Praying the Sunday Mass Readings with St Beuno’s Outreach

St Beuno’s Outreach is based in St Beuno’s Jesuit Spirituality Centre in the hills of North Wales, in the Diocese of Wrexham. The Outreach began in 1989, with the idea of helping people develop and maintain a personal relationship with God through Christ by praying the Word of God in the Sunday liturgy. From a prayerful awareness of the Spirit working in and through us will come a sense of mission, a desire to join Christ in his mission.

How to pray with Scripture - from St Beuno's Outreach
It is usually most helpful when entering into a formal period of prayer to spend some time quietening down and centring on God. The following indications, known as “Anchor Points” have been found to provide a good framework for your prayer. Particularly important after coming to some inner quiet is the slow entry and slow exit from prayer.

FOUR ANCHOR POINTS

  1. PREPARATION

Choose your place of prayer. Make yourself comfortable, you may like to light a candle. Get in touch with your feelings: What is my frame of mind? What do I want to say to the Lord; what do I desire?

  1. ENTRY INTO PRAYER

Become quiet and still. Relax. Try to put aside any distractions. Choose a passage of scripture. Make the sign of the cross, visibly or in your heart. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide your prayer. Read your chosen text slowly several times. Notice what comforts or disturbs you.

  1. SLOW EXIT FROM PRAYER

Speak to the Lord in your own words about this time of prayer, what has it meant to you. Perhaps finish with the Glory be to the Father or a favourite prayer of your own. Make a sign of the cross, internal or external. Leave your place of prayer, thanking God for the time he has spent with you.

  1. REFLECTION AFTER PRAYER

Ask for whatever grace you need to respond to our Lord, “with my whole heart, my whole soul, my whole mind”. If possible, do this in a different place. Recall the prayer period: Was it good to be at prayer?  Did you learn something; maybe feel that the Lord was asking something of you? Notice how you are feeling now. You may find it helpful to jot down your thoughts in a notebook.

Pentecost Sunday, Year B, 19th May 2024

The Spirit is our Life

The ancient Pentecost commemoration of the revelation of God (through the giving of the Torah and the making of the covenant) was now celebrated by the early Christians as the revelation of God through the outpouring of the Spirit (First Reading).

In the Gospel, St John returns us to Jesus’s words of farewell to his disciples. The ‘Spirit of truth’ is promised to us as it was to them. So today, we can say, this is our season in the Spirit.

The Second Reading shows St Paul’s condemnation of self-indulgence amongst those belonging to the Church at Galatia.  He tells them that only the consolations of the Spirit – ‘love, joy, peace … gentleness and self-control’ – can unite their hearts to the freedom of the Gospel. 

We can ask for the help of this same Spirit in the words of the Psalmist: ‘Lord, send out your Spirit and renew the face of the earth’.

As we are called to witness to the fire of God (by bringing the light of the Son and the heat of the Spirit to all we meet), let’s pray this line of St Paul every day this coming week:
‘Since the Spirit is my life, let me be directed by the Spirit.’

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