A challenge to improve the animation of Community liturgy and Prayer

In his 13th Provincial circular, Father Manolo Jimenez (ACC) presented this beautiful reflection on the animation of communal prayer. It allows us to make this extract available to colleagues in the region by posting it on the SAFCAM site.

(Translated from the French by SAFCAM)

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I propose to reflect with you during the year 2020-21 on the three chief provincial objectives of our Provincial Plan. The first of these objectives, reads as follows: "We commit to serious preparation and animation of community prayer, so as to reinvigorate our awareness of the primacy of God".

Preparation for community prayer

The quality and impact of any human endeavour or activity depends to a large extent on its preparation. A homily, a feast, a catechesis, a celebration that is not prepared will certainly become a fiasco. The great solemnities of the liturgical year are all preceded by significant periods of preparation. We have all had the unpleasant experience of improvised, rushed events, and have complained about the lack of conscientiousness on the part of those who were responsible for the preparation.

We normally ensure that we carefully prepare what is important to us, and we therefore do all the necessary to guarantee the best result of the commitments that we consider of particularly importance to us.

What about the preparation of our community prayer?

Are we setting aside adequate time to properly prepare for it?

Does the value that we place on prayer in community encourage us to invest ourselves in ensuring that it is of quality?

Faced with the danger, unfortunately ever present, of routine and formality, how do we go about promoting "joyful and creative, simple and deep prayer times, which promotes community participation, and connects with our life and is extended into it? ".

Our chapel: the main context of our community prayer

The place reserved in our community house for prayer moments, where the tabernacle is, the real and living presence of Jesus, how well is it kept?

The cleanliness, neatness and beauty of liturgical settings, have guided people to construct true works of art in all parts of the world. We appreciate such places that are offered to us for pilgrimage and worship, and we find that their loveliness, simple or magnificent, contributes to create attractive and inspiring prayerful sanctuaries, whether they be tiny chapels or splendid cathedrals!

Can we honestly say that our community chapel is an inviting, welcoming prayerful space?

How well do we take care of it?

How much attention do we give to the decor of our chapels?

Do we bother to place a relevant poster on the wall to mark a feast or a liturgical season? Or a scriptural quote to focus our prayer?

Could we invest in a few more decorative features that make our chapels more delightful, more welcoming, more prayerful - flowers, candles, icons, paintings,… all play a role in creating an environment that invites contemplation, meditation and dialogue with the Lord.

Punctuality in presence

The human action of prayer, whether personal or communitarian, requires particular dispositions of serenity, contemplation, concentration. These will be better assured if we are present well before the start of the celebration. The moment of silence which precedes the opening of the prayer is not an empty time or a simple waiting moment, but it has a valuable way of fostering the fervour which I will share about later. Entering the chapel hurriedly, at the last minute or, worse still, late, only disturbs the internal mood of peace of mind, essential for our serene and deep dialogue with the Lord.

The brief ‘break’ that we allow ourselves to mark the inner change between the activity we have just concluded and the start of the celebration, has very beneficial effects if we wish to optimize our community moments of prayer. On the other hand, to switch from one mode to another, without an ‘interval’, will not contribute to making a good start to our prayer. The same can be said for the transition between the conclusion of our liturgical celebration and the resumption of our preoccupations and commitments of the day.

Have we forgotten that Don Bosco gave himself a quarter of an hour of meditation before the Eucharistic celebration, and another fifteen minutes at the end of Mass for thanksgiving to the Lord? It is an example of our Father and Founder which ought to inspire our wish to support our community prayer moments with greater reverence.

Personal disposition

What I have said on the environment of our chapels, and about punctuality, helps us promote suitable external conditions for prayer, but all this cannot replace our effort to prepare ourselves internally to meet the Lord, together with our confreres with whom we share the faith through its liturgical expression: “lex orandi, lex credendi”.

This may seem an obvious truth, but to be ‘successful’ in prayer, one must really desire to pray, and not just participate in the ‘practices of piety’ merely out of respect for the community program. Without an inner movement of the will, our community prayer will be no more than a formality and a waste of time. Furthermore, to nurture our personal disposition, the invocation of the Holy Spirit in us is essential for ‘success’ in prayer. We usually do this at the end of Lauds, at the start of the morning meditation, but we have to  admit that we recite that invocation without our hearts really being in it!

The animation of community prayer

The term "animation" refers to our soul/anima. Indeed, this is a task which is meant to touch the heart!

The animators

Any confrere responsible for such animation assumes a task by which he must want to offer assistance in promoting the personal dispositions of the rest of the participants, to encourage their access into a prayerful mood. He therefore needs to prepare himself beforehand, so that the prayer of praise and thanksgiving, penitential or intercession can be lived with true fervour.

The animator uses the diverse means available to help the members of the community. Among the many ‘tools’, I cite two that are proposed in our strategic plan: "Participation is encouraged by music and song, and by moments of contemplation and silence". The field of musical animation deserves considerations which I do not cover in this circular letter for lack of space. But by their very nature, psalms, responses and hymns are meant to be sung rather than recited! Who ever recites a National Anthem or Happy Birthday instead of singing it?! With the lead given by an animator, and with some singing practice, our community celebrations can be embellished to enhance our liturgies and duly raise our spirits towards God. This requires some discipling to set some time for rehearsing some of the tunes not familiar to everyone. Too often rehearsals are considered to be only for the houses of initial formation. Why can we not in working communities not also find twenty minutes a week for some singing practice?

One more observation about liturgical animators: as I suggested during the provincial meeting of Rectors last month, let us not entrust the animation of community prayer to aspirants, nor leave this role to practical trainees. Let us implement what our Strategic Plan recommends: "Let all confreres take turns in animating our prayer life and ensure its proper preparation and its quality".

The participating members

Even the best animators will not be successful in their responsibility if they have a cold assembly, preferring the routine, unsympathetic and not open to new suggestions. The condition required, is - as has already been said - that of "wanting to pray", and therefore adherence to the instructions of the animator, even when we might have preferred another style of animation, or when we ourselves would have chosen other options.

Obviously, the animator's proposals fluctuate between the various alternatives permitted by the Church's norms in liturgical matters. Often, we do not sufficiently study the possible alternatives, and we content ourselves with repeating the same trend over and over again. Variety and creativity are values ​​which are important in the animation of community prayer.

The purpose of animation: to promote fervour and devotion

Community liturgy is a ritual with external signs and actions which are intended to touch our interior world. To be content with a beautiful liturgy, very carefully tended in its aesthetic aspects, but which does not provoke our interior connection with the Lord and deep communion with Him, ongoing conversion even, is to reduce liturgical gestures to a parade without meaning. Liturgical celebrations must anchor our hearts more in God and each prayer event is an opportunity to express more resolutely our loving relationship with Him. Fervour thus becomes that movement of the heart which sustains our covenant of love with the Lord and which propels us to live in Him and for Him!

Connection between prayer and life

Our everyday spirituality knows how to overcome the split between prayer and life, between action and contemplation. The standard measure for evaluating the quality of the animation of our community prayer, is not the splendour of our celebrations, but rather the extent of our personal conversion to Gospel and Salesian values ​​in daily life. Indeed, a good liturgical animation succeeds in intensifying our daily experience of deep communion with the Lord, and consequently our daily life is transformed by the active presence of God in us.

In this regard, our Rector Major told us at the end of GC27: "The grace of unity (...) enables the unification of our life: prayer and work, action and contemplation, reflection and apostolate". The same GC27 had chosen the icon of the vine and the branches as a symbol of the deep unity between mystical and apostolic life.

Since the goal of prayer is growth in loving communion with God, who sends us to carry the message of liberation in His name, the fervour promoted by the proper animation of community prayer, favours apostolic work which is transformed into a sanctifying encounter with God and facilitates the experience of the prayer of the apostle who lives with Jesus and works for him! Thus, liturgical animation aims at the sanctification of participants in community prayer and the integration between action and contemplation.

The article of the Constitutions which closes the section on dialogue with the Lord proposes two modes of prayer, that animators will take into account to strengthen the connection between prayer and life, namely: the prayer of praise and the prayer of intercession. As a result, the exercise of the mission, far from constituting an obstacle to our spiritual life, instead strengthens it, by developing a dialogue with the Lord who - in the words of Saint Teresa of Avila - is “a pact of friendship involving frequent conversations with the One we know loves us ”.

This article 95 crowns not only the section on dialogue with the Lord, but also the whole second part of our Constitutions which presents the description of the identity of a Salesian of Don Bosco: Sent to the young - in communities - following Christ, obedient, poor and chaste. We read there: “The Salesian learns to meet God through those to whom he is sent”. It is an art that can be learned because it is not innate. In fact, the previous version of this article, from the 20^th Special General Chapter, stated: “For the Salesian, immersed in the world and the concerns of pastoral life, meeting God in the freedom and spontaneity of the son can sometimes become difficult". The service of liturgical animation, conscious of this difficulty, seeks to resolve it by facilitating - through appropriate options - the encounter with God in the liturgy as well as in educational and pastoral service. It is an integration between pastoral experience and apostolic experience which is corroborated by the example of Don Bosco, who “lived the experience of humble, trusting and apostolic prayer, which spontaneously united prayer and life ". It therefore means that we do not leave our apostolic concerns and projects at the door of the chapel, but that we make them the subject of our dialogue with the Lord, never divorcing prayer and life.

Conclusion

At the end of what I have shared with you on this day of the liturgical commemoration of Our Lady of the Rosary, let us entrust ourselves to her, who guided the steps of Don Bosco, that she will support us in our efforts of a deep spiritual life and of service.

For community sharing:

* Are we happy with regard the attention given to the community chapel and sacristy?

* Are we satisfied concerning our general punctuality and personal disposition towards participation in liturgical prayer in community?

* Is there sufficient creativity and celebratory atmosphere promoted in order to avoid monotony and routine in our community prayer?

* How can we further promote the link between our prayer and our apostolic life?

 Manolo Jiménez – Provincial ACC