Dear Ascension Parishioners:

On December 7, 2009, the Parish Council and Parish Staff announced an inaugural parish “spotlight” program to the leaders of our parish ministries. The spotlight program shines a bright light on different pillars of parish life at Ascension— prayer, service and stewardship, among other themes—in order to improve our understanding and the practice of our faith.

We invite you to join us as an integral part of our 2010 “Spotlight on Prayer.” Prayer is the natural selection for our first spotlight. It is a cornerstone for developing a strong personal faith and creating a vibrant, faith-filled parish.

Over the past several months, members of Ascension’s Parish Council and Parish Staff—and most recently, leaders of our parish ministries-—have reflected on the following questions:

• What is my understanding of prayer?
• How do I pray?
• How can I improve my personal prayer?
• How can we, as a parish, become more prayerful?

We invite you to reflect on these questions yourself and join us and Ascension’s many ministries over the coming months as we explore the answers together. The “Spotlight on Prayer” is a collaborative process in which all parishioners can, indeed must, participate. If we invest the time and effort to develop a deeper prayer life, the benefits will be immeasurable.

Our Spotlight on Prayer presently has two aspects. The first aspect is education. There are many different ways to pray, just as there are many different types of prayer. Our homilists will help us learn more about prayer, and we’ll use our media—the Dome, Ascension’s website, e-newsletter and Facebook page—to create a “library” of resource materials about prayer. If you have a favorite book or article, or read a particular blog or visit a website that has helped you learn about prayer, please let us know so we can make these resources available to others. We will learn from and with each other. However, we need you to take initiative—to ask questions and start dialogues about prayer within your families and ministries.

The second aspect is implementation—transforming our education about prayer into a healthy and active individual and parish prayer life. Once we know more about prayer, and bring it into our daily focus, we can pray together more effectively. As we recently did with the “Forty-Day Celebration of Life” program, we will select themes for monthly prayer as a parish. We invite you to suggest monthly prayer themes: the focus can be on issues within our parish, our Oak Park community, our nation, our world and our Catholic Church.

We ask our ministries, especially those that have an emphasis on spirituality, to help implement our Spotlight on Prayer by assuming responsibility for prayer events for a particular month. A ministry might select a particular type of prayer to help our community learn more about and engage in that type of prayer. For example, a ministry may decide to promote prayer through Eucharistic Adoration. The ministry could provide educational information about Eucharistic Adoration, and might publish prayer reflections from Ascension parishioners who have participated previously in Eucharistic Adoration. The ministry may also host a speaker (the Archdiocese can recommend speakers for virtually any topic), and might sponsor a twenty-four-hour adoration event in which interested parishioners could commit to pray during time slots throughout the adoration. Of course, this is just one example of what a ministry or group of parishioners may decide. Reflection may lead a ministry to pursue an entirely different approach to implementing the Spotlight on Prayer during any given month.

The Parish Council has volunteered to lead the Spotlight on Prayer for February. The Council has selected the following prayer intentions for the month of February: (a) for the people of Haiti and other countries torn by natural disasters or war; and (b)during this Lenten season, that we, individually and as a parish family, re-dedicate and commit ourselves to a more active and thoughtful prayer life. Selected members of the Council will also publish reflections on prayer each week in the Dome. In addition, the Council, in cooperation with the Ascension Leadership Movement, will co-sponsor a meeting in March dedicated to prayer. The Ministers of Care have volunteered to lead the spotlight in March, and Religious Education will be responsible for April. Who will volunteer next?

We are very excited about the Spotlight on Prayer and the wonderful opportunities it will create for our parish. Whether you are involved in a parish ministry or not, we hope that you will share your wisdom and your ideas for how to make the 2010 Spotlight on Prayer a success. Please attend a prayer event, or write a prayer reflection, or resolve to spend more time each day in prayer. Questions, comments and/or ideas may be sent to us at Spotlight on Prayer or by contacting a member of the Parish Council. Thank you for your support and your presence at Ascension. Together, let’s discover the grace and beauty of prayer.

Fr. Larry McNally
Alicia Creyts & Don Woznica
Parish Council Co-Chairs

A Prayer Reflection from a Member of the Parish

Lots of things can be prayers--to me the goal of prayer to me is to feel God's peace and to be inspired to share love.  We shouldn't be limited in how we pray. Try lots of things.  If it doesn't work, don't do it.  Notice the things you do that bring you peace and make you feel like sharing love.  Is it a walk at the beginning of the day where you reflect on your blessings?  Is it saying a favorite prayer?  Is it laying with your kids at the end of the day and kissing their heads?  Is it a decade of the rosary? Whatever it is, build it into your day and do it consistently.  You and the people around you will benefit from this.  For me lately, this has been my prayer at the beginning of the day. 

From a Marianne Williamson book called Illuminata:

Dear God, I give this day to you. May my mind stay centered on the things of spirit. May I not be tempted to stray from love. As I begin this day, I open to receive You. Please enter where you already abide. May my mind and heart be pure and true, and may I not deviate from the things of goodness. May I see the love and innocence in all mankind, behind the masks we all wear and the illusions of this worldly plan. I surrender to You my doings this day. I ask only that they serve You and the healing of the world. May I bring Your love and goodness with me, to give unto others wherever I go. Make me the person You would have me to be. Direct my footsteps, and show me what You world have me do. Make the world a more safer, more beautiful place. Bless all your creatures. Heal us all, and use me, dear Lord, that I might know the joy of being used by You.