Reflections on Prayer

Dear Editor: In response to the letters on Centering Prayer, I offer the following.

The basic elements of Christian spirituality are: Scripture, silence (Centering Prayer), and celebration (worship, work, life, etc.).

You can read “Contemplative Prayer” by Thomas Merton; and “Centering Prayer” by Father Thomas Keating.

The Tablet says: “It is a form of prayer that many have found helpful for personal growth and holiness and perhaps is not for everyone in style.” What a simplistic statement!

Silence (Centering Prayer) is at the heart of all transformation. The Scriptures tell us, “Mary pondered all these things in her heart.” “Pondering” is Centering Prayer. It is the love in our hearts that responds to the love we hear in Scripture that erupts into celebration (worship).

Joseph P. Franklin
Wurtsboro, N.Y.

Dear Editor: In his series of columns on prayer, Father Robert Lauder wonders “whether anyone else profits from reading his column but what I write often helps me.” While reading his column on prayer, I was presented with an opportunity to reflect on the shape that my prayer takes each day.

Among the many insights about prayer that Father Lauder makes in his columns, two are especially important for an encounter with Jesus. The first is his description of “prayer as hearing and responding to the Word of God.” The second important insight is that “our journey is not one that we take alone.”

Father Lauder’s insights evoked the following response from me. How do we hear and respond to the words of Jesus? I want to present a fundamental belief of mine that enables me to hear and respond to the words of Jesus.

No one can do it alone. Jesus uses people to teach and lead us in the way we should go.

“Do you seriously wish to travel the road to devotion?” asks St. Francis de Sales in his “Introduction to the Devout Life.” If so, then find a faithful friend who gives good spiritual counsel. This is the most important of all words of advice. The spiritual practice of a spiritual director as an aid to prayer helps me to be more attentive to the ways that Jesus is teaching and leading me.

My holy communion collaborates with me to remove the scales from my eyes. In Acts 9-10, we read how Jesus sent Ananias to Saul. Ananias laid hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on your way here has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes and his sight was restored.

Agnes Walsh
Bayside

Students to the Rescue

Dear Editor: I wanted to pass along an item I hope you will be able to use.

Basically, it would go like this — Big Thanks to the students, faculty and Principal Frances DeLuca of Our Lady of Perpetual Help School in South Ozone Park, for collecting 15 boxes of food for the Faith Mission Crisis Center of Jamaica.

The food reached the Center in time for Thanksgiving, and was greatly appreciated.

Good Work, OLPH!

Frank Del Bagno
Jamaica

Editor’s Note: Mr. DelBagno volunteers at the Faith Mission Center, and is a retired teacher at OLPH.

Christmas Cover Artwork

Dear Editor: A number of us Brooklyn-expats were reminiscing about the Christmas covers that John McAlinden created each year for The Tablet. Is there a place on the Internet that we can revisit these old covers?

Jim Kingsepp
Westport, CT

Editor’s Note: You’ll be happy to know that John McAlinden is hard at work with this year’s creative Christmas cover, which will appear on Dec. 22. Unfortunately, we have not archived the past covers. But it is a good idea. We’ll think about it! 

How to Reach the Dodds

Dear Editor: In The Tablet of Oct. 13, I came across the column “The Children of Special Needs” by Bill and Monica Dodds. It quickly attracted my attention and interest, since I’m a living proof of this painful situation. Anything that can bring some kind of help I try to pursue.

All their advice is well-based, but there is so much to deal with. There is no direction or telephone number for how to reach them or the organization of the Friends of St. John the Caregiver.

I’m very much interested to learn more about this new source of help. Can you please help me with more information of how to reach the Dodds, or their organization.

Ermelinda Camello
Brooklyn

Editor’s Note: The Dodds can be reached by mailing a letter to The Tablet, 310 Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, NY, 11215, or by logging on to their website www.FSJC.org. They also can be contacted at MonicaDodds@YourAgingParent.com.

‘Bella’ Not Quite Art

Dear Editor: My wife spoke highly of Father Robert Lauder’s lecture/discussions at St. John’s Preparatory H.S. this past week. She enjoyed it very much, and she remarked how he is a real film buff – so to speak – and uses films in his lectures and writings to make certain points. She mentioned that he highly recommended “Bella.”  So off we went to see “Bella” on 13th St. in Manhattan.

Now, I enjoyed it while I was watching it.  And I certainly am happy to see a pro-life film.  But something sort of confuses me about his recommending this film – and only because he seems to be a fan of good film-making.  

Here’s my question:  Does it bother him at all that a film – however well made – is so extremely derivative that you can almost guess where it is going frame by frame?  

At times, I was almost ready to cringe and say to my wife “I don’t believe it: they’re about to steal the ending of ‘The Big Night’.”  (Which they did at the ending – even the point of making eggs for the reconciliation meal.)

I enjoy a pro-life film like “A Walk in the Clouds” with Keanu Reeves.  But isn’t this the same Mexican mother that we saw in that film?  And “Fools Rush In” can be labeled as a good pro-life film, and again, let’s march in the Mexican family for an example of happy people embracing life.  

But “Bella” borrows so much from these films that I almost laughed when Nina says, “Is it always like this?  So much joy?” What joy? She comes over to their house for dinner, they dance a little, and that qualifies the family as another joyful, life-embracing Mexican family? Okay, if you say so.

I’m a fan of good film-making, as I hear you are. When the abortion clinic scene was poorly edited into the early middle of the film, I was plain out confused.  Couldn’t they wait? It served no purpose at that point.  No, it should have followed the scene where they part at Penn Station and he says “I’ll call you.”

So here’s my point:  I’ll assume you are familiar with all of the viva-la-Mexicanos films I’ve seen, including the very excellent “Mi Familia” (with the same Mexican mother!  Roll her out on a handtruck any time we need a life-embracing Mexican icon!). Doesn’t something feel a little ‘off’ when you see so much taken wholesale from other movies?  

Also, on another point, was it realistic for the man to feel guilty about accidentally killing a young girl when the mother was much more at fault than he was? And how could he be convicted of involuntary manslaughter? He wasn’t speeding! The girl ran out between parked cars! Don’t all these points add up enough so that you might feel a little less inclined to recommend this film?

I thought “Bella” was made with a great deal of artistic skill. But I do not consider it art. It appeared to be a film with an agenda. It achieved it somewhat well, but the symmetry it tries so hard to achieve is included at its own detriment. Four years later, the mother comes back. The butterfly is in the sky and all is well. But is it? It raises many questions, even though we are happy to see that the lead male feels redeemed and the mother is reunited with her child. Bravo! But no dice. It did not make the grade in my book, and I agree with its message!

Robert Gavila
Astoria