To whom do I pray?

This is a helpful reflection from Creighton University's website - they have fabulous resources including daily and weekly reflections. Right now you can still join in on their online retreat...
www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/

To Whom Do I Pray?

This may sound like an odd question, but it is an important one. This tip is simply an encouragement to consider to whom I'm praying and to experiment with different types of praying.
The classic definition of prayer reminds us that there are four types of prayer: praise, thanksgiving, petition, and contrition. When we think of the times we turn to God, this is a pretty good definition. Yet, as we grow in our relationship with God, we probably would nuance the lines between these four types of prayer. If prayer is relationship, then we can talk about a whole variety of types of prayer that are the stuff of ordinary relationships. I can imagine a type of prayer that is simply sharing with God what has gone on in my day. I can spend time just listening to God's love for me in the powerful or tender words of one of the prophets. Or, at difficult times, I might turn to God to express anger, doubt, confusion or fear.
To make this all the more wonderful, I can turn to different Persons when I pray to God. Depending upon the feeling or movement within me, and the grace I desire, I can turn to God very differently. God's creation of the world; the Incarnation; the life, death, resurrection and gift of the Spirit - these mysteries give us access to great depth and texture in our relationship with God.
The public prayer of the Church is almost always addressed to God, the Father. The prayer concludes: "we ask this through our Lord, Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever."
When we pray, in our ongoing relationship with God, we can pray however we like. At times I will turn to God, the Creator. Though God has no gender, I might join Jesus in calling God, "Father" or with the more affectionate, "Abba." I can just as easily use the feminine images of God. At other times, I will turn to Jesus. He is God, become flesh. He is how God is, as a human being. All I know about Jesus now, I can draw from his life. Jesus the Lord, still has holes in his hands and feet and side. He still is comfortable with prostitutes and sinners. He still allows himself to be recognized in the breaking of bread. And, at times, it is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus, I will turn to.
It is important to remember that we have gender. Those of us who are women and those of us who are men may relate to the persons of God differently. How I relate to the Creator can be different for me as a man or as a woman. My love and affection for Jesus will differ. And my experience of the gathering Spirit might be different.
It is good to ask, "to whom am I praying to at this moment?" It can be quite wonderful to experiment with being in relationship with each of the persons of God. If this is new or uncomfortable, just jump in with the request for a grace: "Dear Jesus, I want to talk with you, as a man. To say I'm sorry, to ask for help, to learn from you about how to love. Please guide me, show me, draw me." "Dear God of all creation, show me how to be with you, as woman. Touch and release the feelings and movements within me that connect with and flow from your own creative love."

Fall Information

Hi everyone!

I hope that you are settling into the new school year well! Please let us in Campus Ministry know if we can help you out as the school year progresses.

We have a few events coming up that we wanted to let you know about!

Mass: Our next Mass is Sunday the 16th – 8 PM Circuit Riders (in the Chapel)
With Ice Cream cake following…

Youth Day Celebration: September 22 and 23 (formerly World Youth Day)
Help is needed with the interactive areas again. We will help Jr and Sr High school students play interactive games. Times 11 – 6 Sat and Sun (you may also choose to stay and help out all day, if you’d like…) This years keynoters are Chris Padgett and Sarah Bauer - Shrine Youth Ministry - for more info... Food provided and a free t shirt for helping out. This also counts for service hours…

Retreat weekend: October 5 – 6
We will be heading to the High Ropes Course in Belleville for an overnight retreat. We will leave around 6pm on Friday and get back sometime around 3 on Saturday.
$15 per person – includes food and the ropes… bring a sleeping bag and/or inflatable mattress! Scholarships are available if needed – talk to Tim – x 6962

This Fall:
Trivia Night
Bonfire – October 30
Trip to the zoo – November 11
Wicked at the Fox – December 20
Thanksgiving Dinner at St Luke’s in Belleville – help feed those in need
CU @ MU – Youth Day at McKendree

Also upcoming:
Spring Break trip to the Gulf Coast
May Spiritual Formation trip to Taize, France
Informational meeting – Monday September 17, Circuit Riders at 8 pm

And don’t forget Newman Nights every Tuesday night…
8:30 in Circuit Riders.

Peace,
Erin Hammond
Catholic Campus Minister
X6418
erhammond@mckendree.edu (find me on Facebook, too - under McKendree Newman)

Mother Teresa

Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives. Each saint the Church honors responded to God's invitation to use his or her unique gifts. God calls each one of us to be a saint.

September 5, 2007
Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta
(1910-1997)

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the tiny woman recognized throughout the world for her work among the poorest of the poor, was beatified October 19, 2003. Among those present were hundreds of Missionaries of Charity, the Order she founded in 1950 as a diocesan religious community. Today the congregation also includes contemplative sisters and brothers and an order of priests.
Speaking in a strained, weary voice at the beatification Mass, Pope John Paul II declared her blessed, prompting waves of applause before the 300,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square. In his homily, read by an aide for the aging pope, the Holy Father called Mother Teresa “one of the most relevant personalities of our age” and “an icon of the Good Samaritan.” Her life, he said, was “a bold proclamation of the gospel.”
Mother Teresa's beatification, just over six years after her death, was part of an expedited process put into effect by Pope John Paul II. Like so many others around the world, he found her love for the Eucharist, for prayer and for the poor a model for all to emulate.
Born to Albanian parents in what is now Skopje, Macedonia (then part of the Ottoman Empire), Gonxha (Agnes) Bojaxhiu was the youngest of the three children who survived. For a time, the family lived comfortably, and her father's construction business thrived. But life changed overnight following his unexpected death.
During her years in public school Agnes participated in a Catholic sodality and showed a strong interest in the foreign missions. At age 18 she entered the Loreto Sisters of Dublin. It was 1928 when she said goodbye to her mother for the final time and made her way to a new land and a new life. The following year she was sent to the Loreto novitiate in Darjeeling, India. There she chose the name Teresa and prepared for a life of service. She was assigned to a high school for girls in Calcutta, where she taught history and geography to the daughters of the wealthy. But she could not escape the realities around her—the poverty, the suffering, the overwhelming numbers of destitute people.
In 1946, while riding a train to Darjeeling to make a retreat, Sister Teresa heard what she later explained as “a call within a call. The message was clear. I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them.” She also heard a call to give up her life with the Sisters of Loreto and, instead, to “follow Christ into the slums to serve him among the poorest of the poor.”
After receiving permission to leave Loreto, establish a new religious community and undertake her new work, she took a nursing course for several months. She returned to Calcutta, where she lived in the slums and opened a school for poor children. Dressed in a white sari and sandals (the ordinary dress of an Indian woman) she soon began getting to know her neighbors—especially the poor and sick—and getting to know their needs through visits.
The work was exhausting, but she was not alone for long. Volunteers who came to join her in the work, some of them former students, became the core of the Missionaries of Charity. Other helped by donating food, clothing, supplies, the use of buildings. In 1952 the city of Calcutta gave Mother Teresa a former hostel, which became a home for the dying and the destitute. As the Order expanded, services were also offered to orphans, abandoned children, alcoholics, the aging and street people.
For the next four decades Mother Teresa worked tirelessly on behalf of the poor. Her love knew no bounds. Nor did her energy, as she crisscrossed the globe pleading for support and inviting others to see the face of Jesus in the poorest of the poor. In 1979 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On September 5, 1997, God called her home.

Taken from http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintofDay/default.asp