WE ARE NOURISHED BY PRAYER ON THE JOURNEY OF LIFE AND FAITH...........

Preparing tomorrow's R.C.I.A.  Inquiry Session this afternoon, the theme, "Nourished By Prayer On The Journey", is causing me to look back on my own journey of life and faith to date, and how the presence of Prayer has shaped and empowered me.  Learning prayers at home as a young child from my mother, and from the Sisters of Mercy who catechized me. To my first profound, personal, prayer experience at the foot of the altar of St. Roses's Church, in South Sacramento, at age 11, in February 1968; and my high school years walks to neighboring churches within 2-3 miles of our house, where I spent spring, and summer, evenings praying in quiet solitude.  Prayer has remained an important essential in my discerning and maintaining my vocation as a priest; and for nearly a decade now, persevering amidst the multiple medical challenges that have beset me, but not conquered me.  My uniequivocal effort to push forward in continuing out my priesthood, and carrying out the pastoral ministry of the Church, is rooted in Prayer, and the assurance of Faith in my heart and mind, at the core of my Conscience, that this is what I am meant to be and doing, in answering God's Call.  I will engage the Inquirers tomorrow to share how their journeys and the Faith they are now beginning to explore seriously, has been impacted by Prayer.  All of us who proclaim adherence to Jesus Christ, and / or the presence and power of a Supreme Being, we acknowledge as the God of the Universe, realize the indispensable necessity of Prayer to make our journeys of Life and Faith complete.  Are you making time to pray today, by lifting your hearts and minds to God, for twenty minutes or more.  Or are you going it alone, devoid of the spiritual blessings to be derived by those twenty minutes plus ?  That's less than one percent of the twenty four hours that comprise each day.  May your Saturday and Sunday, this Halloween weekend, include Personal Prayer, Communal Worship, and Parish Ministry.  Nourished by Prayer, you are empowered to Worship, and Minister, and wholistically commune with the Living and True God...........Fr.  Troy