Tunes From The BCCT On Prayer

There are a lot of members of the Broad Chorus of Catholic Thinkers posting articles, videos and podcasts online. So much in fact that one really doesn’t have the time, energy or computer bandwidth to read all the good things being written up and slapped on a web page. And so I decided to bring examples of a 132 of them together in one post. It consists of bits of Orthodox Catholic thoughts from the Catholic Rigorous Vortex and the Liberal Hippie Catholics and everyone else in-between.

WRN # 18 Cool Tunes From the Broad Chorus of Catholic Thinkers
Easy Access to Tunes and Tweets from the BCCT JULY 29, 2022

The diversity of thought within Catholic teaching, like variety within the strictures of sonnets, is one of its most beautiful features. It is nevertheless important to listen, as much as we can, to a broad chorus of Catholic thinkers. I have found great consolation in the fact that someone holier and smarter than myself has likely asked my questions already; my job is to find them and to listen, and then to make as many people as possible read block quotations about it.
Sharon Kabel , OSB vs. UFO: Stanley Jaki and the Theology of Aliens (June 16, 2021)- OnePeterFive

But of course with so many samples of things to look at in one semi-long post, several nifty, pithy and unique writings and more can get lost in the shuffle. So I decided to take what I gathered and break it up into smaller posts based on themes instead of particular individual Catholic websites. I even added a few other things not found in the larger collage of writings.

In this issue I present to you tunes from the BCCT on…

Prayer

For some good Catholic Prayers go to Let Us Pray | Mark Wilson (patheos.com)

CB Book Reflection: The Busy Person’s Guide to Prayer | Mark Wilson (patheos.com)

Prayer: Perpetual Adoration live from St Benedict’s, Melbourne

Prayer: The Angelus

Just a couple of generations ago, Catholics would have considered the Angelus to be an essential part of their daily routine. The bells of nearby Catholic churches would ring, and they would stop, pray the Angelus, and then return to whatever it is they were doing.

In fact, the Angelus was a common part of Catholic life throughout the Church for centuries. The devotion has its origins in the Middle Ages when illiterate laity found it to be a great way to imitate the monks and nuns who were praying the Liturgy of the Hours throughout the day. Just as the religious would stop everything throughout the day and pray together the Divine Office, the laity in the nearby towns and villages could stop and pray together in unison when hearing the bells ring at 6 a.m., noon, and 6 p.m.
Jared Dees on Praying the Angelus (May 31, 2019) Catholic Digest

Prayer: Be Still and Know I Am God

Being still means to stop doing what you are doing. Forget your plans and schedule, forget what you have to do right now, and forget what you want to do. Be quiet, immobile, silent, and stop focusing on all these things in your life that are in and of the world.

If one has never done this, it may not be easy. For most of us, doing this, intentionally being quiet and doing nothing in today’s world, includes no talking, no texting, no emailing, no phone calls, no keyboarding, no gaming, no working, no social media-ing, no chats, and no staring at a screen. It is the difference between waves crashing constantly on rocks along a shore and the flat, tranquil, glassy mirror surface of an undisturbed pond. You have to make the conscious choice to relax, settle down, and chill out – with God.
Guy McClung Be Still & Know That I Am God –(June 25, 2022) The American Catholic

Prayer: Byzantine Rosary

Today Halley and Kyleshka pray the Byzantine Rosary and talk about the new MOC Instgram and group, Mary, Queen of the Home. This is from the live Instragram

Prayer: Divine Office

Dane Falkner@DivineOffice: I am the producer of the free audio Liturgy of the Hours at

DivineOffice.org

Jesus, in you are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,
— make known to us through your Church the manifold wisdom of God.
Most loving Lord, have mercy on us.
Morning Prayer – Solemnity for Sacred Heart of Jesus

God is rich in mercy; because of his great love for us he brought us to life with Christ when we were dead in sin. By this favor you were saved. Both with and in Christ Jesus he raised us up and gave us a place in the heavens, that in the ages to come he might display the great wealth of his favor, manifested by his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
READING Ephesians 2:4-7 Evening Prayer II – Solemnity for Sacred Heart of Jesus

Prayer: Expanding Prayer

What would happen if we expanded our definitions of prayer? How might we encounter God in new ways by experiencing play as prayer?

Realties that seem to conflict mark Christianity. We are a faith of suffering and surviving, of dying and rising, of already and still to come. Taken together, the arc of the Christian narrative always bends toward joy.

So why not pray like it? Dance with dear friends. Gaze up at the sky. Savor each bite of a warm cookie. Play in ways that give glory and praise to our God.

This, too, is prayer.

JESSIE BAZAN Expand your definition of prayer (February 1, 2022)– U.S. Catholic (uscatholic.org)

Prayer: Father Peyton Documentary

Prayer: Divine Mercy

Prayer: Divine Mercy Prayer Line

Prayer: Hallow

The #1 Catholic prayer & meditation app to help you find peace, deepen your relationship with God, and sleep soundly every night. #Hallow

“Pray as if God will take care of all; act as if all is up to you.” – St. Ignatius of Loyola

Prayer: Liturgy of the Hours

The Church, especially since Vatican II, has encouraged the laity to take up the discipline of the Hours and many of us have answered that call. But that is not to say that it is always easy which is where the “discipline” aspect of the Hours is most helpful, especially for those of us who are putatively “too busy” to pray in such a regulated way. For example, I must admit that I still find Evening Prayer a bit annoying since it comes at a time of day when I am tired and more interested in dinner and my post-dinner evening bourbon than I am in raising my mind to God. But that annoyance is exactly what the discipline of the Hours is meant to tame: First to browbeat me into prayer (it is NOW the time to pray you procrastinating fool), and then to soothe my soul with the psalms – – especially the ones about sybaritic louts like me getting their heads smashed in by the Amalekites as a punishment – – as my initial grumblings and rumblings about the delayed gratification of my belly is transformed into a serene gratitude, a quiet joy, and a calming of my carnally restless soul. In other words, the genius of the Hours is that it turns the very act of not wanting to pray, into a prayer, via the path of the ascetical renunciation of “my” time into God’s time, grumbling all the way, with those grumblings eventually turned into groanings, then turned into the chastened praise of God from a soul whose very recalcitrance has been transformed into an agonistic plea for grace. Mine is a conflicted soul which is why the psalms that speak to the unbelief of the believers hit me the hardest.
Larry Chapp, The New Word on Fire Liturgy of the Hours and Bishop Barron Derangement Syndrome (April 23, 2022) Gaudium et Spes 22

Prayer: Mary Undoer of Knots

Early in the sixteenth century, Hieronymus Ambrosius Langenmantel commissioned the painting of Mary, Undoer or Untier of knots for St. Peter am Perlach Church in Augsburg, Germany. The artist, Johann Georg Melchior Schmidtner, was inspired by the story of the man’s grandfather, Wolfgang Langenmantel, a German nobleman, and his wife Sophie. The couple’s lives were falling apart and they were on the verge of separation. In an effort to save their marriage, Wolfgang decided to get advice from a Jesuit priest, Father Rem, who lived in a monastery near Augsburg, Germany. They prayed together, raising up to Our Lady “the bond of marriage,” praying that “all knots be loosed and resolved.” After several meetings and many prayers to Our Lady, Wolfgang and Sophie reunited.

The painting portrays Mary dressed in a blue mantle, with twelve stars above her head, standing on the serpent, crushing evil and untying the knots in a long ribbon, working together with the Holy Spirit and the angels. The idea of Mary undoing the knots is believed to have been inspired by the meditation of St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon: “Eve, by her disobedience, tied the knot of disgrace for the human race; whereas Mary, by her obedience, undid it.” Mary is seen as one who intercedes for us to her Son, helping us to let go of what binds us, what ties us to this world, what causes discord, violence and despair, freeing us from the struggles and the “knots” of our lives.

While studying in Germany in the 1980’s, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, saw the image of Mary, Undoer of Knots and brought it back to Argentina, promoting devotion to Our Lady. He had this same image engraved on a chalice that he presented to Pope Benedict XVI.

Our Lady Undoer of Knots, pray for us! Mary Undoer of Knots Novena – NOVENA PRAYER

Prayer: Magnificat

Magnificat US@MagnificatMag (Jun 11, 2022): May God, who is Lord over the whole world, grant you wisdom, understanding, insight, knowledge of his just demands, and patient endurance. Be learners in God’s school, studying what the Lord requires of you; and then do it! -From the Epistle of Barnabas

Prayer: Memories

Grace at our table growing up was almost always the Hail Mary. So on a recent visit to see my parents, both now into their eighties, I found myself listening with unexpected fondness as they took up the old prayer before dinner one night. What struck me these many years later, in a different, more powerful way than it once had, was how they fell upon those final words: now and at the hour of our death. There was a detectable slowing of tempo through the trailing string of syllables. Then, a portentous silence, followed at last by the closing exhalation: Amen.
Dominic Preziosi June 18, 2022Who Has the Final Word? (June 18, 2022) Commonweal Magazine