Apostleship of Prayer History of the Apostleship of Prayer

John L. Vessels, SJ

Part Six
ATTITUDE OF FAITH AND PRAYER It was by this attitude of prayer, this attitude of faith with which they began each day, by this will-act at the beginning of each day, tuning themselves just as Christ tuned himself to the Father each morning of his earthly existence and still does eternally, by turning himself to God at the beginning of the day and then, not trying to understand, not really concentrating on it consciously during the day but simply going through one's day giving one's energies and one's time completely to the task at hand, especially to the persons encountered at the tasks at hand, that God can do his will in the life of each person, in the heart of each person, in the mind of each person, in the spirit of each person, both the doer, the pray-er and those with whom that doer and pray-er comes in contact. This is LIVING the Eucharist.
Of course these people learned also how the seminarians valued their Eucharist and thereby their own Eucharist became valuable to them, whether it was weekly, monthly or only two or three times a year. (We must remember how much people live on the Eucharist even if they can attend it only three or four times a year or once a month. They do not think of it as just three or four times a year, or once a month activity; they live, they celebrate the Eucharist every day.) They celebrate the Eucharist every day in the morning Offering, this offering of themselves, this priestly act, at the beginning of each day. If the priest only comes to their village once a year or once a month, they bring the DAILY offerings that they offerings that they have made as individuals, as families and as community to the altar knowing this is the moment at which publicly assumes and prays with them and makes their offering to the Father, blending it with his own.
so as it spread across southern France because, just as the seminarians told them about it and taught them these pricks and the value of these practices which they themselves had learned in practice, so these villagers became missionaries of prayer: they taught others to pray in this way. They told their families in other places, their friends in other places, and they thereby became missionaries of prayer, the Apostleship of Prayer. Thus was the Apostleship of Prayer born. These apostles of prayer were missionaries through prayer and they taught others to be missionaries, to build the kingdom of God beginning with prayer.

To be continued

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