The Shameless Prayer of a Wandering Mind

I can still feel the profound silence of that Adoration chapel. The air was thick with reverence, the golden monstrance gleamed, and the only sound was the gentle hum of the ventilation. Everyone else seemed so… still. So holy. Their eyes were closed, their faces serene. They were clearly locked in a deep, intimate conversation with Jesus.

And me? My mind was a category-five hurricane.

Did I remember to move the laundry over? I need to pick up milk on the way home. Oh, that email I have to send tomorrow… wait, what was I thinking about? Oh right, prayer. Okay, focus. Jesus, I’m here. I love you. Gosh, my knee is starting to ache. I wonder if I have any ibuprofen at home. Shoot, stop it! Just be present!

I felt like a complete fraud. I wanted so badly to be still, to be present, but my mind was a runaway train. I left that chapel feeling more dejected than peaceful, convinced I was a failure at the one thing that was supposed to connect me to God: prayer.

If that feeling is at all familiar to you, take a deep, mindful breath. Because I’ve come to learn that this struggle isn't a sign of failure. In fact, it’s the perfect starting point.

"Lord, Teach Us to Pray"

For years, I thought I had to show up to prayer with my spiritual life perfectly in order. I thought I needed to have the right words, the right posture, and a mind clear of all distraction. But then I found myself sitting with a familiar passage from the Gospel of Luke, and it felt like a key unlocking a door in my heart.

The scene is simple: The disciples see Jesus praying, and when He is finished, one of them says, "Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke 11:1).

Let that sink in. These are the men who walked with Jesus every single day. They saw His miracles, they heard His preaching firsthand, and even they had to admit they didn't know how to do it. They had to ask for help.

In that one, simple request, they give us the most profound permission slip. They give us permission to be beginners. In the world of mindfulness, this is called having a "beginner's mind"—letting go of our expertise and our ego, and approaching something with fresh, curious, and humble eyes.

Admitting "I don't know how" is not a failure; it's the most honest prayer we can offer. It’s the humble recognition that prayer is not a technique we master, but a relationship we receive. When we can finally stop pretending we have it all together and just say, "Lord, my mind is a mess. Please, teach me," we are in the most receptive posture possible.

The Call to Be Shamelessly Persistent

What Jesus does next is fascinating. After giving them the beautiful words of the "Our Father," He tells them a story about a man banging on his friend's door at midnight, asking for bread. The friend eventually gets up, not because he’s a good friend, but because of the man’s "shameless persistence."

For a long time, I thought this meant I had to annoy God into listening to me. But that’s not it at all. This isn't about wearing God down. It's about our own disposition.

"Shameless persistence" is about being so rooted in the trust of a relationship that you're not afraid to be messy. You’re not afraid to show up at midnight with nothing. You’re not afraid to keep knocking when you feel nothing but silence. You’re not embarrassed by your wandering mind or your clumsy words. You just keep showing up.

This is where our prayer life and the practice of mindfulness beautifully intersect.

When you practice mindful breathing, the instruction isn't to never get distracted. That’s impossible. The instruction is to simply notice when your mind has wandered, and then, without judgment, gently return your focus to the breath.

This is the very essence of shameless persistence in prayer.

Your mind wanders to the grocery list. Notice. Gently return to Jesus.

You get lost in a worry about the future. Notice. Gently return to Jesus.

You start feeling bored, antsy, or like a fraud. Notice. Without judgment, gently return to Jesus.

This is the "ask, seek, knock" of the interior life. Every gentle return is a knock. Every humble admission of distraction is a seeking. Every breath offered back to Him is an asking. It's a trusting, moment-by-moment dialogue that says, "I'm still here. I'm still trying. Teach me."

Prayer is not about achieving a perfect state of Zen-like calm. It is about the persistent, loving, and shameless returning to the One who is always waiting for us, even and especially when our minds feel like a hurricane.

So next time you sit down to pray and your mind starts making a to-do list, don't despair. Smile. You're in good company. Take a breath, and with all the humility of a beloved disciple, just whisper, "Lord, teach me to pray." He will be so glad you asked.

Beyond the Rules: Finding God by Loving Your Neighbor in Action

Just living in your neighborhood,  you probably see a lot. People rushing to work, kids heading to school, the familiar faces at the local grocery store. We all have our routines, our to-do lists, the things we feel we should be doing. And if we're people of faith, that often includes a set of rules and observances we strive to follow. Today’s Gospel really echoes in my mind, nudging me to look beyond the checklist and into the heart of what it truly means to love God.

It's the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). You know the one – the lawyer trying to pin Jesus down with questions about eternal life, the seemingly straightforward answer about loving God and neighbor, and then the crucial follow-up: "And who is my neighbor?"

Jesus' response isn't a theological dissertation; it's a story. A vivid, unforgettable story about a man left for dead, and the surprising hero who stops to help – a Samaritan, no less, someone considered an outsider by the religious establishment. The priest and the Levite, the ones who should have known better, the ones who likely followed all the rules, they passed by. Their observance didn't translate into action, their piety didn't extend to the bleeding man on the roadside.

About a month ago, I was running late for something.  My mind was racing – did I print out the necessary documents? Would I find a park spot and be on time? As I hurried down the sidewalk, I saw a woman struggling with several heavy bags, one of them having ripped and spilling groceries onto the pavement. My first instinct, if I'm being honest, was to keep going. I was late, after all. I had my own important things to do.

But then that quiet voice, the one that sometimes gets drowned out by the noise of daily life, whispered, "Who is your neighbor?"

I stopped. I turned around. And for the next few minutes, I helped the woman gather her scattered groceries. We even shared a little laugh over a rogue can of minestrone soup that seemingly had legs and tried to escape as it rolled a few feet away. I ended up being a few minutes late to my meeting, but as I sat there, I realized something profound. In that small act of helping a stranger, a neighbor in that moment of need, I felt a deeper connection to something larger than my own schedule, a truer sense of purpose than ticking off an item on my to-do list.

This, I believe, is what Jesus was getting at. Our profession of love for God isn't just about attending services or reciting prayers – although those things are important expressions of faith. It's about the tangible, messy, sometimes inconvenient act of extending merciful love to those around us. Our neighbor isn't just the person who lives next door or shares our beliefs; it's anyone whose path we cross and who is in need of our compassion.

And how does mindfulness fit into this? In our busy lives, it's so easy to become caught up in our own thoughts and agendas that we become blind to the needs of others right in front of us. Mindfulness, the practice of paying attention to the present moment without judgment, can help us become more attuned to the world around us.

Imagine walking down the street and truly seeing the people you pass. Not just as obstacles in your way, but as fellow human beings, each with their own stories and potential needs. Mindfulness encourages us to slow down, to notice the subtle cues – the furrowed brow, the struggling with a heavy load, the look of loneliness.

By cultivating a mindful awareness, we create the space for compassion to arise naturally. We move from a place of automatic reaction ("I'm late, I can't stop") to a place of conscious engagement ("This person needs help. What can I do?"). It allows us to truly see our neighbor, not as an abstract concept, but as a real person deserving of our kindness.

The path to eternal life isn't a rigid set of rules etched in stone. It's a journey of the heart, a continuous unfolding of love in action. It's about recognizing the divine spark in every person we encounter and responding with mercy, just as the Good Samaritan did. So, the next time you're rushing through your day, wherever you may be, take a mindful breath. Look around. Who is your neighbor at this moment? And how can you show them the love that God has so freely given to us? It might just be in that simple act of service that you discover the truest meaning of faith.

More Than Enough: Finding Abundance in Our Desert Places

I had a dream the other night. One of those dreams that left me felt overwhelmed. I was standing stranded in a vast desert with only an empty water bottle, the sun beating down, and the horizon offering nothing but more sand. To be honest, I didn’t understand it at the time and hope that I never have that dream again.

As I prepared for this week’s blog post, it was so awesome  to realize that it was the Gospel of Luke: the feeding of the five thousand (Luke 9:11b-17). We’ve probably all heard this story countless times. Jesus, surrounded by a massive crowd in a deserted place, their hunger growing as the day wore on.

The disciples, practical folks that they were, saw the problem and offered the most logical solution: “Dismiss the crowd so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms and find lodging and provisions; for we are in a deserted place here.” Sound familiar? When faced with a big problem, our first instinct is often to push it away, to find a way to make it someone else’s issue, or to simply declare it impossible.

But Jesus’ response is what truly resonates: “Give them some food yourselves.” Can you imagine the looks on their faces? Five loaves and two fish for thousands of people? It felt utterly absurd, a recipe for utter failure. It’s like being asked to fill a stadium with a single pitcher of lemonade.

I remember a time, not too long ago, when I felt that same sense of overwhelming scarcity. My family was going through a particularly tough patch. Bills were piling up, unexpected expenses kept cropping up, and the anxiety was a constant knot in my stomach. I looked at our meager resources and felt that familiar desert closing in. I prayed, of course, but honestly, a big part of me just felt helpless. Like the disciples, I could only see the limitations, the impossibility of the situation.

But then, something shifted. Maybe it was a quiet moment during prayer, maybe it was a kind word from a friend, maybe it was just the slow dawning of a new perspective. I started to focus not on what we lacked, but on the small gifts we still had. A supportive community, our health, the simple joy of a shared meal. It wasn’t a magical fix, the bills didn't vanish overnight, but something within me began to change. The fear didn't disappear entirely, but it no longer held me captive.

This, I think, is where the beauty of the Gospel, and the wisdom of mindful living, truly intersect. Jesus didn’t magically conjure food out of thin air before the disciples’ eyes. He took what little they did have – the five loaves and two fish – and He blessed it. He looked up to heaven, acknowledging the source of all good things. And then, He broke it and gave it to the disciples to distribute.

Think about that for a moment. He worked through their seemingly insufficient offering. He didn’t bypass their humanity; He invited them into the miracle. And the result? Everyone ate and was satisfied, with twelve baskets of leftovers. More than enough.

This isn’t just a story about a miracle; it’s a powerful reminder that even in our most barren “desert places,” even when we feel we have nothing to offer, Christ can take our meager efforts, our limited resources, our very human vulnerabilities, and transform them into something abundant.

Mindfulness teaches us to be present to the reality of our experience, without judgment. To acknowledge our fears and limitations, yes, but also to notice the small sparks of hope, the glimmers of grace that are always present, even when they’re hard to see. It’s about recognizing the “five loaves and two fish” in our own lives, however small they may seem.

When we bring our whole selves, our honest limitations, to God, just as the disciples brought their meager provisions to Jesus, we open ourselves up to the possibility of something beyond our own understanding. He doesn’t always solve our problems in the way we expect, but He always offers sustenance, a deeper kind of nourishment that goes beyond the physical. It’s a spiritual abundance that fills the hunger in our hearts, the loneliness in our souls, the anxiety that gnaws at our peace.

And just like the disciples were then tasked with distributing the miraculous bread, we too are called to share the abundance we receive. Even when we feel we have little ourselves, the very act of reaching out, of offering a word of kindness, a helping hand, a listening ear, can be a way of spreading that divine nourishment to a world that is so often starving for connection, for hope, for love.

So, the next time you find yourself feeling like you’re in a deserted place, remember the five loaves and two fish. Remember the disciples’ initial feeling of inadequacy. And remember Jesus’ simple act of blessing and sharing. Trust that even with what seems like so little, with God, there is always, always more than enough.