What do you see in today’s picture? Some pebbles in a bowl? Yes. A rosary? Yes. You see that—and there is more. These are my prayer rocks. I am resurrecting them, because I need them just now.
My prayer rocks started with a quote from St. Pope John XXIII. It is said that during Vatican Council II, he was inclined to say at night, “God, it’s your church. I’m going to bed.” Some years ago, when I was feeling overburdened at night with the troubles I heard during the day as a therapist, I started prayer with these prayer rocks. At the end of the day, I would hold one in my hand think of someone I had encountered during the day, give that person to God, then put the rock in the bowl. It was my way to let go, let God, and get some good sleep.
Prayer practices come and go, circumstances in my life changed, and I stopped praying with the prayer rocks. But I am taking them up again, because my awareness of who I am as baptized post-Vatican II lay Catholic aging Christian has combined with a heavy schedule of counseling, teaching, and writing to overwhelm me. I have had to face the need for pruning activities, for increasing time spent in health care and rest, and for living “let go and let God.”
Now, as May starts, I am doing some things differently—including using these rocks to again give the people of the day to God, lay them down, and rest. Because of this activity, the readings for this Sunday have spoken to me in a very personal, powerful way.
I Peter 2:4-9
I had never prayed from I Peter before this Easter season, but I have fallen in love with this book. Today the images of stones nurture and form me:
“Beloved, come to him, a living stone.”
“Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
“The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”
And finally, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a royal nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises of him who called you out of darkness into a wonderful light.”
My Didache Bible says the images of stone refer to the church. Jesus is the foundation, rejected at the time of his death, but now the cornerstone—which holds the building together. In these verses, I Peter says clearly in Scripture what Vatican II says in Lumen Gentium:
“The laity, however, are given this special vocation: to make the Church present and fruitful in those places and circumstances where it is only through them that she can become the salt of the earth. Thus every lay person, through those gifts given to him, is at once the witness and the living instrument of the mission of the Church itself…All the laity, then, have the exalted duty of working for the ever greater spread of the divine plan of salvation to all men, of every epoch and all over the earth.” (Lumen Gentium, paragraph 33)
John 14: 1-12
We return in the Gospel to John’s Farewell Discourse, the long homily Jesus gave his disciples after he washed their feet and instituted the Eucharist on Holy Thursday. In the context of that night, Jesus was giving comfort and hope to his disciples.
For me, today, it is the words “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you also know the Father…Whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.”
Yes, Jesus is saying here: I am the cornerstone. I am a living stone. You, too, if you anchor yourself in me, will become a living stone. You are meant to be a living instrument of the mission of the Church—to bring all people in all places to God.
Acts 6:1-7
In the selection from Acts today we see how the Church, as living stones depending on the cornerstone and the Holy Spirit, worked out an early problem. While the whole Church at this point was still a Jewish sect, the widows of new Christians with family ties to Jerusalem were getting some preference in the distribution of food over the widows of new Christians with family ties outside the Holy Land.
The back story on this problem is worth knowing. In the Jewish culture of the day, a Jewish son was responsible for care of his mother after his father died. If there was no son, the mother didn’t go live with a daughter and son-in-law. She was left bereft. I have seen in some books that a significant part of the growth of the Church in Jerusalem was because of all the widows it took in and cared for. God grew the Church initially because of its outreach of mercy to those left to beg or die.
From Chapter 3 of Genesis, when God sentenced Cain for killing his brother Abel, God has spoken consistently all the way through Scripture that those who follow Christ are to extend necessary caring and mercy to people “on the fringes.” In the days of the Acts of the Apostles, that was often widows without sons. Consistently, widows, orphans, foreigners, the handicapped, and the poor have been named in the Bible as requiring the attention of the followers of God’s Way, Truth, and Life.
Outreach to the fringes today is complex. Care to fringes means we are often called to care for those who have physical needs for food or shelter met, but who are alone far too much. They may be alone in their homes, alone even though they live with family, or very alone in some senior residence with strangers all around. Years ago, Mother Teresa named loneliness as the primary poverty of the developed world. Senior living buildings are everywhere. That means senior loneliness is omnipresent. How do we find ways to distribute the “daily portion” of God’s love?
Outreach to the fringes today includes many who have different cultures or values. They are as hungry for truth spoken in love as the Gentiles in biblical times ever were. How do we reach out to these living stones?
Perhaps it is time to look seriously at evangelization through loving the elderly, the lonely, and unhappy seekers who do not know what they seek.
Acts today gives us a model: (1) name the issue and put it before God and the community; (2) identify who should do what—sharing the load (3) come to agreement, then decide together on a plan (4) call for the Holy Spirit, and let the Holy Spirit work through us.
Applications
How do I apply God’s Word that I am to be a living stone? What comes is that I need to do my rock prayers differently. In the evening, I will lay them down as before, but the next morning, I need to prayerfully pick them up again and give the way I use my time to serve them to God. I, too, am a living stone caring for other living stones. Building the Kingdom.
And you. What application do you make today?
Prayer:
Each morning, Lord, as I pick up the stones of the hours of my day, let me remember I am Your living stone at work here in my corner of the world. And You are my cornerstone. Each evening, as I lay the stones down, help me to remember that it is Your love that works through me—and that You keep watch over all, You love all. Keep me faithful, Lord, and filled with Your Love, Truth, and Joy. Keep me humble, that I listen carefully to Your voice and quietly do what you ask. Lead me, guide me, Lord.
