Newsletter October 30th 2016

Reflection – On Prayer Guides

If you desire to pray better, a suggestion is to make friends, and keep company, with good prayers. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is perhaps the best person to learn from (after all, it was she who first taught Jesus how to pray). Then there are a host of others who are only food willing to reach out and teach the art of prayer, such as John the Beloved or Mary of Bethany; and then there are persons such as Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. The last two who have written beautifully on their own experience of prayer and are keen to be prayer guides. And there may be other men or women whom we know and who may or may not have the official title of “spiritual director” “prayer guide”. is with a prayer guide in mind that I looked at the intriguing person of Zacchaeus. I have never thought of him as one who could give me some insights on prayer – but he is a person who does it rather well! Zacchaeus has some fine dispositions for prayer: he desires to see Jesus; he won’t allow his own shortcomings to get in the road; and he responds to Jesus in a delightful way.

Another stirring detail about this particular encounter is that the search was mutual: Jesus was

looking for Zacchaeus! (Kathryn Williams pddm)

oct-30th