TEN OBSERVATIONS ABOUT CATHOLICISM FOR THOSE NEW TO CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE (8 of 10) 

Brother Michael Lauteri, O.C.S.O., our Junior Lay Cistercian Moderator at Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery (Trappist), taught us many valuable lessons about the contemplative way of life. In particular, I recall him saying, ‘Pray as you can.’

PRAY AS YOU CAN, NOT JUST BECAUSE IT IS IN YOUR SCHEDULE

Some of my observations about the Lay Cistercian Way are:

• Remember that the exception in prayer is not the rule.
• More prayers do not mean more grace (necessarily).
• The purpose of my Catholicism is not to say prayers repetitively (although I do some repetition in the Rosary and Litany of the Saints). Common sense must prevail.
• Stay away from fetishes, the reliance on relics and signs of wonder (Jesus in what looks like a cloud), and hoaxes about Mary or the Saints. Trust the Church to guide you in the way of truth. I like the Our Lady of Akita website because it refocuses me on being a penitential Lay Cistercian.
• Lectio Divina practices that allow me to put myself in the presence of Christ and wait for the prompting of the Holy Spirit are becoming an ever-increasing joy.
• Do not measure one practice as being more preferred than another. In my case, at 84.11 years of age, I can’t make it to Eucharist at church, but now receive it at home from our priest or deacon.
• The increasing value in prayer seems to be in just waiting for my being to be present to the ontic possibility of the manifest ability of the Real Presence.
• Often, I fall asleep saying the Rosary. I intend to recite the whole thing, but then wake up only to find my Rosary has fallen on the floor.

Use common sense, even though sense is not that common these days.

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