Pastoral Message: Synod Time of Prayer

PASTORAL LETTER OF BISHOP CORMAC MURPHY-O'CONNOR

To be read at all Masses
on the weekend of 9th, 10th October 1999

My dear Brothers and Sisters in Jesus Christ,

Every day in my Chapel I begin Morning Prayer with the words, 0 Lord, open our lips and we shall praise your name. 0 God, come to our aid Lord, make haste to help us. It is with these sentiments that I speak to you today. Last Advent I wrote a pastoral letter in which I invited you to come on a pilgrimage with me to spend the next three years preparing, not just for a Synod, but for the shape of the Church to come. It is indeed a daunting task, which will need much prayer.

Just 40 years ago, in the year 1959, Pope John XXIII announced that he was to call a General Council of the Church. Although it took three years to prepare, he first of all asked that the whole People of God should engage in constant prayer for its success and for its fruitful outcome. The preparation for our Synod is going to take three years and, like Pope John, I have decided that we should begin with a special Time of Prayer, because if we are endeavouring, under God, to shape the Church together, we all know that we can do nothing without commending ourselves to the inspiration and grace of His Holy Spirit.

The Time of Prayer begins today and will continue until November 14th~ How can I help you as we begin this Time of Prayer? We have all mourned the death of Cardinal Basil Hume who was a great inspiration to people in this country and beyond. I was reading recently a passage in his book entitled, To be a Pilgrim, and in it he gives Ten Golden Rules for prayer. I could do no better in this pastoral message than to repeat what he says.

Plan to pray; do not leave it to chance. Select a time and a place (a room at home, on the bus, taking a walk).
Decide on how long you will spend in trying to pray (five minutes, ten, fifteen, thirty or more).
Decide what you are going to do when you pray e.g. which prayer to select to say slowly and lovingly; or which passage from the Bible to read prayerfully. Sometimes use your own words; sometimes just be still and silent. Follow your inclination.
Always start by asking the Holy Spirit for help in your prayers. Pray: Come Holy Spirit, teach me to pray; help me to do it.
Remember you are trying to get in touch with a Person, and that Person is God Father or Son or Holy Spirit. He is wanting to get in touch with you.
Dont be a slave to one way of praying. Choose the one that you find easiest, and try some other method when the one you are using becomes a burden or doesnt help.
Dont look for results.
If you have distractions, then turn your distractions into your prayer. (If a car passes the window in the wrong gear, then say something to God about the driver I mean a kind prayer for the welfare of the driver, not necessarily for his driving or gear box!)
If you always feel dry and uninterested at prayer, then read a spiritual book or pamphlet. An article in a Catholic paper may be a help. Spiritual reading is important.
Trying to pray is praying. Never give up trying.

These are the suggestions of Cardinal Hume and I would like to endorse them as we begin this Time of Prayer. As you leave Mass today, and for the next four Sundays, you will be given a leaflet. I ask you to give some time each week, as part of a group or individually, to use the leaflet prayerfully to prepare for the following Sunday. The leaflets also include a list of the parishes of the diocese. I hope that the whole diocese will join in prayer each day for the communities named and that, on the day your parish is prayed for, you will consider attending the weekday Mass or marking it in some other way. A simplified version of Morning and Evening Prayer is also available. Above all pray, as Scripture says, that the Lord, who has begun this good work in you, may bring it to fulfillment.

May God bless you all, and with an assurance of my prayers and kind wishes,
Yours devotedly in Christ, Rt. Rev. Cormac Murphy-O'Connor Bishop of Arundel and Brighton.