Thursday, October 20, 2005

To Live It!

Angel of God my Guardian Dear, to whom God’s love commits me here, ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.

I have known and prayed this prayer every night of my sixty plus years, save for the arrogant years when I was an atheist – yet in the first tentative steps of return to faith it was one that returned instantly to my heart!

Taught to me by my Mother when I was a wee one it is imbedded in my heart.

There are other prayers and invocations, some learnt in the heart of my family, some taught by the good Sisters in the parochial school such as, naturally for Catholics of my generation the Holy Rosary, the Angelus and others such as: “Jesus meek and humble of Heart make my heart like unto Thine own.”

Apparently in our very enlightened age – oddly dark though isn’t it – memorization has long been considered of a bygone era.

So is the former oft repeated  notion: “The family that prayers together, stays together.”

As with much traditional Catholic piety, even actual praxis, we seem to just walk away from it all.

Sad, really.

Perhaps we could begin to rediscover the treasures and truth ours is the religion of glory, joy, hope, communion and community, the family of believers, if we started with this prayer from the Servant of God Catherine Doherty: “ Lord, grant me the heart of a child and the awesome courage to live it out.”

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