An Encounter Prayer

Every Thursday at 7:00 am via Zoom, Regnum Christi women dubbed the “Morning Glories” come together to pray. After opening prayers, a member reads aloud Sunday’s Gospel. All take a moment in silence to consider how it speaks to them and then take turns sharing their light with the team. The team is impacted by the lights of one another in just listening, not commenting.

After a member reads the Regnum Christi commitments, another woman offers a brief spontaneous prayer, thanking God and asking for help, strength, and light. She puts each member of the team’s personal intentions in God’s hands. Lisa Rooney offered the following prayer. The prayer so moved her team they asked her to write it down to share with them.

Inspired by the Lights of Regnum Christi Sisters

Reflecting on the Gospel of Luke 6:27-38

Lord, STOP me in the pursuit of my own agenda.
Lead me to do what I know, through you, is best for the other person.
Teach me to LIVE.
Unclench my hands, gently unfold them so they open up
Full and wide to receive your immense generosity
So that I can serve you and others with the most abundant generosity of heart.
Keep me from being a grace-blocker.
Grant me the freedom of a grace-giver.

Dear God, BUILD me up in the virtue of humility.
You know my heart so well.
You love each heart you created.
Enlighten the eyes of my heart
So that I see like you
beyond the hurtful actions of others
into their hearts
where you dwell.

Jesus, make me REFLECT.
I contemplate you hanging on your Cross
And understand perfect love and sacrifice,
Love in its highest and purest form,
The truest, most selfless love
Laid down by You for me with no demand that I reciprocate.
But Calvary commands that I be as merciful as your Father,
Slow to anger, quick to pray for but not to judge
Those I find hardest to love.

God, you give without measure.
In the endless grains of sand, the countless birds in the sky and the ever-rising sun
I experience your love for me, your creation.
Every minute of every day it fills me up and overflows and fills me up again.
Plenished by your love,
let me be your vessel.
Use me to POUR out cups and cups of love on those you put in my path.

And If I believe God doesn’t measure
Then why should I?
Yes, LOVING is BLESSING and HOPING.
But it is also
FACING MY ENEMIES with conviction and charity.

For above all else
He has taught me love is patient and kind.
Oh, Jesus, above all else, help me be PATIENT and KIND.

Show me, my Savior, your ways to be patient with myself.
Let me be SATISFIED
With the sweet, packed, good measure
You have prepared just for me.
Let it be enough, without need to compare.
My lap overflows with the graces and gifts I need
To DO unto others as I would have them do unto me.
Oh, Let it be enough.

Amen.

Lisa Rooney, MD is a member of the RC spiritual family of the NY-Tri-State locale. She received her MD degree from New York University School of Medicine. She did her residency and chief residency in Pediatrics at New York University Hospital and Bellevue Medical Center. For the past 35 years, she has lived her vocation in medicine through private practice first in Los Angeles, CA, and now in Stamford Connecticut. She resides in Greenwich, CT with Bob, her husband of forty years. They are blessed with four children and two grandchildren.