Prayers & Thoughts on Prayer
KC never claimed she wrote prayers all by herself, all alone.
She told me that she was inspired by her Voice, wrote drafts and asked for guidance on specific wording and phrasing when unsure.
Whenever possible, she would write on her iPad in our backyard. We both loved being outdoors. In the hot weather, we'd run misters, and in the cold, we'd bundle up and use throws.
She'd send her final versions to me via Gmail (since I was often away, working part-time, especially during 2019-20) and the time and dates provided below are from these emails.
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Morning sun with fountain and misters
Thoughts dated July 1, 2019
My focus as an individual Christian believer
is on the point where heaven and earth meet,
that is, Jesus.
As a finite human being I'm very aware that no matter
what good I might do, no matter how right-minded I would be
towards God and neighbor, I'm stuck in the Old Testament
without Jesus.
Not in a million years could I ever touch the infinite without Him.
This person Who is both finite and infinite does for me what I could never do alone: create a Bridge between me and God.
Not in a million years could I reach God on my own volition.
Jesus provides the warp speed that allows me to break through
the bounds of time and space.
And what are these bounds of time and space? I imagine these
as in part, at least, the true meaning of Original Sin. I can
believe there was a time in our human history when we had access
to the infinite.
And we gave it up. We exchanged access to the infinite for what turned
out to be very stupid things.
If you have access to the infinite your body may die and you will feel it but your soul will barely notice it. If you live in Christ and He lives in you, you are already living the infinite. I think this is what He means by Eternal Life.
In living His life your frame of reference changes transformatively.
To me this is a very individual experience which cannot be reduced to
a formula. Nonetheless it is real. And it is now.
There's nothing I could say here that St. Paul hasn't said better about this frame of reference.
Thoughts dated July 2, 2019
The Holy Mother knew if she gave me the Infant to carry I would be protective of myself as well. She knows me very well. I have no idea how to take care of myself otherwise.
Thoughts dated July 7, 2019
You are like rain from the south that gives life to the desert.
You are like the sunrise that tells the day to begin,
You are like the sunset that tells the day to get some rest.
Two thoughts dated July 12, 2019
If we don't give Jesus an occasion to laugh, to be silly, then He's never really fully human. Be that occasion and be blessed.
*†*†
I thought of something good to do, giving up time for a good cause. He asked me if I felt virtuous and I said, no, not particularly.
And I said after thinking about it, I wonder why once you get to apprehend the Father it is so difficult to say no to Him if He asks for something?
You can say no but you don't want to. So why is that?
Then He showed me lilies, gardenias, and white roses. Those are funeral flowers, I said. Why are you showing me funeral flowers?
And He said, which would you rather have? Those dead flowers or a living plant?
He must know I hate funeral flowers. I'd much rather have a living plant. And He said the Father gives you the living plant.
He gives life.
KC’s thoughts about Prayer, sent to me on Jan 3, 2020 at 2:16 AM
I just started reading the quote in your email, which made me smile because I had just started writing down my thinking process and I could instantly see the similarity:
The birth of a thought
The recognition of a thought
The examination of a thought
The formalization of a thought
The preservation of a thought
This is part of the creative process for me but also the way at which I arrive at "truths". The formalization of a thought is very interesting for me because it involves memorization, similar to pre-literacy when people memorized sagas or the Bible.
It's also somewhat like formal prayer: repetition is also involved. The best way to memorize a prayer is to repeat it.
This is the way we thought about important things for most of human history. Which brings me to "Previous ages did not know this tension." That whole passage is fascinating, as I don't feel that tension particularly.
And the answer to how could that be may lie in not what I think about but *how* I think about it.
It seems I unconsciously adopted a method of thought that constantly turns thought into prayer: a method of thought that has its roots in the Bible and in me may even have been derived from reading the Bible as a child.
As a segue, I highly recommend reading the book on Sister Consolata. The whole section on Jesus rejecting useless thoughts is fascinating, for example. And of course, fundamentally He is guiding her to prayer.
I think we underestimate the power of prayer as a method of organizing our thoughts. What I am saying is that if done right *all* thinking can be prayer.
St. Rafael Arnáiz Barón