THIS is News?

Hokah man centers his life around prayer

The above is an actual headline from an article in the 9 March 2007 edition of The LaCrosse Tribune. The headline strikes me as a little sad as it makes it sound like a person centering his life arround prayer is something that is not normal. Remember the old joke about the headline: Dog Bites Man isn't news, but Man Bites Dog is? This sort of reminds me like that. People who are in the habit of Christian prayer shouldn't be news. Unfortunately, with the way so much of America has cut God out of everyday life, what should be the norm has become the unusual, & thus newsworthy. What was normal, a person's life centered arround Christ & a daily prayer schedule, now isn't.

What this article is about isn't just that he prays. In this case it is about a person's experiences with monastic-style prayer. & in that sense, it is actually different from the average Christian's prayer life. The person in this case is 1 of my oldest friends, Dan McKenzie. We met long ago, in a galaxy far away when we were both students at Loras College. Dan was from Sioux City. He came originally as a seminarian from the Sioux City Diocese. Eventually he met his future wife, LuAnn (something I helped played a part in bringing about) & was married (& yes, I was in the wedding). A few years later their son Jon came along. In the mid 80s he moved up to the LaCrosse area to work. & for as long as I've known him, he has been anything but average. These days we usually get together when he is down here at New Melleray Abbey in Peosta. Otherwise we communicate via the internet.

The article is quite interesting. & for the secular media, it does well in catching what Dan's prayer life is all about. Monastic prayer is centered arround setting aside certain periods of time during the day for prayer, Bible & Spiritual reading as well as meditating & contemplating on what is read. The idea is that by doing so you sanctify the entire day. Western Monasticism owes its form to St. Benedict & the Rule that he wrote.

A part of this daily prayer is the use of The Divine Liturgy (Liturgy of the Hours) that is prayed in various forms in both the Eastern & Western Catholic Churches that make up the Catholic Church by priests, religious & many of the laity. This Liturgy uses the Psalms & the various Old & New Testament Canticles in a cycle ( usually a 2 or 4 week cycle depending on the form). The hour known as Vigils or The Office of Readings has a longer reading from Scripture after the Psalms as well as a reading from the Church Fathers, Church documents, or a hagiographic reading for a saint's feast. On Sundays (Lent excepted) & feast days the Te Deum is also included. There is also an option to extend it with additional canticles & a reading from the Gospel in some situations. The 2 hinge hours are Lauds (Morning Prayer) & Vespers (Evening Prayer). These 2 hours have a shorter reading followed by The Canticle of Zechariah for Lauds & The Canticle of Mary for Vespers. During the day there are 3 other hours, Terce, Sext & None. These are much shorter prayers &, depending on who is saying them, not always required. The final part is Compline (Night Prayer). This short hour includes the Nunc Dimittis (the prayer said by Simeon in the Temple).

The Divine Office can be & for most people usually is prayed by the individual alone. But there is something special when you can participate in it with at least a friend & esp at a place like New Melleray where you can participate in it at its fullest. As Dan says: "Once you’ve been with these guys, prayed with them and experienced the depth of spirituality like that, it just never goes away. You have something concrete in your heart."

While I don't pray all the Hours (I don't pray the 3 short mid day Hours), The Divine Office is at the heart of my prayer life also. What the article says about how Dan feels if he misses prayer: "he has ignored the most important part of his life. " is asolutely true.

In the article Dan shares a little of what his experience of God is as a result of his times in prayer & contemplation: “Sitting there in his presence, you feel his presence all around you and with you and it’s something that stays with you the rest of the day.

You still feel like you’ve got this warm blanket around you because that unity in contemplation just stays with you. And if you skip it for a few days it shows, just like any loving couple, married couple, if they don’t spend time with each other like that, the relationship just goes to pieces.”

Dan's son Jon has been going along since he was 12. Jon was married last Fall & is now on his own. In my opinion, taking Jon along over the years has helped Dan to give him the best foundation for married life that he could have, a living faith in Jesus.

The type of contemplative prayer that Dan is talking about isn't the "New Agey" type that is so popular today. This is the type of contemplative prayer called for in the Psalms, practiced by Jesus, Peter, Paul, Mary & the Church down through the ages. Contemplative prayer is meditating on Scripture, hearing what God is saying to you doing as Mary is described as doing in Luke 2:15 "And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart." Another translation uses the word "pondered".

As Dan put it: “We can read all about God, but experiencing God is a whole different thing. said. Contemplation is about experiencing God, not just learning about him.” It “teaches you that there is more to life than this hectic monster of a world that I get up to every day. It is possible to live a peaceful, prayerful life in a wild world.” I couldn't agree more.

(Photo: Dan McKenzie, basement of his home, by Erik Daily for The LaCrosse Tribune)