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| The prayer beads Erica gave me a couple years ago, ashes, and the lid to our baptismal font. |
I love the idea of giving something up for 40 days as a sign of devotion to Christ. I also like adding a spiritual discipline to deepen my faith connection to God. I've done both before and it's been meaningful. This year I've decided to return to the Sermon on the Mount, the location of Christianity's 'classic' faith practices: Alms (Matt 6:1-4), Prayer (Matt 6:5-13), and Fasting (Matt 6:16-18).
The focus of these practices in Matthew is that they are done not to be noticed and receive praise from others, but because they restore us to a right relationship with God. I'm not bragging about what I am doing for Lent, I am only sharing my journey in hopes that it leads others into deeper devotion and commitment to our Lord.
Alms: I am committing to carrying around four $5 bills each week and giving them away. For the sake of argument, I'll consider the week as Monday - Sunday. I might give to a homeless dude downtown, someone at the grocery store, or even a random fundraiser I come across. It doesn't matter where I give the money, only that it meets a need and I don't tell anyone about it.
Prayer: I will carry my prayer beads with me all 40 days of Lent, and will pray using them in the morning, at noon, and in the evening.
Fasting: Although the Didache suggests fasting be done every Wednesday and Friday (and John Wesley agreed!), I will take a page from the Catholic practice and fast Tuesdays with a morning and afternoon collation of bread and water. I like Landon Whitsit's suggestion that fasting is going without something we need, not just something we want.
So, there's my 2012 Lenten practice in a nutshell. What are you doing/not doing this year?
Alms, prayer, and fasting. Wow. Any one of those would be a challenge to my discipline...but I like the idea of incorporating them all. I guess it's not too late to start even though I missed the first week of Lent once again? I'm thinking about how now. Hmm.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious, what are prayer beads? I'm sort of familiar with the counting associated with Catholic confession, but otherwise clueless.
Good question!
ReplyDeletePrayer beads are used in many religious traditions to help focus meditative prayer. In Christian circles, the Catholic Rosary is the best known, but there are also Anglican prayer beads (www.fullcirclebeads.com), and Eastern Orthodox prayer knots.
Typically Christian prayer beads have 7 small beads (called weeks) and then a large bead or 'cruciform bead'. I custom ordered mine (or Erica did for me)from http://crystal-life.com/prayer-beads to have 10 weeks of 7, and then a large bead between them for a total of 80 beads. 7 being the number of completion in Scripture and 10 being a nice denomination to work with. I had a bunch of choices in stone, and picked Lapis Lazuli (runners up were Turquoise and Jade).
As to how I pray with the beads, I hold the beads in both hands, usually sitting or lying on my back. I close my eyes and begin with the large bead near the tassel. I pray either silently or in a quiet whisper. For the large beads I have almost always prayed the Lord's Prayer. For the smaller beads during Lent I pray one phrase from the following song for each bead:
"Spirit of the Living God,
Fall afresh on me,
Spirit of the Living God,
Fall afresh on me,
Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me,
Spirit of the Living God,
Fall afresh on me."
There are many other styles of prayers that can be used, and that Full Circle Beads page has some great suggestions. The point is to draw me into conscious meditative prayer and keep me focused while praying. I find it very easy to get distracted (or fall asleep) if I am praying meditatively.
Thanks for all the details! There was a heck of a lot more to answering that question than I realized.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting because I have a well-worn, 100+-year-old rosary that belonged to a dear aunt and her aunt before her. I never noticed the grouping before reading about your beads, but this rosary has six groups of ten beads with a single, separate bead between each group. The crucifix is attached by a separate three-bead group. I'm not sure what the six and ten might mean, but the group of three makes me think "trinity"..? Going to have to look this up starting with the links you mentioned.
Meditative prayer is something I have never tried but sounds like it would be very calming and peaceful.
P.S. An update. It turns out that I found in my collection a little book of daily devotions that is a perfect fit for this year: Given my late start to Lent, this book has exactly the right number of devotions to carry through to Easter. So that's what I'm doing.