Saint Dominic's Ninth Way of Prayer

Here is Saint Dominic instructing a young friar (who has his mantle thrown over his shoulder) and then the fellow setting out with Dominic either waving good-bye or imparting a blessing. Walking as prayer! Christians are more than just believers in dogmas, Church laws and moral teachings - we're practitioners.

Thich Nhat Hanh is a now elderly Vietnamese Buddhist monk who is perhaps the best known Zen teacher in the world. He has written a small book titled: How To Walk ( 2015 Parallax Press). The book is indeed about walking and the attendant aspects of life: body, mind, memories, inner healing, the earth. Each page presents only one paragraph.

I'd suggest Christians need a little book like this because we're caught up in the joyless race like everyone else. And while our believing might make us different from others, the way we go through life is often as frenzied, scattered, distracted, angry and exhausted as everyone else. Christian believing ought to enlighten and transform my lifestyle ~ the way I walk or my mind-way as I share life on this planet. Here's a sample from the book:

Practicing Joy

We may think of joy as something that happens spontaneously. Few people realize that it needs to be cultivated and practiced in order to grow. Mindfulness is the continuous practice of deeply touching every moment of daily life. To be mindful is to be truly present with your body and your mind, to bring harmony to your intentions and actions, and to be in harmony with those around you. We don't need to make a separate time for this outside of our daily activities. We can practice mindfulness in every moment of the day as we walk from one place to another. When we walk through a door, we know that we're going through a door. Our minds are with our actions. 

Now someone might say, "This isn't Christian." I'd disagree. I'd suggest the most common and lovely way in which Jesus demonstrates continual mindfulness is found a number of times in St. Mark's Gospel where the evangelist makes a point of telling us that Jesus took someone by the hand: the little girl who has just died at home (Mk 5: 41,42), Peter's mother-in-law healed of her fever (Mk 1:29-31), the healing of the leper (Mk 1: 40,41). And in St. Luke's gospel, (7:11ff) Jesus touches the coffin of the boy being carried to the cemetery.  In his touching, everything stops for that precise moment. That moment is all that exists.

Saint Dominic's Eighth Way of Prayer

Here is the first time Saint Dominic invites us to sit down, not to put our feet up but to study scripture. I would nuance that a bit: study the Holy Gospels. When I was a pastor in a small rural town the local Methodist minister said at a Ladies Ecumenical Tea, "The Catholics around town know the scriptures better than the Protestants."

What a nice compliment! Still, we mustn't get swelled heads as often knowledge of the gospels among Catholics is abysmal Sad to tell, but I've met young people who can't tell the Christmas story. I met a priest who could pick up a Gospel account at any point and tell the whole story verse by verse by heart. But why not? - some people know all the lines to complicated plays or scenes from a movie, or people who can rattle off team scores and player stats, or the kids who know long rapper lyrics.

My goodness, how can I know Jesus without knowing his words and wonderful deeds. Imagine how much more we could love him if we were even more familiar with the Gospels (which means: A good, life-changing and liberating message). Every once in awhile I am struck by a gospel verse and I say, "After all these years I have no recollection of ever having heard that line before." Of course I have, but by heaven's prompting I am seeing it or hearing it with a new urgency and clarity - a call to decide anew.

Saint Dominic says to sit with God's Word and physically to lean into or over the text. To read the Word slowly, and when I am seized by it to make the Sign of the Cross, and then (get this!) even to allow the Words of Jesus to move me to tears. Words like these;

I have come that you may have joy. Jn 19:22
He loved them to the end.  Jn 13:1
Do not be anxious.  Mt 6:34

A new commandment I give you; love one another.  Jn 13:34,35
Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Jn 14:1
Know that I am with you always, yes to the end of time.  Mt 28:20

As the Father has loved me so I have loved you.  Jn 15:9
Blessed are the merciful, they shall be shown mercy.  Mt 5:7
These words that I speak to you are spirit and life.  Jn 6:63

Saint Dominic's Seventh Way of Prayer

Here St. Dominic teaches us to pray, standing straight, with our whole body reaching with folded or joined hands raised to heaven - with eyes heavenward as well.

Psalm 28 "Hear O God, the voice of my prayer - when I lift up my hands in your holy temple."

These postures are not liturgical, as if to be practiced in Church, but in our own room, with the door shut, as Jesus prescribed. Reaching, reaching! Remember when we were small: "Rise and shine, reach for the sun." Reaching to know God. Reaching to experience God. Reaching to love God. 

When I was a boy in the early 60's I was told that as Catholics there was nothing to learn from anyone else. "Cross the street if you are coming up on a Protestant Church." Only we had all truth and everyone else lived in heretical error or at best some kind of insufficiency. Most Catholics have put that away by now. The Dali Lama is the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism. He teaches:

"The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, and lovers of all kinds."

Maybe in St. Dominic's 7th prayer-posture we can stretch and reach after this!

Saint Dominic's Sixth Way of Prayer

Here St. Dominic stands in the posture of Jesus-Crucified. It is a gesture of surrender before God. Can-do people might not like this posture. Lots of folks have a tremendous need to call the shots; they micro-manage, we say. We even call them control freaks, which means we're distorted with all this controlling of others.

There are some who might even refuse this prayer disposition - afraid of how they might look in the gesture of giving up the controls. 

Standing in this posture of Jesus crucified leaves me open, vulnerable and un-defended. My hands are open: no fists, no weapons. My arms are apart: not folded angrily across the chest. 

I was recently speaking with someone who correctly assumed I was annoyed with her for some reason. She said plainly: "Tell me what's the matter. I'm a big girl. I want to know, I can take it." So I did, telling her what she does that is so off-putting. And she acknowledged it all. But we laughed in the follow-up as her urge to get defensive leaked out.

Let's try-out the saint's prayer gesture of Jesus in his deepest vulnerability. See what comes up personally. 

Saint Dominic's Fifth Way of Prayer

Here Saint Dominic is shown three times - so we see the movement of his fifth prayer-posture. On the left Dominic's arms are spread apart and his palms are open. He is standing the way a priest stands at the altar during the Mass. The posture is called an orans. 

And here is an icon called Mother of God ~ Orans. Follow the interior lines of Mary's hands and arms and see that they turn her into a kind of cup ready to be filled with what God has to share and offer. 

Perhaps when standing in this posture, my own  prayer-cup will be filled with consolation, or new insight or creativity, self-knowledge, willingness and joy. Or sometimes God shares divine energies (we might call it grace) that will confound us, disturb us, even agitate and change us. Am I open and willing as the gesture seems to indicate?

But then, look again, Dominic's arms are pulled together and folded over the chest: what concerns are treasured in my heart? Prayers for family, health, peace, direction, safety? Then Dominic's opens his hands and stretches them out slightly ~ the unfolding of the heart - like a flower opening, disclosing, revealing, offering. Like the lovely white Lotus opening here in the morning sun.

Pray that my heart would open and stretch to include others more generously. That my heart would reach beyond the messages of "far enough" to persons I never before dreamed I'd take an interest in, perhaps some new involvement or participation. Pray for my own new day,  which might mean a new way of looking at or approaching what I already have to do. Or my new day might mean stepping into an addiction free life. 

A religious sister who had taught privileged girls in an exclusive academy for twenty five years asked in her prayer for direction as to what to do next. Her prayer was answered, and like Dominic's unfolding hands and the opening Lotus, the sister returned to school for herself and became a physicians assistant opening a trailer-clinic in one of the country's poorest counties. She said she could never have imagined this new direction.

Saint Dominic's Fourth Way of Prayer

Here is Saint Dominic assuming two different postures - one flowing into the other. While kneeling he is looking at the crucifix, his left hand has covered his heart, while his right hand is open, perhaps reminding himself simply to stop and gaze. In the second posture Dominic is standing while looking at the crucifix.

The words above the picture tell us that while gazing at the crucifix, Dominic recommends making genuflections. I'd propose an alternative gesture, as the genuflection is the most excellent acknowledgement of worship before the reserved Blessed Sacrament in a Catholic Church. The Eastern Church has a variation on this movement called a prostration. 

A prostration is made by bending the knees slightly and reaching to touch the ground with the finger tips of the right hand. It is a gesture of deep humility, of littleness, of gratitude, of reverential awe.

In your prayer: gaze on the crucifix, pondering that through Jesus' wounded side we have access to the open heart of God. Touch the ground slowly and gently and even repeatedly before that crucifix and its more-than-we-could-ever-hope-for-expression of heaven's love for all of us. All of us! Oh, take delight in that ~ all of us! Can you feel it?

Saint Dominic's Third Way of Prayer

Here St. Dominic is beating himself with a chain and calling it a posture of penance. Believe it or not, there are still some cultures which do this kind of thing around Holy Week. When a desperate teenager cuts herself we call it pathological or sick. Same difference.

The idea of God being somehow pleased or satisfied with his beloved children beating themselves with whips, chains or tree branches is pretty messed up. Jesus has taken care of the blood-letting by scourging and nail once and for all. Let's be done with it now.

But penance? As a kind of amends for sin? I get it - but I would suggest a penance that has some human value and meaning - that might build inner resilience and charity. Here it comes: Instead of beating yourself  with a chain, quietly endure (put up with) other people. O my! For many of us this might be a much more difficult penance than drawing blood with sticks. 

As a penance, put up with the spouse who's losing his/her hearing.
As a penance, put up with people who are slowing down.
As a penance, put up with the folks who need you to explain two or three times.
As a penance, put up with the folks who seem to be marginal.    
As a penance, put up with the waiter who's not up to speed.

As a penance, don't lament the humidity, rain, ice, heat or cold. How tiresome!
As a penance, don't complain about the lousy sermon.
As a penance, don't whine about the food that's not right.
As a penance, don't groan about the walk that's too far.
As a penance, don't gripe about the cost of everything under the sun. 

As a penance, endure the stranger who's hygiene is lacking.
As a penance, endure the person who talks too much.
As a penance, endure the person who comes across as cheap.
As a penance, endure the person who strikes you as kind of  unskilled, incapable
      or depressive.
As a penance, endure the person who isn't funny (being funny is kind of a 
     requirement for acceptability these days, isn't it?)

Now this is  real penance. Skip the whip. I imagine God rolls his eyes at all of that.

But remember this: people have to endure or put up with ME - in all my superficiality, pettiness, self-pity, limitation, ignorance, self-preoccupation. I may even have a sense of having to put up with myself.

Saint Dominic's Second Way of Prayer

Saint Dominic's second posture or attitude of prayer is to lie face down before the altar and there to shed tears for my own sins. But (and actually I think this is even more important in some respects) if there are no tears for my own sins, then tears for the sins of the world.

But we have forgotten tears before God. Every five years or so all bishops go to Rome in national groups to talk with the pope. The visit is called an ad limina. I would like to see every bishop walk the Scala Sancta on his knees each time he comes to see the pope. These are the 28 white marble stairs of Pontius Pilate's court which Jesus ascended and descended the day of his trial and execution. A bishop could climb these stairs in humility and tears for the sins of power, vanity, pride, money and sex abuse cover-up and whatever else might trouble and grieve his conscience. We need to re-discover tears as a Church. Bishops might model this for us.

But here in his prone position, Saint Dominic is telling us: Like a boxer, humanity is defeated and  face down for the count:

• Three million gallons of spilled toxic poison has turned the Animas River in Colorado a sickly shade of orange ~ the damage to living things is beyond assessing
• We're drowning in gun violence and for fear are un-willing to do anything about it 
• No paid maternity leave for moms with newborns, but always   money for a new war
• The world watches our cultural degradation: our political boorishness, the vulgarity of our entertainments, the sexual-izing of our children, our greed and waste
• We harvest and sell fetal tissue and body parts (and it ain't just Planned Parenthood) and we call it "helping science..."

Remember the commercial for Life Alert: the elderly woman is on the ground and in a desperate frenzy calls out, "Help, I've fallen and can't get up." That's a prayer the whole human race can pray - with tears.

Saint Dominic Teaches Us To Pray ~ The First Prayer Posture

A contemporary of Francis of Assisi, Saint Dominic traveled over much of Europe, even criss-crossing the Alps on foot. Unlike Francis, he placed a great emphasis on the intellect (Francis would never have owned books) which enabled him to enter into great debates with so-called heretics. I'd say too that Dominic was well-connected. Today we'd call him a Vatican insider.

I discovered something of greater interest though when I came across the vocation website of the Irish Dominicans which lays out the nine prayer postures St. Dominic proposed to his young friars and nuns. What a gift to ALL of us!

I'd use the word prayer disposition or prayer attitude instead of posture. The posture gives expression to or holds the prayer. But while I might have the exterior posture down pat, if I'm without the inner disposition of prayer ~ I'm an empty cup. 

But do physical postures even matter in our prayer? I'd say yes. God didn't become an angel, but a human with a body. Have you noticed that Catholics are hemorrhaging out of the Church in many places and taking up yoga? People want to incorporate their bodies into their spiritual lives. Conversely, Catholic Christianity can be anti-body. So many people have been lost to the Church because of the excessive corporal (bodily) punishments inflicted when they were young. Some folks defend it ~ I don't.

I'll borrow the wonderful illustrative paintings of Dominic found on the website, adding my own thoughts. I expect the Irish Dominicans wouldn't mind. 

In the first prayer-disposition (or posture), Saint Dominic invites us simply to incline or bow. Americans complain about bending over. We curse the housework that requires it and glorify the machines and tools that solve the problem of having to bend. So we might not like Dominic's first prayer suggestion.

The older of us might remember the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar at the start of the old Mass: the priest and server bending way down and whispering, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Bending over is often associated with the things of love: bending over to smell a flower, to speak to a sick or elderly bed-ridden person, to kiss a child, to find something small, precious or important that has gotten lost.

Bending makes me less tall. I glance at the earth from which I came and to which I will return when my life is completed. Bending is the gesture that accompanies a humble prayer: God, you are God, not I. The word humble comes from the Latin hummus, which means good earth: I am down-to-earth about myself.

Surely presidents, senators, the kings and queens that remain, popes, cardinals, bishops, pastors, doctors, prime ministers, majority leaders, politicians - should all bend over now and again - like the priest at the altar. But we all could make a deep (profound) bow in our prayer, lest we forget and think ourselves to be entitled or more important than we are, so opinionated, so attentive to or full of ourselves. 

A sustained bow, as slow and deep as I can manage: before the open Gospel Book, the crucifix, the icon of the Mother of God with her Son, or standing in and before the realized presence of God in any moment. Bending from the waist is a secret gesture. The best religious gestures are secret ones.