Kim Burkhardt

“Wordless sighs of the heart”

August 9, 2024

In my last post, I mentioned that I am re-reading The Tradition of Catholic Prayer from the Benedictine monks of Saint Meinrad Monastery. In that book, one of the types of prayer they mention is “wordless sighs of the heart.”

I am drawn to this phrase as this is one of the forms of prayer I have found meaningful. How about you?

,,,,,It’s been said, “There can be no faith life without prayer.” It’s also said that we cannot pray and continue sinning; when we really engage in prayer, we find that we have to allow God to change us for the better. Personally, I experience in prayer that God loves us!

True prayer goes beyond mere statements or superficial monologues directed in God’s direction. True prayer is dialogue, meaningful communication, presence. A “wordless sigh of the heart,” for example, is us opening ourselves bare before God.

How often does human prayer involve allowing our innermost selves to be fully transparent before God? Such vulnerability is a real interaction. While God certainly knows our hearts – God made us and knows us – it’s also true that we have free will. God doesn’t force us to into relationship; it’s up to us whether we are willing to be fully present before God.

When we aren’t in active relationship with God, the Holy Spirit occasionally knocks on our heart’s door; it’s up to us whether we respond to such promptings. We can also open our heart’s door to God by taking the initiative ourselves to communicate – God will show up when invited in. Sometimes, we feel God’s presence in prayer (I have!); other times, God may work “under the surface” in ways that we don’t observe; God working to change us “under our radar” is what John of the Cross wrote about in his book Dark Night of the Soul (“Dark Night” being a period of inner transition that isn’t fully transparent to us, rather than necessarily being a depressive period!).

There are many forms of prayer in which we have an active relationship with God. Contemplative prayer (for example, visit the network of Contemplative Outreach) is one way, being engaged while at church is another way – as aremeditative prayers such as praying the rosary, talking to God, heartfelt intercessions, prayers of praise (including music)……… What makes prayer meaningful is that we pray in a way that makes it relational. There are as many ways to pray as there are people!

Interested in learning more about prayer? Check out A Parish Catechist’s previous blog post, “How to Pray.” Also, find info here about A Parish Catechist’s Saturday morning Zoom calls about prayer.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). Blogging is sustainable via blog readership (i.e. readers/subscribers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you subscribe to follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them and invite them to subscribe (thank you!). Also, your support ($$) to help sustain this blog is welcome.

The Tradition of Catholic Prayer (book review, reflections, invite)

August 2, 2024

I recently started re-reading The Tradition of Catholic Prayer from the Benedictine monks of Saint Meinrad Monastery (I have a shelf dedicated to faith books that I return to re-read periodically). When we want to read about prayer, one of the natural places to turn is books written monks!

The depth and breadth of this book is summarized well on the book’s back cover, beginning with the following sentence: “Catholics have a rich and ancient prayer tradition that informs contemporary practice.” No wonder that people looking to deepen their prayer life look – among other places – to the Catholic Church. The variety of Catholic prayer experience and the historical context for this “rich and ancient prayer tradition” are covered engagingly in this very readable book. It’s worth a read for anyone looking to deepen their prayer life; it has helped nourish my ever-present hunger to sustain a rich and deep prayer life. I have been getting copies of this book into the hands of several people each year in recent years…..

A couple passages from this book and my reflections upon them:

“….the prayer of real people over the centuries….[who] opened their hearts and minds to God in prayer and came away changed by the living God whom they encountered” (page XI).” I have heard two sayings: “There can be no faith life without prayer” and “Prayer is a relationship (i.e., a relationship between the pray-er and God).” When we actively engage in prayer, we do open our hearts and minds to God; an encounter with “the living God” does change us. We can’t help but be changed by an encounter with God. I experienced as a result of an encounter with God in 2016 – after having heard it said in church innumerable times – that God loves me.

“As Benedictines [the monks who wrote this book] they practice prayer day in and day out, with their brothers in choir, alone in their cells, using formal rites and wordless sighs of the heart” (page XII). There are as many ways to pray and encounter God as there are people who pray – each of us is different and will therefore have our own relationship with God. Personally, my deepest experience of praying to or toward God – in addition to resting in God’s presence when God’s grace comes my direction – happens in “wordless sighs of the heart.” God doesn’t need the sentences and grammar of humanly-constructed language to receive what’s inside of us. Simply presenting oneself to God – in full inner transparency – is the prayer that I find most direct, prayerful, engaging, productive.

Daily prayer is transformative. Wondering how to pray? Check out this previous post on approaches to prayer. Also, attend our Saturday morning Zoom sessions about prayer (info here). Wishing you all the best in deepening your prayer life….

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Acknowledging our sins at mass: The Confiteor

July 27, 2024

At Catholic masses, we acknowledge our sins at the beginning of mass:

The Confiteor

I confess to almighty God,
and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned,
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done and what I have failed to do,
through my faults, through my faults, through my most grievous faults;
therefore I ask the blessed Mary ever-virgin,
all the angels and saints,
and you my brothers and sisters
to pray for me to the Lord our God

–

We all know that we’re imperfect – part of “The human condition.” Lately, I’ve been commenting “If anyone is wondering about human sinfulness, just turn on the evening news” (i.e, human sinfulness is reported on daily!).

Our human imperfections are not viewed universally as caused by sin or by human brokenness. Some would argue that while we humans aren’t perfect, calling us sinful has an unnecessary harmful emotional effect; some counter-argue that an alternate and better route to improved well-being is that human effort is all we need to overcome our imperfections: social training, psychological and social supports, a good family environment, and “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” Thes things, in and of themselves, are all important and good (and, arguably, not enough).

Again…..turn on the evening news. We humans do plenty wrong. The longer I sit in pews, the more convinced I am that we’ve inherited a sinful nature (Adam and Eve, the apple….). However, this view isn’t one for keeping us down (“I’m unredeemable, horrible!”). Rather, there’s freedom. When we surrender and allow God to work in our lives, God redeems us. Allowing God to transform us is an unequivacal path to becoming better people.

Several years ago (2016), I surrendered in prayer to allow God to do whatever he wanted in me. This occurred after a re-conversion experience in which I felt God’s love….. Yet, part of me was apprehensive. “What’s God going to do to me (or in me?)?” In hindsight, this fear was ridiculous. God is love, God loves us, God wants the best for us. What exactly did I think that a loving God was going to do “to me” or “in me?” Now that I’ve had some time following that surrender, I’m seeing the result of God working in me. I am becoming happier and I am starting to be nicer to other people. Pretty good results.

As time unfolds, I am also finding deeper meaning in confessing The Confiteor at mass. Confessing publicly that we have sinned is an acknowledgement of our human imperfection and an education into who we are and Church teaching. Further, such public confession has social value. When we acknowledge together that we are all sinners, then we have to forgive one another – none of us holier (above our neighbor in the pew next to us), nor can we condemn the person in the pew next to us. Further, we call others to pray for us while we also pray for everyone else. The Confiteor is a great prayer!

Join A Parish Catechist’s Zoom call on Tuesday evening at 7:00 pm Pacific to discuss topics of faith – such as the Nicene Creed and The Confiteor. Small group sharing is one of the ways we broaden and deepen our faith. You are welcome: Zoom sign in passcode is 898 322 8983 .

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages (and a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them (thank you!). Also, your support ($$) to help sustain this blog is welcome.

“What We Believe”: believing the Nicene Creed

July 20, 2024

Many Christians grow up reciting the Nicene Creed, Christianity’s central statement of belief.

A passing thought about the history might assume that Christian theology was fully and immediately self-evident as a result of Jesus’ time on earth. Yet, Christianity didn’t have the New Testament and a fully articulated theology in writing within weeks, months, or even decades following Christ’s death and resurrection.

By the early 300’s, the early church recognized that there was not full consensus of Christian belief. Therefore, church bishops met in 325 in the city of Nicea – in modern-day Turkey – to clearly articulate “what we believe” as Christians. Thus, we now have the regularly-cited Nicene Creed (“The Council of Nicea”).

We also have the similarly worded Apostle’s Creed.

While many of us often recite the Creed at church, how many of us believe the Creed in its’ entirety? The Creed IS “What we believe…..”

Growing up, I sat in pews believing in “God the Father” and “The Holy Spirit.” I believed in having a personal relationship with God. I believed in a historical Jesus Christ, but felt rather ambivalent about we humans needing a “God the Son.” As a child who felt very orthodox in many ways, I flat-out questioned what I now call “biological implausibilities” – a virgin birth, Christ’s resurrection, Mary’s assumption into heaven. For real? These “biological implausibilities” simply didn’t square, in my mind, with our modern understanding of human biology….

In my mid-twenties, I determined that I needed to resolve these matters if I was going to remain in pews. End result: I wasn’t in the pews for twenty years.

A powerful re-conversion experience (told here) brought me back. I knew then that God loves me; I still hadn’t made peace with the Nicene Creed. I brought this challenge to a couple of pastors. They both said, in essence, “We want you in a pew. Come back, spend some time mulling over the things you’re struggling with. Look for ways to make peace with these things.” To a large degree, I’ve made peace….. Further, my faith has matured. I know that God loves me, God wants me to love other people, and trying to square with the Nicene Creed has brought me faith lessons that I couldn’t have anticipated.

What about you?

It’s easy to recite a creed when we’re in a pew on Sunday morning and everyone is reciting the Creed. On a personal level, do you believe everything that we recite in the Creed? Really?

There’s plenty in the Nicene Creed to unsettle modern-day sensibilities. I’ve met people who accept it all because “this is what our faith believes.” Other people are like me: we wrestle with a topic before we “make it our own.”

Read through the Nicene Creed, shown below. Reflect on what parts you believe, what parts challenge you. Then, feel free to join A Parish Catechist Zoom call on Tuesday evening at 7:00 pm Pacific to discuss the Creed (Zoom sign in passcode: 898 322 8983).

The Nicene Creed

I believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Join A Parish Catechist’s Zoom call on Tuesday evening at 7:00 pm Pacific to discuss the Nicene Creed. Zoom sign in passcode: 898 322 8983 .

Fear-and-faith or fear-vs-faith?

July 13, 2024

When I was ten years old, we were playing dodge ball at school on a December afternoon. I woke up in the hospital the next morning with a concussion and hairline skull fracture.

A month later, after physically recovering, I cued up to play dodge ball again. A classmate who was cued up next to me said, “Kim, you don’t have play.” In other words, “We know what happened to you. You don’t have to prove anything to us.” No, actually, I did need to play. I needed to not end up afraid of a game that landed me in the hospital. So, I played several times until I was satisfied that I wasn’t afraid of dodge ball. I then gave up the game, having discovered that I had lost interest.

There were, however, other facets to fear stemming from that afternoon game of ball. Several years later, I happened upon a red ball of the fateful dodge ball type. Upon seeing that red ball, my stomach instantly tied up with fear. It hadn’t occurred to me at age ten that I needed to work through fear of the red ball; later, it took me too long to work through the lingering fear of that ball. Another facet of fear from that game was a social fear. I had been friends with the classmate who threw the dodge ball that had hit me in the head. He and I were socially awkward children. When I returned to school six days after landing in the hospital, I naturally looked around the school campus for him. I spotted him alone, navigating the playground. He, myself, and the likely the whole school knew that he had thrown the ball. Had his older brother told their mother about what happened at school? He and I – two awkward kids – never spoke again, apart from one awkward “hello” in the hallway during high school. On my end, I was racked with guilt. My concussion was my fault; I had gotten distracted watching another group of kids play hopscotch instead of paying attention to the ball that I should have dodged. But, I didn’t know how to talk to my classmate. He didn’t know how to talk to me. A friendship ended. If his mother found out what had happened at school, he may have been blamed for knocking a girl unconscious. ….When my mother and I discussed the dodge ball game in the days following the event, she blamed neither me nor the child who threw the ball – her view was that the school staff should have prevented the injury (she said so the school principal the day after the dodge ball game)…..

So much fear from that situation. My potential fear afterward of a game. My fear of red textured balls. Social anxiety for two children. My mother’s fear when the doctor spoke about the possibility of me ending up in a coma. At least some of these fears were understandable. Yet, the ending of a childhood friendship could have been prevented if the other child and I could have figured out how to talk to one another. Or, if the adults around us – teachers, parents – had perhaps thought to make sure that there wasn’t any lingering tension between the two of us.

The vast majority of us live with fear. Fear of all kinds of things. Some fears are understandable, even reasonable (fear of getting run over by an oncoming vehicle, for example). Too often, we allow fear to immobilize us.

Fear has consequences. Friendships ended, opportunities lost, lives stilted. Far too often, we don’t fully live because we allow our fears to hinder us. “I couldn’t take that job, I couldn’t try that new thing, I couldn’t learn to overcome X or Y obstacle, I couldn’t deal with A or B emotional issue, resolve a matter with that person…. How many ways do you allow fear to keep you from fully living your best life? How many regrets do you have because you allowed fear to hold you back?

Perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18). I heard this any number of times over the years. This began to make sense after I returned to church in 2016. My return to church involved a re-conversion experience told here. In that re-conversion experience, I experienced that God loves me. In the time that followed, a person of faith took the time to care. When we are in a place of love, fear fades.

Decades after the dodge ball game (this week!), I was at a grocery store and saw red textured balls in the children’s toy section. Less stomach knotting when I see these red textured balls now, but still an instant memory of a dodge ball game on a school playground. And, the instant memory of a lost friend who now lives in another state. I know he’s living in another state because I looked him several years ago – thinking then that I should phone him. I had thought through the potential phone call when I looked him up several years ago – he would likely see my name on call display when I would call, likely invoking a reaction on his end. If he answered the phone, I would start the conversation by saying, “I am sorry.” He would know what I was sorry for. I would then remark, “It was my fault.” Beyond my introduction, I would then let him talk. I would talk only enough to keep the conversation going, if he was at a loss for words, with the goal of healing an old emotional wound…..

Yesterday afternoon, I looked him up again. Found what appeared to be a current phone number. Waited until he would likely be home from work, called the phone number intending to attempt to finally clear the air. A turning stomach when I dialed the number. Earlier in the day, I was hoping for reconciliation. When I actually dialed the number, I was unfortunately relieved to discover that the phone number was disconnected (“Upon dialing the number, I am nervous to talk to him. Can an old hurt actually be resolved decades later? Does he even want to hear from me after all this time? Is my attempted phone call to him self-serving?”)….. If circumstances allow us to cross paths again (say, a high school reunion), I am now ready to talk to him.

Some say that courage is acting even when we are afraid. Sure. There’s also more available to us, beyond our own courage. We know there are times when we don’t conjure up courage, when we detrimentally stay in fear.

Staying in fear is not trusting in God. If we allow fear to keep us in fear, then we believe – or resign ourselves to believing – that what we fear has more control over us than God can conquer. Feeling that the things we fear are bigger than God’s ability to lead us out of what scares us is not living in faith, no matter how faithful we might otherwise want to believe ourselves to be.

How willing are you to move beyond fear? If you might be willing to move beyond your fears that you allow to hinder your life (in whatever ways), try surrendering. Allow God to resolve your situation(s) and your fears. This is an act of faith, requiring a trusting relationship with God (there’s going to be prayer involved!). This might also involve a conversation with people in your life (“Hey, here’s a fear in my life…..I’m going to see about getting past this fear…..”).

God loves us. When we allow God’s love to be present to us, perfect love casts out fear.

Living faith: challenging, rewarding, becoming who we should be

July 11, 2024

We occasionally meet someone who has clearly become the person they were meant to be. I know such a person right now – aspiring to be like them helps push me forward in living my faith, to put faith concepts into practice.

Truly being a person of faith isn’t merely about sitting in a pew on Sundays.

Certainly, sitting in a pew is part of “showing up.” The pews are part of where we learn – a gateway into faith, so to speak.

Whether we are truly living our faith is about whether we engage when attending church combined with what we do outside of church.

This was articulated well by Bishop Frank Schuster (Seattle): “God doesn’t want to be an app that we pull up occasionally. Rather, God wants to be our operating system that runs our lives.”

What does it mean to have God be the operating system that runs our lives? Simply put, God is only going to be the operating system that runs our lives when we assent to allow this.

Assenting to allow God be our operating system means:

Learning about God and faith, to the limited degree that we can (another Seattle-area priest, Fr. Tim Clark, verbally observed that our efforts to understand God and describe God really only “get around the edges…. Think of God as a circle, with our efforts to understand God and describe God as sometimes touching some parts of that circle).
Assenting that it’s God who is the ultimate reality, that we are junior parties to a relationship with God, that we are meant to follow God’s lead.
Developing a prayer-centered relationship with God. Just as our relationships with people require communication and social interaction, having a relationship with God requires communication and social interaction – which happens in prayer. More on prayer here.
Truly letting God into our hearts. “It is no longer I, but God who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). We often don’t do such a great job of transforming our lives on our own. Allowing God to shape us is crucial to becoming the people we are meant to be.
Loving the people around us. Christ was asked, which of the commandments is greatest? He responded in Matthew 22:34-40: “The greatest commandments are…love the Lord your God….and….love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
“Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Galatians 16:14). There’s a lot to unpack here. If we hold up everything we think and do to this standard, we can spend our entire lives getting closer to living the loving lives we are meant to live.

Interested in an improved prayer life? Reminder: faith sharing groups about our prayer lives are starting on Zoom with A Parish Catechist on Saturday, July 20 (8:00 am, Pacific Time). More info here (including a Zoom link) – we would love to have you join in!

How-to list: steps to living our faith as love

June 24, 2024

The purpose of being a person of faith is ultimately about “Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14).

Christ was asked, “Which of the commandments is greatest?” He responded, ““Love God and love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:34-40).

So, how do we live our lives as our faith calls us to? Several steps – if applied – move us forward in love (kudos for these steps you already put into practice!):

Love God. God is love. We spend time with the people we love; thus, loving God requires spending time with God in prayer (note: prayer isn’t just a one-way conversation of us talking to God. Prayer is a relationship. Relationships go both ways – in addition to communicating to God, allow God to be present in prayer, be attentive to God’s loving presence.). Twenty minutes in daily prayer is feasible. Regular prayer transforms us, increases both our faith and how our faith unfolds in our lives!
Loving God requires loving God’s children. This is both a spiritual truth and applies our faith toward the greater social good (this spiritual truth is spoken of in 1 John 4:20). Everyone is a child of God – no exceptions. Even the people we don’t like are beloved children of God (that’s hard!). It can be easy to cultivate a loving relationship with God (the “faith is exclusively a relationship between me and God” syndrome) – it’s harder to apply our faith to learning to love any people we’d rather avoid. However, learning to love people we’d rather avoid (or even hate!) forces us to grow into becoming better people – faith in action! The world becomes a better place as a result.
Apply generosity of spirit throughout each day. As the saying goes, “everyone loves a cheerful giver.” Through this principle, we become better people and contribute positively to our communities and the individuals within our communities.
Go the extra mile to be a caring person when interacting with people. Be the one to help build community, to be a force for good. Result: people feel cared for!
Get involved in relieving the needs in your community. Volunteer where needed, donate to charity. We can all be involved in making our community a better place.
Make time for people when they need you. Be present when someone is vulnerable. This is sometimes easy when it’s someone we care about it, when the topic-at-hand is an easy one, and we can easily make time. Sometimes, though, being present when someone feels vulnerable is hard. Work at it, people need you. It’s a good, important way to support people.
Be the one to forgive, even when it’s hard. This is the right thing to do, it heals relationships. Sometimes, we need to be the bigger person (even when we don’t want to!).
Find something good in everyone. Nearly everyone – even the people who are difficult – have positive traits. Compliment people’s strengths.
In marriages, apply the “60/40 rule.” If both spouses spend 60% of their marital effort thinking about meeting the other spouse’s needs (rather than focusing on “what do I want out of this marriage”), the marriage will go well. A great strategy!
Build people up. Family, friends, co-workers.
Give children and pets – everyone who is vulnerable (sick folks, marginalized individuals, etc. – your undivided attention. When we are good to people who can’t do anything for us – we’re living as well as we ought to.
Commit random acts of kindness. The more, the better.
Cultivate empathy.
Allow God to clean up your character flaws. Often time, our flaws get reduced better with God’s help. Our imperfections don’t help anybody!

You are invited: growing-in-faith events at ParishCatechist!

June 14, 2024

Growing up in faith doesn’t end when we graduate from high school. Really, adult faith is really builds upon a foundation at that point! Just as we expect to grow in career development and mental maturity throughout adulthood, growing in faith doesn’t stop at age eighteen. Research (and life experience!) shows that we can continue to grow and mature in faith throughout our lives. The theologian/academic/sociologist James Fowler describes in his book Stages of Faith that there are six developmental stages we can mature into in faith – three of which typically happen after high school and only happen if we actively engage in growing our faith. Fowler found through hundreds of interviews that some people settle into a high school level of faith in which they remain for the rest of their lives – even if they grow in other aspects of their lives (career development, emotional maturity, etc.). However, there’s no need to stay at a high school level of faith development when continued faith maturity is available!

A Parish Catechist is now offering several growing-in-faith events for individuals of all faith maturity levels, starting on June 30, 2024! Zoom with us for 30 minutes on your choice of upcoming Sunday or Tuesday evenings for insightful presentations followed by Q&A discussion sessions on a range of engaging grow-in-faith topics:

To attend the events on the flyer above, register here (you will receive Zoom invites to ALL sessions, attend the sessions you choose). You are welcome to attend!

https://www.canva.com/design/DAGH3kKIWXE/gRUh_lkE9vITKvnSIKiAlw/view?utm_content=DAGH3kKIWXE&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=editor

Book Review: The Orthodox Way

June 12, 2024

The back cover of this book describes The Orthodox Way as follows:

“This book is a general account of the doctrine, worship and life of Orthodox Christians by the author of the now classic THE ORTHODOX CHURCH. It raises the basic issues of theology…. helps to fill the need for a modern Orthodox catechism… Throughout the book, Father Ware shows the meaning of Orthodox doctrine for the life of the individual Christian.”

For readers who have anything of a contemplative bent or an interest in mysticism, I find the book to be an important read for growing one’s faith (the Orthodox church has a very definite contemplative vein within it). I recently quoted The Orthodox Way by Bishop Kallistos Ware in a previous blog post:

“The Greek Fathers liken man’s encounter with God to the experience of someone walking over the mountains in the mist: he takes a step forward and suddenly finds that he is on the edge of a precipice, with no solid ground beneath his foot but only a bottomless abyss.”

I read this book a year or two ago. I find myself coming back to it; statements such as the one above feed my prayer life. This is the type of book I read before going to bed – a book to lift one’s spirits. A worthwhile read!

Spiritual accompaniment

Accompanying you in your faith journey

Author: Kim Burkhardt