We live in a time of polarisation. It seems to be felt wherever you look and not even just “out there” in the culture, but also within our own church. As Christ said “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and not city or house divided against itself will stand.” (Matthew 12:25)
We cannot hope to help heal our culture and show the light of Christ if we ourselves sit divided. Our Church needs more great leaders to rise up and to teach with clarity, charity and truth. To shepherd the people who are in the pews and to evangelise those who are not. The Church needs our prayer and sacrifces. We need to be one, just as the Church is one; or Unam. The time for saints is now.
We decided here at Anima that this Lent we would encourage everyone (not just our women!) to really focus on prayer for the Church as a whole.
We wish to do this in two ways:
- Pray one of the Hours of the Divine Office
We felt that a good starting point was to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office. This is the official prayer of the Church and the Second Vatican Council suggested that the laity join with their priests in praying some of these hours.
We are asking that people take up praying one of the hours every day for the duration of Lent; whichever one suits you and your stage of life. Pick something you think you can be consistent with, if you miss saying it at the official time – that is ok, just say it later! Some of the mid morning/afternoon prayers are shorter than the more involved Morning and Evening ones. Night Prayer is always a good go-to for those who have never done it before or for the time poor. For those who already say some, pick one more!
- 2. Abstinence or Fasting
The second thing we wish to ask is that everyone take up one extra day of abstinence or fasting in the week for the specific intention of the Church. The Church has a tradition of this on a Wednesday, but if that doesn’t work for you then pick another day (but probably not Sunday!) You can be traditional and not eat meat or you can do something else that suits you. Once again, it just needs to be something that you can be consistent with. Don’t set yourself up to fail.
We have set up a form so that you can officially join us. You of course can choose not to, but we will try and send out a couple of emails through just giving some more resources to help encourage you during our time of unified prayer.
When it comes to saying the Office, there are a number of ways you can go about it. For example if you wish to do Night Prayer, the Hallow App includes a recording of it every day it in its free version. You can also find all of the hours on the Universalis app and there are other apps avaliable too. Your local Catholic bookshop will have different options for you. You can buy a book with just night prayer, with just prayers during the day, or a slightly larger book with morning and evening prayers. It is all totally up to you.If you are interested in learning more about the Divine Office Fr Tim Gallagher has written this great book.
Yes, we are techincally a women’s network, but we really wanted to broaden this out to include the men in our lives so please send it out to anyone you think might want to join.
Let us, with faith as small as a mustard seed, see what mountains can be moved.
~ Monica Russell
On behalf of the Anima Team
