Praying the Psalms

Praying the Psalms
By the Rev. Deacon Patricia Marks
Posted June 5, 2013

The Rev. Deacon Patricia Marks

“Praying the Psalms” is my summer discipline, a way of both weaving the words of the psalms into my life and trying to answer the question of how to pray some of the more difficult passages. This online four-week course is offered by Monasteries of the Heart, a group that I have mentioned before. Each week, it highlights a different psalm with three short audio reflections by Sister Joan Chittister, along with several brief meditations by spiritual guides from a variety of paths of belief. It is one of the ongoing courses offered by the Benedictine sisters, and as I look at the descriptions of some of the others, including “The Gift of Years,” I think I will continue to join in. Whether or not you choose to participate in the on-line discussion, the questions that are posed are provocative and evocative, encouraging a reassessment of one’s direction in life, and calling us, as the Monastery of the Heart prayer says, to have hearts . . .


where all may enter in,

ears to hear your call,

hands to do your will,

voices to sing your praise

and soul enough
 to recognize You

in everything we do.

A Meditation: Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday: A Meditation
By the Rev. Deacon Patricia Marks
Posted March 26, 2013

The Rev. Deacon Patricia Marks

He had a shock of brown, unruly hair, this boy who stood on the edge of the crowd. Looking into his eyes, which were like pools of deep water, you could see movement deep within, a perturbation, as if someone had thrown stones into a pond. He had a thoughtful face, and he was thinner than most boys his age. There was a frail air about him.

He stood quietly at the crossroads amid a crowd of strangers drawn out of their regular paths. There were mothers, holding hungry babies; grown men, fresh from the fields; and teenagers, old beyond their years, scrambling and jockeying to see the Hope of the Future. And crouched near the front were the elderly, weary with waiting, but determined.

Even amid the hubbub, the boy felt at peace. Yet it was not always so.

A Meditation: Transfiguration

Transfiguration: A Meditation
By the Rev. Deacon Patricia Marks
Posted February 27, 2013

In my study window, I have a transparent memento, a cross made of glass. When the morning sun shines through it, colors dance across my desk, making a festival out of an ordinary day. The cross transfigures everything in shines on. It casts jewels on my computer keyboard; it turns the stacks of books and all the flotsam and jetsam of an undisciplined desk into a rainbow of order, a promise of letters answered, lists checked off, and projects completed.

The cross you see through
is what it is
no more, no less
transparent
without guile.

Its purpose is to be.
And in that honesty,
that self-full-ness,
it gathers up light,
focuses it,
and shines with a piercing fire.