normal catholicisms

1. Adam's Ale has a great post on sharing the Liturgy of the Hours with a non-Catholic.

An interesting phone call came in this week. One I don’t get very often. In fact, it has never happened before.

A man called and said that he bought a Christian prayer book and wanted instructions on how to use it. “I just want you to know that I am Protestant, but I want help in learning how to pray with this book.”

So I wondered what was in his Christian prayer book. Was it the rosary? So I asked a few questions and discovered it was the Christian Book of Prayer, a shorter version of the Breviary. These books contain the Liturgy of the Hours, the official prayer of the Catholic Church. All clergy and religious take an oath to pray this prayer daily for the sake of the Church, but in truth, all Catholics are urged to pray this prayer. We pray parts of it throughout the year as a parish and whenever I take someone on as a spiritual directee, they will learn how to pray this great prayer.

Bearing all of that in mind you can imagine my surprise when a Protestant called to ask for instructions. I told him it is one of those things where it was much easier to teach him how to pray it if I prayed it with him and showed him how it was done. He was quite excited at the prospect and we set a date.

“How much do you charge?” he asked.

2. Video interviews of the newly ordained priests for the Diocese of Erie, PA - including my friends Fr. Mike and Fr. Chris.

3. Another cool post from Adam's Ale - this one on lectio divina.

Lectio Divina is Latin for Divine Reading. It is not a Scripture study nor should it take the place of such exercises. It is rather a way of praying the Scriptures, to develop that deeper relationship with God, and to know the Scriptures better.