Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

In today's Gospel we hear Jesus instructing his disciples about the importance to pray always. Prayer is beginning in God, awareness of God, engagement with God, abandonment to God, ending in God. To be alive to life is to pray. In the early years of Christianity, monks in the Palestinian desert took literally Jesus' command to pray always. Each day they prayed all one hundred fifty psalms, and if they still had time, they prayed the Lord's Prayer over and over. Long before Hail Mary's were used for the beads of a rosary, a circle of fifty beads three times was used to keep track of the daily share of psalms. Jesus knew, loved and prayed the psalms, and so should we. The psalms are wonderful prayers, maybe you can read one every day. Even though we may not pray always or pray the psalms every day, we can have a prayer card, a small crucifix, or a rosary in our purse or pocket to remind us of God's presence.