October 5 Class Update: Prayer Workshop

Greetings class!

Thank you all for joining class virtually this week.  (Thank you to Mariana Perepitchka for assisting with class, and to my friend Roy for his technical support with our Zoom session.)

To recap, we spent time exploring different forms of prayer.

We started by praying a decade of the Divine Mercy Chaplet.

We prayed with Scripture, looking specifically at Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and Mark 12:22-34.  Part of what we looked at from Mark will be part of the Gospel reading for a Sunday in the very near future.  We also watched a video from a previously-used curriculum that discussed the importance of Scripture in the life of faith.

We also spent a short amount of time with a song from the Taize prayer last week Friday at Ascension.

And we prayed the Litany to the Most Holy Trinity.

Toward the end of class, we spent time praying in the spirit of the Ignatian Examen, which is a way to reflect on the day.  This link shows a graphic that explains one way to pray the Examen.  While slightly different than what we did in class, it follows the same general format.

We concluded class with the St. Ambrose prayer, which appears at the bottom of the homepage of the website of St. Ambrose Cathedral in Des Moines, IA.

For this week's activity, please spend time with one of these types of prayer.

In addition to the prayers above, you can select a prayer from the EWTN website or from Our Catholic Prayers.

The above examples are not an exhaustive list of the types of prayer you can do.  So if there's a prayer you want to do that's not from our most recent class or in the above links, please feel free to ask me about it.

If you watch the entire video of Taize prayer in the link above, that counts as extra credit for this week.  It is not required but is an optional activity, since it takes about an hour to view the whole prayer service.

You will have the chance to write about your prayer experience in our next class on October 12.  It is my hope that as you explore different types of prayer, you'll find something that suits you and can become a regular habit.

We will be back in our classroom as usual.  We're planning to have a guest speaker and look more at what defines us as Roman Catholics.

Also, I want to remind you about a great service opportunity:  You can help sort donations for the annual coat drive on the weekends of October 16-17 and 23-24.  Here is a sign-up link.

This activity counts toward the service part of Confirmation preparation.

As usual, please feel free to contact me with any questions, etc.

We remain connected as One Church: All my relations.

God's blessings on your week.  Enjoy the extra time off from school.

Paul Rubio

Our prayers rise like incense to God, like from this incense burner Paul has.