To pray well, we only need to pray like a child.

Hi Ms. Cahill, - Talking about pint size prayers, maybe you know this First Communion Prayer, taught to us pint size first communicants as follows. “You have come to my heart Dearest Jesus, I’m holding you close to my breast, I’m telling You over and over You are welcomed a Little White Guest. I love You, I love You my Jesus, so please do not think I am bold, of course You must know that I love You, but I’m sure that You like to be told.” Then having learned and sung that hymn in class over and over again, some “crazy” theology was next – Sister said, “Now children when you receive Jesus, don’t bite the Host. You might hurt little Jesus!!!” Sister must have been joking a bit, but I for one, even then, tended to take stuff literally, not so much in my latter years. So I believed her and I dared not let my teeth touch the Host. Hmmm, didn’t Jesus say “Take and eat” so how does one eat without using teeth? This post isn’t so much about the above, as it’s about your brief ending prayer, in which you clued us in on how to pray, doing so with “open heart,” and “plain talk,” with “complete trust.” I agree entirely and try to do so with varying degrees of success, baby steps and pint size prayers, helped a lot by imaginative flights of fancy. Being exposed to Jesuit Spirituality through AMERICA Magazine and reading James Martin, S.J. and other S.Js, along with fiftytwo years of Franciscan involvement in First and Third Orders, where imaginative prayer is a “how to do it” training, I’m pretty much tuned into to that kind of thing. For me the really hard part of prayer is to trust in God completely. I say I do, at times it actually works, but for the most part truly trusting God without doubt, or reservation means some tail draging. Someone told me that struggle is actual proof that I do trust because I want to do so, similar to the axion I guess, “Exceptions to a Rule prove that the Rule does exist.” That’s fine with me, allowing me to leave the “rest” whatever that is, to Him! Thanks for your Advent Meditations. Don’t expect that I’ll Post on all your Meditations, but maybe just as the Spirit moves, I trust!

Beautiful meditation, and the choice of the child praying at her mother's knee reminds me that God is my Mother.