Praise be Jesus Christ, now and forever! Praise to Him who was, is, and is to come. Praise the Risen and Living God. He is good and speaks to us!
Thank You, Lord, for all thy benefits! Thank You for making Your Presence available to us, in Your Word, in Your Church, in The Most Blessed Sacrament.
We are sorry for the times that we doubt You still speak to Your people. We are sorry when we “get in the way” by thinking You could not possibly continue to reveal truths to us in unexpected ways.
On Wednesdays, I have had the honor of being called to lead a faith and fellowship time for a group of middle schoolers at a local co-op. I was definitely called by God to do so because I did not necessarily desire to add to my already busy time on the day of the week that I seek to be still and pray and listen.
The time for this group is VERY limited, only about 15 minutes or so once a week. I felt drawn to give them just a “nugget” of faith and grant more time to fellowship as this was a much needed “unstructured” part of their co-op day. With this in mind, my goal was to cover a formula for prayer, encourage intercessory prayer, and give incentives and prompts for them to begin holy conversations.
The formula for prayer was summarized by ACTS – Let’s Roll. Many are familiar with ACTS: Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, Supplication, but I desired to introduce the students to Listening and Responding. Many are not introduced to these aspects of our prayer time, because, quite frankly, it is difficult to teach, demonstrate, and do! Yet, I felt called. I responded to this call, and I pray the students were just as amazed as I was by God’s blessing us this week.
I covered the “L” part of the formula first by playing the telephone game. The students were amazing at this! Then, I demonstrated the ACTS, and set a timer for TWO minutes when the students were asked to just sit and listen, paying attention to anything that came to their mind. I told them that if what they experienced during this time, whether it be an image, song, scripture passage or an actual word, was from God, He would confirm it in other ways.
Knowing how difficult things like this are to share, I was not expecting much. I told the class after their two minutes what came to my mind, even though it was silly. The old nursery song, “The Ants Go Marching” came to my mind during our two minutes. One student shared that all he could hear during our time of listening was a classmate’s shoes hitting the floor repeatedly (maybe like marching?!) Wow! That in itself is amazing, but what would God have to be telling us through this. We left the class not knowing.
It did not take long! After I arrived home, I spent some quiet time in prayer beginning with some reading and ending with some research. During my quiet time at home, I began my prayer time by picking up my 33 Days to Eucharistic Glory book and read Day 4. This day’s reading is about how we should be steadfastly determined in our pilgrimage to Heaven. The book defines determination by stating, “The virtue of determination allows us to focus on a task and see it through to completion. Just keep moving in the direction of your goal or destination. Determination is taking the next step, now matter how small that step may be.”
I then opened my Bible, another main part of my prayer time. Deuteronomy 18:21 states, “You may say to yourself, ‘How can we recognize a word that the Lord has not spoken?’ It continues in verse 22 to read that if something is not from God, it will not prove true. I touched on this in class. I mentioned that if something is from God, He will confirm it. He was definitely confirming!
After reading my Bible, I connected determination and ants with the continuing to march in every verse. Also, ants do indeed take small steps.
Finally, I thought that perhaps I would look up the meaning or purpose of this song. American Songwriter.com states, “’Ants Go Marching’ pulls some of its lyrics from “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” a Civil War-era song that celebrated soldiers’ return from the war. Irish-American composer Patrick Gilmore is credited for writing the tune that was published by the Library of Congress in 1863 under a pseudonym. The song is said to be inspired by Gilmore’s sister Annie, who longed for her fiancé, Union soldier John O’Rourke, to return home safely. The song also crossed political lines and was sung by both the Union and Confederate armies.”
Taking all this into consideration, I believe God is trying to tell us that we are indeed to journey safely (through the Sacraments and under the protection of obedience to our Holy Mother Church) and steadfastly determined in our pilgrimage to Heaven – our true eternal home. When we feel like taking the next step is just too hard, let us march one small step at a time, just like the ants.
Obviously, I could not have planned all this! God is so good to make Himself known in the most unexpected and silly ways!
Has God spoken to you in an unexpected or silly way? Do you follow a formula of prayer? Does it include listening? Share with others; we all need to be encouraged in our prayer life!
Photo by Joshua Manjgo on Unsplash
