Marianne & Margaret

A Life Without Prayer Is a Lost Life

Today, for some reason, my heart felt heavy and weighed down.

But the preface of Father Choi Min-sun's translation of The Way of Perfection gave me great strength.

In particular, the words "A life without prayer is a lost life" shook my very soul today.

A few days ago, during our morning prayer and Gospel reflection sharing, Missionary Cecilia Choi spoke of her experience with Sister Margaret.

She had confided that she truly wanted to pray properly, but was struggling with too many distractions and wandering thoughts.

Sister Margaret, she said, explained it this way:

On a cold winter's day, to warm a room with underfloor heating, you first have to turn on the boiler.

And before the room warms up, don't you hear the sound of the boiler running first?

In the same way, distractions arise before the warmth of prayer can heat the soul — and Sister Margaret advised her to think of those distractions as nothing more than the sound of the boiler.

Inspired by the words of Saint Teresa — "A life without prayer is a lost life" — I took up my rosary and began praying under the open night sky as my roof.

But like the sound of a boiler, distractions kept creeping in.

This evening, as always, I held the literacy class after evening Mass — classes that have been running since the end of March.

But after the lesson, I suddenly received a text message from the Spanish teacher, whom I had gone to great lengths to bring from Cochabamba.

Apparently, during today's class, one of the elderly women became very angry at the Spanish teacher.

Rather than acknowledging her own difficulty with memory, she blamed the teacher, saying she could not memorize the words, and erupted in a rage in front of the other students.

As that message came to mind, distractions mixed with frustration kept surfacing because of the elderly woman's lack of gratitude.

I also heard that only three students showed up for the afternoon Spanish class for the dormitory children — and I kept feeling strangely sorry toward the Spanish teacher, another distraction I could not shake.

The Rosary prayer I have been holding every day at 5:30 PM in the village square throughout May has also not been receiving much response, and feelings of disappointment and discouragement crept in as yet another distraction.

Without even realizing it, a distraction mixed with sighs and frustration burst out of me: "I want to live earnestly, sharing wholeheartedly — so why is there no help, no response, only complaints?"

Based on everything I have experienced so far, these efforts seem unlikely to bear fruit or receive any response — and yet, knowing this, I am about to begin again, and suddenly a distraction of doubt and fear begins to torment me as well.

Nevertheless, I entrusted the pastoral plans for May, the Month of Mary, to the Lord, and finished the Rosary with the resolution to begin them one by one.

Living abroad as a missionary is perhaps, I thought, a daily struggle against oneself — especially a striving to become an ever smaller presence in daily life in order to overcome the waves of frustration that come with disappointment.

In the midst of days that pass by seemingly without meaning, swept along by an indifferent flow of time, today too felt as though it had slipped by in vain.

But having concluded this precious day of May, the Month of Mary, with the Rosary, I find myself once again simply grateful for everything.

Gazing at the beautiful night sky of Pocopoco, embroidered with the Milky Way, I asked for the intercession of Saint Teresa, who must be somewhere in the heavens, and reflected once more on her words:

"A life without prayer is a lost life," and "life is like a single night spent in a poor inn." (The Way of Perfection, Chapter 40:9; todo es una noche la mala posada)

May 4, 2016
— Kang Joseph —

 

— The night sky of Pocopoco... —