Ash Wednesday Prayer

Amy Welborn is a contributor - five devotions per issue -  to the Living Faith daily devotional quarterly.

For example, today, March 1 - Ash Wednesday:

On a late morning in May, the boys and I set out on a walk from the Tuscan hill town in which we were staying. Our path was an ancient vie cave cut by the Etruscans. It was not an easy walk. We descended and ascended steep walkways. The paths have been worn so deep that high walls of stone rise on either side in the eerie quiet. Tired and thirsty, we wondered which way to go at the crossings. It started to rain.

February 25:

For Jesus' disciples carried his words into a culture that treated children as creatures, or even as things, lacking the faculty of reason that defined a full human being. To present a child--a thing that could be exploited and killed when inconvenient--and childhood as models for the spiritual life? Absurd. Countercultural. A radical, reality-shifting stance.

 January 28:

Our faith is marked by questions. We seek, trusting that there must be a source to satisfy the hungers we have been born with. St. Thomas Aquinas was a man of questions and answers, all born of deep hunger and love for God. Balanced, he prayed the Mass with intense devotion, wrote beautiful hymns, sacrificed much to give himself wholly to God and share with the world the fruit of his search.

 January 13:

At the end of a long day, I make time to pray. And, I even attempt it in what I know is the proper frame of mind: remembering the Lord's works with praise and gratitude before I tackle my own litany of concerns.

But perhaps you know how it goes: distractions, nudging, barging in, grabbing attention.

December 5:

Those dry patches within are like little death valleys. But everything about these weeks promises something different. For a strange man stalks that desert. He has water. He eyes us boldly, speaks to us directly and announces that there is one who is to come who will bring life, even here to this dry, impossible place.

 December 4:

I took a look at the creche myself and then sat in a pew for a while, just watching. People waited patiently in line to view the nativity, but then they stayed and craned their necks to study the ceiling, gazed at the stained glass windows, pondered the furnishings.

, October 17:

My parents and grandparents left behind boxes and boxes of letters and photographs. They left record albums and books. I wonder sometimes about my generation and, even more so, those that follow. Most of our communication is digital and exists only as a series of 0s and 1s. So it is with our music, our photographs and even our books. I might not be leaving behind as much physical material, but is that even important?

, October 2

There's nothing unusual there--it's part of the early vocabulary of most toddlers, isn't it? But what strikes me is that he doesn't just say it when something "bad" happens. Any time there is any transition, it's what comes out: "Uh-oh!" It's cute, but I wonder, do I react the same way to potential or real change? Do I reflexively react with hesitation or even outright fear, or do I react with confidence that, with the help of God's power and love, I can move forward?

September 18:

Once a week, I volunteer in an after-school reading program. The children arrive at the parish following a day in a struggling school in a struggling neighborhood. The early readers may have a few words they are sure about, but when they hit an unfamiliar word, their reaction is always the same--their eyes move from the letters and start darting about the page. There must be a hint. They're looking for a sign.

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 September 4:

But there is someone, and the psalmist guides me to him. The God who created me out of love knows me. I listen as he teaches, I understand as my heart opens to his wisdom. In the stillness, he sketches the flaws, he captures the truth, and I see.

For example, May 31:

To see Mary is no distraction. For when I welcome her, something else happens too; like Elizabeth, I welcome the Christ she bears. In greeting her, I offer God praise, as her cousin does, for it is God who has done this, graciously entering creation in this ordinary, extraordinary way.

 April 27

Vowed religious life, the bishop said, is also a radical sign of grace and mercy. He said that the heart of a religious is bound in love to "the poor Christ, the chaste Christ, the obedient Christ."

 April 22:

We've been in the present place for a couple of years now. When I bought it, I proclaimed, "This is it. No more!" But even though I said I wasn't looking, I still looked. Just to see, of course. Just to see. Then one day I was moved--by grace--to make a decision. Stop looking and pretending you're not. Stop feeding dissatisfaction in this earthly home. Accept where you are, now. It's enough. And there it was. In standing still, I was free.

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