Lent

Miraculous, mysterious connection

By Bob Johnson

	A Compass Lenten series

For me, prayer is a miraculous, mysterious, connection between my imperfect, promising and often disturbing human world with my faith and God's infinite pool of love, compassion, wisdom and grace.

In those brief moments when I believe I am part of this prayer connection, I am overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude and awe that is dwarfed by the undeserved gift of God's care for me.

It is also quite intimidating. Few experiences challenge and stretch the status quo of my daily life more than these moments of prayer. I suspect this is also why it is so easy not to pray.

So if I am going to explore prayer, I need to focus on the people whose prayer life inspires me to stretch more and challenge myself to reach out in those moments when I might try to go it alone.

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"God is big. We are small." These six words and two periods are one of the simplest and most profound prayers of my uncle, Fr. Bob Purcell, SJ. These six words give a glimpse into the essential nature of prayer.

God doesn't need prayer, we do. Prayer is our effort to reach toward the Holy Infinite, whose depth of care, compassion, wisdom and love are beyond our imagining and understanding.

Our nature demands that our prayer be wrapped in our most human traits: the humble pursuit of compassion and mercy, the desire for wisdom and understanding, the plea for protection and mercy, the playfulness of hope, and the simple offering of our praise and love to the ultimate source of both.

For most of my uncle's life he was a holy man of action and charisma. But in his late 60s, his body began to fail him, baffling his doctors. This led to several long convalescences and a complimentary, yet highly symbolic assignment as campus minister to the administrative staff at Marquette University.

When asked what his duties were, he would say he "aimlessly wanders the campus." In these wanderings, one would find Fr. Bob huddled on a bench with a student or staff, index fingers linked, engaged in a "10-minute" retreat. In these retreats, Fr. Bob engaged the often reluctant participants with playfulness and disarmed them with simple questions, such as: "How do you find life in God's grace and presence?" and "If you are made in God's image, then what does he ask of you today?"

As his body gave out, Fr. Bob settled into a routine of looking at the world from his fourth floor window at St. Camillus Health Care Center in Milwaukee. But rather than his life shrinking to the size of his room, it bloomed with inspiration.

He dedicated himself to finding the "mystic moments" in each psalm. The result is a small booklet, Praying the Psalms with Bob Purcell, SJ, which condenses each psalm to words and phrases that lead us to prayer.

I will close with one of his favorites and with his instructions, which apply not only to praying the psalms but anytime we offer our humble prayer to God: "Hold it gently; open your heart, imaging the words. Select what speaks to you, pray slowly, and you just may succeed."

Psalm 100: "Love creates me. Love forgives me. Love fills me. Alleluia!"

(Johnson is director of the American Federation of Counseling, Green Bay.)