Family Matters St. Paul’s admonition that we ought to “pray always” (1 Thes 5: 17) might also be translated as practical advice that we pray any way we can. Aside from that, we can fall back on our favorite devotions and perhaps increase them: rosaries, novenas, the Divine Mercy Chaplet and so on. There are times when various arts and crafts, too, can prove to be fruitful ways of praying. The brother-in-law of one of the sisters in my Sts. Cyril and Methodius community carved crucifixes, images of saints and religious symbols all gifted to individuals and to at least one basilica. Carving was, he said, his way of praying as he retired from business and cared for his blind wife. A religious education director I worked with in Michigan turned to visual art when she found that her regular prayer routines were leaving her cold. She drew and painted landscapes in praise of God the Creator and then began creating charcoal and pastel images of biblical figures and saints. Works depicting Abraham and Anna the prophetess are among works she has bestowed on a Catholic assisted living facility. And then there are the quilters and knitters. Some few quilters have told me that they pray with and over every square in their quilts. Prayer shawls are created by groups who share them with those confined to nursing and rehabilitation facilities. Cross-stitch, bead work, calligraphy, sculpting and even LEGO constructions can lend themselves to memorabilia that lift minds and hearts to God. Instrumental music, singing and interpretative dance have also been counted among art forms that can become acts of praise and thanks, contrition and supplication. Not surprisingly, praying on paper has been a favored form of mine. I have spent no little amount of time on academic writing and, for the past 10 years, writing regular newspaper and magazine columns. It’s not that those are not prayerful, but I find that I am most tuned in, baring my soul to the Lord, when I journal or write poetry. I don’t make journal entries or compose poems on my laptop. I handwrite or sometimes print them mainly because my legibility, even to myself, seems to have decreased as I am becoming more vintage than youthful. It has been gratifying for me to delve into the works of some of the women mystics of the Middle Ages: St. Mechthild of Magdeburg, St. Hildegard of Bingen (artist, musician, writer and doctor of the Church) and St. Julian of Norwich. All have left essays, prose meditations and poems that display their prayerfulness. So many saints from the Eastern and Western Church have left us liturgical and devotional prayers. The super-prolific St. Thomas Aquinas, noted for his reasoned theological tomes, comes through strongly as a man of poetry. Come Holy Thursday, we will be praying his great Pange lingua. As we are often reminded, including by our own bishop, genuine faith is a matter of the heart. The work of our hands, our movement and our breath can also be, this Lent and at any other time, acts of faith.
