Dear Sisters and Brothers,

A few days ago, on Ash Wednesday, we started Lent. It is a special time of the year for Catholics. Just as Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert as we’ve heard in today’s Gospel, so too the Holy Spirit wants to lead Catholics around the world in a period of renewal. Lent is a time to begin again to love God and love our neighbour.

Lent has three pillars – prayer, fasting and almsgiving. They are aimed at helping us improve in loving God and our neighbour. I would like to invite you to focus this year in particular on prayer. The coming weeks are a time to improve our personal and family prayer as well as prayer at school. Each of us needs to pray for our own personal and family needs, but also the needs of our world, especially when there is such a need of prayer for peace in the world as the war in Ukraine reminds us.

A classic description says prayer is “the raising of our mind and heart to God”. Each person has his or her own experience of prayer. What’s important, however, is that each of us makes time for prayer (be it short or longer) in our daily routine – morning and night prayers, grace before meals, short prayers said silently during the day.

I like the description of prayer as coming “home” to God. We’re forever out and about, doing this and that task, but it’s good to come back home now and then, and talk with God about what’s going on in our lives, our projects, our plans, our hopes, our disappointments, our challenges, our sufferings.

There’s a story about Saint John Vianney who used to see a farmer coming into the chapel each day and spending time before the Blessed Sacrament. One day John Vianney asked the farmer how he prays, his answer amazed him: “I look at him and he looks at me”. Prayer, in other words, doesn’t have to be made up of loads of words. What matters is to improve in praying from the heart, saying our morning and night prayers well and from our heart saying silently little short prayers during the day.

We can be grateful we live in a time when technology provides us with prayer resources on our iphones or ipads. There are meditation apps, pray-as-you-go apps, and Bible apps. For instance, the Jesuits run a prayer app called “Sacred Space” which you can access free of charge. There are music apps with favourite hymns or inspiring songs. There’s a global app called Hallow that is getting huge interest, helped by having popular figures like actor Mark Whalberg and tenor Andrea Bocelli as advocates. Perhaps you can let your children or grandchildren know about these apps.

I have prepared a short pastoral letter on the theme of prayer. I hope you get a chance to read it. Copies of the letter are available to you as you leave the church today. It’s also on the Diocesan website.

Saint Mother Teresa said about prayer: “I used to believe that prayer changed things, but now I know that prayer changes us, and we change things”.

All the best for the season of Lent. Let’s remember one another in prayer, praying especially for peace in our troubled world.

? Brendan Leahy

Bishop of Limerick