Mental Prayer Meditation Helps
Presence of God
Grace I Ask: To understand the life of the religious lay brother and to esteem it highly.
The Idea: People in religious life are devoted to following Christ, but not all follow the same way. Many men enter religious orders without ever becoming priests. Christ was not only a priest; He honored His Father in other activities too. Christ was a carpenter most of His life. Many religious brothers follow Christ, the worker, by their work in the fields or print shop or machine shop. Christ spent His public life teaching. There are orders of religious brothers who do nothing but teach. Christ is most attractive as the kind healer of crippled limbs and diseased bodies. And brothers do this job too.
My Personal Application: Do I know the full picture of religious life? Do I know enough about the life of religious brothers? These men devote their lives to Christ as valuable workers, teachers, and guardians of the sick. They may be on a bulldozer, in a kitchen, or behind a shovel. Others work behind a typewriter or before a blackboard. Still others bring soothing care to bodies in pain. They may never shine before the worldly wise and the powerful, but they bring the love of Christ to the little ones of Christ. As a wide-awake Catholic I should know more about them - for my own sake, but also to tell others if and when they ask.
I Speak to God: Lord, help me to see that there are many ways to be like you. Make me see the beauty of the brother's vocation; and help me to see in a call to this life a mark of your special love.
Thought for Today: "I have set you an example, so that what I have done to you, you, too, should do."
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Adapted from Mental Prayer, Challenge to the Lay Apostle
by The Queen's Work,(© 1958)
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