From Our Spiritual Advisor:
One of the most special things about the Cursillo Movement for me is the reality that prayer, especially praying for others is so foundational in the lives of Cursillistas. Jesus prayed for people when he walked here. He intercedes for us from the right of hand of the Father, now and forever. How can we, His people, be anything other than people who pray.
When we pray for others we hold them in our hearts. We pray for them as Jesus prays for us, that they be healed and protected.
The enemy doesn’t want us to pray. If we are going to pray, he would prefer that we pray only for ourselves. Prayer for others connects us to them, regardless of whether we know them or not. The enemy doesn’t want us to experience connection – he wants us to drown in loneliness. Praying for others is all about the awareness of their beauty and needs. The enemy wants us to focus on our own exclusive, self-interested desires.
The potential exists for us to experience connection with others wherever we find ourselves.
I drove over to the Mansfield YMCA after Mass last Sunday to swim a half mile of laps. When I entered the locker room, I encountered a young African American man getting dressed for the weight room. He was talking to a man a few lockers away. I heard him say, “I’m not as educated as a lot of people our age, but I’ve grown and I’ve learned some things. My parents raised me with good values, but they didn’t kick in for a long time. I’ve been in a deep valley a few times, and those times changed me and made me a better person, and a better dad to my son. I made it through, with God’s patience and grace.
After returning from the pool and getting out of the shower, I sat down on a bench to change. The young man who I had heard talking earlier was back from the weight room and sitting on the bench next to me. He had tasteful, beautiful tattoo swirls on his arms and his back. I leaned over and said, “I like your ink.” He smiled and said thank you. Then I said, “I wasn’t eavesdropping earlier, but I couldn’t help but hear you sharing about experiencing change as the result of suffering, and your testimony that God brought you through it. I want you to know that you are an inspiration to me, and I’m sure you are for others. Keep it up young man.” He looked deeply into my eyes, smiled serenely and said, “you get it, you know exactly what I was talking about.” I responded, “if you mean have there been times in my life when I was stuck in deep valleys of my own making, and that God pulled me out of them and gave me a new understanding, a new heart, then yes, I get it. You found yourself in the furnace. In the furnace of God’s love. And I’m really happy that that you did.” He smiled broadly, fist bumped me and said that I really get him and that he hoped I would have a good day.
I’m pretty sure I was smiling when I walked out of the building that afternoon because I knew I had just experienced deep connection in the men’s locker room at the Mansfield YMCA. I backed my car out of my parking spot and as I was driving out of the lot, I came up to the young man who I had talked with in the locker room, putting his work out bag in his trunk. I stopped, rolled my window down and called over to him. “I forgot to ask you your name, my name is Greg.” He smiled and told me his name. I called him by his name and told him I would be praying for him and for his son. Smiling he walked over, fist bumped me and said, “I absolutely know we will be talking again Greg.” I responded, “I look forward to that.”
Connecting with others happens because God living in us and God living in them becomes visible and unites us. Praying for people is seeing them the way God sees them and helps us to remember that is the way that Jesus prays for us.
On the surface, it might appear to some that I don’t have much in common with that young man. At least forty years separate us and we are members of different races. And yet what makes us alike, even brothers, is much stronger and real than our differences. We were both created in the image and the likeness of a loving God who never gives up on us. And both of us have learned, sometimes the hard way, that God is always there for us.
So go ahead. Go ahead and pray for people. Whether you know them or not. Keep praying because prayer connects us. Because praying for others helps them. And because praying for people changes us.
De Colores,
Deacon Greg
