Saturday's End of the World, and Praying

What do you do best? Especially with some's predictions of the end of time this Saturday.





You do something very well, I bet!





Cook? Teach? Lead? Love? Parent? Laugh? Work? Dance? Draw? Decorate? Plan? Perform? Study?





Or . . .?





Tuesday night was one of my most memorable moments as a Catholic, and, a clergyman for thirty-five years.





Dozens of people of all ages joined together in Roseville, MI., USA.





As the crowd poured in, leaders lifted tables and joined them together in order that all participants could face one another in a long rectangle.





At one end of the long tables, leaders addressed the group. Interventions were made. Questions answered. Quiet everywhere. Something awesome was happening. A call to the Creator was about to happen in prayer for fifteen minutes of silent nothingness without words, chatter, emotional programs and thoughts.

Participants were calling up the Creator, the Divine Therapist, to move from the false to the true self. They were getting ready to purge pretensions, and, the masks we wear, to illumine and discover God's love as we are, and, to let recovery of the true self emerge again in God who made us.


At the other end of the tables, people took notes while they listened, and, gleaned ways to do what they could do best. Silence still stirred loudly, awesomely. We were ready to call God.
Imagine that!



That's what we do best, I bet. And, you?

After instructions were given, a bell rang, and, an intrusive cell phone, and, the hum of a passing train. All this happened as a breeze flowed through the windows of the historic 150-year-old Roseville Sacred Heart Education Building, where thousands of grade and high school students were formed long before this crowd gathered this night to do what they do best.





When these distractions, among others, came, each would focus on her or his chosen word selected before the start of a quiet session, such as:
Beloved, joy, peace, Jesus, or, the like. Each gently returned to their sacred word as they comfortably sat in silence for fifteen minutes doing nothing, saying nothing, and simply consenting to the will of the Creator.

They were learning to pray.

That's what believers do best, or, they should. And, the best of them will wait for Saturday knowing full well that there's an urgency to the Gospel, about being ready for the day or hour that we know not! Some will sit back and criticize everyone and everything, while others are serving the neediest, stooping low to lift the lost with evergreen hope, eating ice cream, enjoying, and relying on the Lord all the days of the limited life we each get for a few decades or so.

After all, Armegedon is coming Saturday, some say, and many are running to the supermarket
to stock up. (I guess they're packing suitcases also filled with their food for the trek to Heaven, unless they have other plans!) Be ready, just in case! We could all shape up, even the Americans who know it all, and, are perfect and pretty enough, they claim.

This crowd that spent this past Tuesday learning to pray with veteran centering prayer practicioner, Father Lawrence Kaiser of Livonia, MI., will be praying, I'm sure, while store lines
start to panic.

Go to http://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/, or, http://www.aod.org/ for more on prayer. For Saturday's gloomy prediction about the end of the world, well, Jesus the Christ notes in the sacred Scriptures that he wasn't "privy" to the day or the hour, so . . . well, how would these others know?

And, furthermore, the urgency of the good news of the Gospel, and, those writing under deadlines know, like Catherine Haven, Gordy Wilczynski, Roger Wingelaar, Julie Jacobson, Jody McVeigh, Steve Bitsoli, John Carlisle, and Julie Snyder know, among others, life needs to be in deadline order, anyway, anyhow, no?

Saturday.....hmmm.......praying, and, waiting patiently, loving, but, going on with my day of surprises anyway.

And, join me the first Friday of each month, next session is June 3rd at 7-8 pm for prayer in the parish center of Sacred Heart Church at 18430 Utica Road at Gratiot in Roseville, 586 777 916, in the building next to the huge edifice (use the rear door please, and, park your car there also, unless you leave it here next Saturday, and, can't make it).

If you're still here Tuesday, May 24th, Inlcusive Communities Uniting Neighbors (ICUN) welcomes you at 5:30-7 pm in the St. Clair Shores Library meetng room at Elven Mile Road and Jefferson to enhance the quality of life (if unhappy with Heaven, or, wherever you end Saturday!) and, establish Neighborhood Watch, and, help build homes for the homeless for Habitat for Humanity. Officer Cherrie Mascarelli of the St. Clair Shore Police, and, Fire Chief Mike Lopez of the Harrison Twp., MI., firehouse will join us, all kidding aside, to update us on Neighborhood Watch efforts, among other neighborly acts of kindess on earth.

And, just planning ahead, and, if the prediction for Saturday passes uneventfully, please gather with me Saturday, June 25, at 11 am until 12:30 pm in the Islamic Cultural Center at 30135 Greater Mack, near 12 Mile Road in St. Clair Shores, where Imam Shamsid-Deen Abdur-Rasheed will host ICUN, and, a Neighborhood Watch Meeting, and, home building for Habitat.

Write me at sacredheartroseville@saintly.com, and, let me know what you think, or, how you pray in communion with the Maker.

Will you check in on your family, and, me Saturday also, just in case? A prayer is recommended also, please.