Join us in a prayer chain for our brothers and sisters affected by the war in Ukraine.
Please join us in prayer today for the peace and safety of our brothers and sisters in Ukraine. You can add your own intentions below.
- We pray for peace, safety, and an end of suffering. (John 16:33)
- We pray the Holy Spirit will strengthen believers. (Ephesians 3:16).
- We pray persecuted believers will know and feel the hope God gives. (Ephesians 1:18).
- We pray for comfort for those afflicted. (Ephesians 3:17)
- We pray for God to bring others to himself through the example of those suffering. (Ephesians 6:20)
Sign the prayer chain and commit to praying for our brothers and sisters in Ukraine by filling out the form below:
To pray is to enter into darkness where God illumines in mystery, where light and shadow oscillate in odd waves. It is a personal conversation with our Maker, Creator of all, the indiscriminate lover of our soul. So often, though, does the conversation seem one-sided, where we praise or plead Our Lord, our voices echoing back to us in this strange chamber. But if we silence all interior clamor, we can hear the gentle whisper of God. We can stand with Elijah outside our cave and let the whisper of God’s voice, rich and melodious, become the air we breathe. All this is sublime and beautiful, yet unfortunately, inconsistent. For my part, I am not always in this state—in a warm and all-embracing prayer. I frequently find myself in dryness, in a spiritual desert, where my soul feels unresponsive to the great mystery of God before me, inside me, and all around me. It is at these times, seemingly stranded in these spiritual wastes, when God is closest to us. It is at these times when the Holy Spirit is working in us at the deepest level.
In his spiritual classic, The Ways of Mental Prayer, Abbot Lehodey lays out the reality of the spiritual life of prayer. “The best prayer,” he says, “is not that which is most savory, but that which is most fruitful; not that which consoles, but that which transforms us; not that which elevates us in the common or mystical ways, but that which makes us humble, detached, obedient, generous, faithful to all our duties”(408). This, no doubt, is the true consolation that helps us “through patience share in the sufferings of Christ that we may also deserve to share in His kingdom”(Rule of St. Benedict, Prologue).
Br. Bede McKeon, O.S.B.