PRAYER: THE FAITH PRAYED

On Catechetical Sunday, September 18, 2016, at the weekend’s Masses our catechists are commissioned for their ministry.  As we bless them and thank them for their service to us and to our children, let us call to mind that we, too, are catechists, called by our Baptism to live our faith and share our faith in words and deeds.  May we, along with our catechists, rededicate ourselves to hand on the faith and be witnesses to the Gospel.

This year’s Catechetical Sunday theme is “Prayer: The Faith Prayed.”

Archbishop Leonard P. Blair, Chairman of Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, reminds us that Jesus’ life is an example for us.  His life was rooted in prayer to our Father.  Archbishop Blair reminds us,

“Our Lord’s disciples frequently observed him interrupting his journeys in order to spend long hours alone in prayer to his heavenly Father. They were moved to ask him to teach them how to pray.”

The disciples came to realize, as we do, that spending time in prayer grounds our lives in the only One who can heal us and fill us with the only things we truly want or need:  union and communion with God, who brought us into existence and sustains us, not from afar.  God is ever present to our longing, searching hearts.  Let us, like Jesus, take time during our busy days to spend some time “alone in prayer with our heavenly Father.”