what feels like forever to be invited into the blessed silence of the examination room. The excitement of hearing your name called is short-lived, however, as you soon realize the second stage of the long wait has only just begun.

Unfortunately, the long wait is not solely the domain of the doctor’s office. In our consumer driven society, where every experience is supposed to be geared to customer convenience, we tend to spend more and more time waiting… at the bank, in the drive-thru, at the supermarket, at the restaurant… even for the bathroom in our own home.

We cannot choose whether or not we find ourselves with this unexpected downtime, but what we can choose is what we do with it. Of course, some waits happening are more predictable than others. We know when we head to the doctor’s office that we will more than likely be in for a lengthy wait. However, when we’re only behind one other car at the drive-thru, we don’t expect to be sitting there for up to 10 minutes (yes, this has happened on occasion). Either way, the question remains – what to do with the (un)expected downtime?

A quick glance around the waiting room at the doctor’s office tells me that most people have come to the realization that they will have to hunker down for an extended period of time. Most adults have either a novel or the newspaper in hand, while their children are mercifully plugged into an electronic device watching cartoons or playing a game (Thanks be to God for earphones). I’ll often do this as well, bringing my current spiritual reading to take advantage of the forced quiet.

Venerable Fulton J. Sheen gives us another option… we should turn our wait time into prayer time:

All the idle moments of one’s life can be sanctified, thanks to the Rosary. As we walk the streets, we pray with the Rosary hidden in our hand in our pocket; as we are driving, the little knobs under most steering wheels can serve as counters for the decades. While waiting to be served at the lunchroom, or waiting for a train, or in a store, or while playing the dummy at bridge, or when a conversation or a lecture lags – all these moments can be sanctified and made to serve inner peace, thanks to a prayer that enables one to pray at all times and under all circumstances.

So before I break out my book, I’ll pull my Rosary beads out of my pocket, make the Sign of the Cross, and slowly, rhythmically begin to pray. Although I may have already prayed the Rosary once that day (it’s a part of my morning routine), I relish this opportunity to meditate quietly once more on the daily mysteries. Without the other distractions of home around me, I actually find that I’m able to better concentrate on my prayers when I don’t feel guilty about tuning out the world around me. Since the Rosary usually takes about 20 minutes to pray properly, I’ll only begin this prayer if I know I’m in for a lengthy wait.

But what about the other times when the waiting has been thrust on us unexpectedly, or we know it will only be a few moments? What if you know you won’t have time to say even a decade of the Rosary, let alone all 5. Depending on the time, location and what you’re waiting for, your quick prayer can take on different forms…

If you know you’re only going to be a few minutes, perhaps you’re behind a few cars at the drive-thru, a decade of the Divine Mercy Chaplet to remind you of God’s saving grace is what’s in order. In line at the grocery store, instead of getting frustrated at all the price-checks or reading the tabloid magazines, a prayer of thanksgiving that you are able to put food on the table is in order.

When the wait comes completely unexpected and my frustration level boiling over, I find it helpful to think of a favourite saint, quickly asking them to pray for me to get through the moment with God’s grace. Once the initial surge in blood pressure subsides, I am then able to approach the unexpected pause in a prayerful manner.

We cannot choose whether or not we find ourselves with these moments of unexpected downtime, but what we can choose is what we do with it. And like in all suffering, big or small, prayer helps make our Cross bearable.

Keeping Holy Week Holy

Dear Theophilous,

It seems like only yesterday we were surprised by the fact that, yet again, Lent had snuck up on us, and we weren’t ready to make our Lenten sacrifice. Ash Wednesday was upon us, we hadn’t given Lent any thought, and we were left scrambling to decide what to sacrifice. We all know that nothing good comes when that happens, we fall back on the old standbys (chocolate, chips, …), which seem doomed to fail from the start – just like last Lent.

Here we are, 5 weeks later, and now Holy Week has snuck up on us. The holiest time of the year. Yet, if we have prepared for Holy Week the same way we have prepared for Lent (as in, not at all), then we can expect to get the same out of our Holy Week… nothing at all.

Like any major event in our lives – we need to plan ahead.

Since Holy Week is only a few days away, I thought to share a couple of ideas on how to make Holy Week a time of prayerful preparation for the great feast of Easter.

Easter Feast

Not only is Easter the greatest feast of the liturgical year, it is also a time for family and friends to get together to celebrate. Everyone loves a grand feast surrounded by loved ones, with laughter and merriment as the sound track, and the egg hunt as the opening act. A day of this magnitude requires lots of planning and preparation – get as much done beforehand as possible. Having everything ready to go before Holy Wee begins will not only allow you to relax and enjoy the great feast, but it will also allow you to concentrate on the totality of Easter from Passion to Resurrection.

There is no possible way to meditate on the great gift of the Eucharist at the Last Supper on Holy Thursday if one is scurrying around town for last minute items before all the stores shut down for the weekend. You will not be able to ponder on the magnitude of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross if your mind is mulling over Sunday’s menu. Finally, if there is any Sunday you should linger on your knees in thanksgiving and wonderment at the God’s greatness instead of rushing home to get the ham in the oven, it’s Easter Sunday.

Penitential Preparation

As Catholics, we are called to avail ourselves of the sacrament of Reconciliation at least once a year. Normally, it is strongly encouraged to make a good Confession during the season of Lent. Many parishes will organize an evening penitential service, with a liturgy of the word, followed by Confession, where the pastors of neighbouring parishes will come to help out (and I’m sure the favour is returned). Annually the Archdiocese of Toronto will have a Day of Confession, where parish priests will spend the majority of the day in the Confessional, negating the excuse that regularly scheduled Reconciliation doesn’t fit into your routine.

If for whatever reason you haven’t made it to Confession this lent (like myself), make plans to get there this weekend – times are usually posted on your parish website.

Prayer Plan

Life is busy enough without throwing a major holiday into the mix. I find that if I don’t have a plan for a daily prayer routine, I’ll find myself dropping exhausted into bed without having once stopped to talk with our Lord. If we really want to take away some spiritual nourishment this Holy Week, then it’s time to step it up a notch.

A few ideas of how to supplement your prayer life during Holy Week might include:

Ø  Praying the Sorrowful Mysteries daily

Ø  Daily meditation on the Stations of the Cross (or just a few each day)

Ø  Praying the Divine Mercy chaplet at 3pm daily

The idea is to focus on Christ’s sacrifice for us so as to make the magnitude of His Passion and Resurrection that much more powerful.

Family Support

Our faith is a family affair, and it’s our responsibility to get our spouses, children, parents, brothers & sisters, etc. to heaven. With this in mind, we need to keep them in the loop of our Holy Week plans. First and foremost, this is to encourage them to grow closer to Christ through a deeper meditation on his Passion and Resurrection. Of equal importance, is to communicate these plans to those closest to you who will be affected by them so that they can be respectful of your own preparation for Good Friday and Easter. There are enough distractions going on in the preparations for the greatest feast of the year, they don’t need to be complicated by any petty disputes that arise from miscommunications and misunderstandings.

The seven days between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday are meant to be a flurry of spiritual activity and not dedicated to a worldly business. It is a time to prepare our souls for the magnitude of Christ’s Passion, and not simply our homes for the multitudes who will come for dinner. By being ready for Holy Week, we will be able to properly meditate upon the greatness of Christ’s sacrifice and His triumph over death.

May you and your family have a prayerful and prayer-filled Holy Week that truly merits its name.

There's a "Catholic" App for That

Dear Theophilous,

As the speed of life ramps itself up to an alarming pace, there has been a growing trend to turn even more often to technology to keep one’s self afloat – never mind being ahead of the game. Over the past couple of years, whenever one has felt the pressure of keeping up with the times, when there has been a sense of floundering in the current of the world, the answer to the problem has been a pat: There’s an app for that. A quick perusal of iTunes or the Google Play Store confirms this to be true – there is an app for everything, including our Catholic faith.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a bit of a Luddite when it comes to the techno world. For the longest time I resisted the siren song of assimilation. My wife and I shared a flip-phone until only a couple of years ago, and the smart phone I have now is probably woefully out of date… but it works. Frankly, I’m sure I use my phone and laptop to about 1% of their capacity – my laptop really isn’t much more than a glorified typewriter (if you can remember what that is).

This all said, I have found that my smart phone has helped me to deepen my faith, simply because There’s an app for that. Actually, there are many Catholic apps out there, and I’ll honestly admit that I haven’t researched them all, but I have found 3 Catholic apps that I use almost daily.

Laudate

Billed in the Google Play Store as the #1 Free Catholic App, Laudate lives up to the hype. Comprehensive, yet concise, this app has it all, but is streamlined for quick and easy use. I use the Laudate app daily for my morning offering, the saints of the day, as well as for the daily readings. I have also used the app sporadically to find prayers that are outside of my daily routine, to search out particular Bible verses, the Catechism or Vatican documents, as well as for its Examination of Conscience. The app also has other features such as the Liturgy of the Hours, Rosary/Chaplet, daily reflections, Stations of the Cross, Latin Prayers, EWTN, two Bible versions (NARE, Douay-Rheims) and access to a variety of Catholic media. Like I said, it has it all. Best of all, there is a Bookmark function that allows you to keep favourite aspects of the app at the top of the home page, saving you from having to hunt them out with 3 or 4 clicks. There is also an iPad version of the app, which my students have found to be very helpful in the classroom.

Honor your Inner Monk

This app is produced the Brothers at Saint Meinrad Archabbey to help the laity develop their daily prayer life, to discover their Inner Monk. I (try to) turn to this app twice a day for the morning and afternoon prayer. The prayers are short and to the point (never taking more than a minute), and with reflection are often very appropriate for whatever is going on in my life that day. One of the key elements of this app is your prayer tracker; like the tracker on your treadmill, you can watch your red line grow as you complete your prayers each day, ending with either cheers or jeers at the end of the month. In all honesty, each month my morning bar is usually a bit longer than my afternoon bar. The Inner Monk app has some other cool features including other short Catholic prayers, which you can use to accumulate bonus accolades, as well as a series of Gregorian Chants by the monks at the archabbey.

The Pope App

Admittedly, I don’t use The Pope App very often (but a good friend of my swears by it). This app is put out by news.va and is for Francis junkies. The Pope App provides video, audio and text of just about everything the Pope does. This app goes beyond news releases and brings the user the words of Francis from his public audiences, homilies and exhortations. It is even possible to live stream Papal events or pick up his Twitter feed (@pontifex).

I have a few other Catholic apps on my phone, which I really haven’t discovered yet. Perhaps the summer holidays will give me the chance to find a new favourite, or at least an app to come back to from time to time. These include Lighthouse Catholic Media, Shalom World, and DivineOffice. I would also be very curious if you have any other suggestions of Catholic apps for my smart phone, so leave them in the combox below.