Additional Columns by Sherry Antonetti: The Year of Paul the Apostle The Gifts of Sons Teen Tips for Surviving to Adulthood, Spritually Intact The Luminous Mystery of Marriage, A Primer for All of Us Prayer Spam My Son Peter Meets the Pope Being Spiritually Awake for the Feast Why We Don't Always Get What We Want...And Shouldn't "Cheer, Cheer for Old Notre Dame!" Becoming a Great Story Learning to be Unafraid to Ask The Gift of Courage Coming Home to the Wide Open Door of the Father To Do List for the Day, Every Day Delighting in the Unexpected Immediate Intimacy of Answered Prayers Celebrating the Song of Songs on Saint Valentine's Day Forty Lenten Resolutions

Haiku Prayers

My husband’s favorite movie is “A Bridge Too Far.” One scene that stands out involves a harrowing crossing of a river during broad daylight under withering enemy fire by hundreds of US and British forces. In one of the boats, a sergeant played by Robert Redford, leads his men while paddling furiously with the butt of his riffle. The whole crossing, all he can muster is “Hail Mary, Full of Grace” over and over again. He gets no farther in the prayer than that as his boat, laden with dead, dying and living soldiers makes it across the water. He survives the experience.

There are still moments in one’s prayer life where the best one can muster is “Come Holy Spirit.” or even just, “Hail Mary, Full of Grace.” In times of great suffering or anguish, we may not be able to pray, our hearts are so full.. Simply turning towards God is sufficient. It is then that we must remember, both epic and Haiku prayers count. There are times, seasons and reasons for both.

Just as one person’s poverty is another person’s opportunity to be generous, so also, one person’s agony is an invitation to others to be prayerful and of service on that individual’s behalf. Those raw moments in life, both present and anticipated, call for the community of saints, of family and friends, to take over for us. For those asked to pray, they may not feel as though much is accomplished by merely bowing their heads and petitioning God, but the sheer knowledge of others praying can be a source of great comfort. At funerals, there is comfort when just one more person walks through the door to be present. Each additional human that stops life to come and be there for the grieving, helps make the grief more bearable. This is true of lesser experiences of pain as well.

Every suffering is an opportunity to receive God’s grace and love in its overwhelming abundance, and an opportunity for those around the afflicted to participate in providing that grace and love. So today, when life threatens to get crowded or you hear of someone's sufferings, stop for a moment, even just to say “Hail Mary, Full of Grace.” It might help someone else get past a very hard day, even if that someone else turns out to be you.

 

Sherry Antonetti is a mother of eight children and a freelance writer of humor and family life columns with prior publications in Absolutewrite, the Catholic Standard, Beaumont Enterprise and the Washington Post. She can be reached at Smwbmpfjm@netzero.com. You can read additional pieces from her blog, http://sherryantonettiwrites.blogspot.com.