PRAYER MINISTRIES
Prayer Shawl Ministry
When: Second and Fourth Wednesdays of each month
Time: 7:00 - 8:30pm
Where: Mustard Seed Gallery and Studio (724-834-0900)
Guidelines: open to all knitters and crocheters interested in making shawls and/or scarves
(Those interested in learning how to knit are also invited to come)
Ministry: Prayer shawls, scarves and coverlets are knitted or crocheted as gifts of love for individuals in need of feeling God's loving embrace. They are made with deep prayer, love and concern.
Recipients of the shawls and scarves are people who have suffered the loss of a loved one through death or divorce; families with a newborn baby; individuals who have been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease; those hospitalized; and anyone else in need of being consoled in God's loving embrace.
A Shawl Maker's Prayer
Dear Lord,
Bless my hands as I work today.
May each twist of the yarn guide me to create a pattern of love and
comfort and remind me of Your ultimate protection.
Wrap me in Your Spirit so I will be more caring toward those in need.
Grant me patience as I create this wrap.
And bless my handiwork as it travels to bring comfort and peace to
someone in need of Your warm embrace.
Amen
Shawl Blessing
May God's grace be upon this wrap...warming, comforting, enfolding, and
embracing
May this mantle be a safe haven...a sacred place of security and well
being...sustaining and embracing in good times as well as difficult ones.
May you who receive this wrap be cradled in hope, kept in joy, graced
with peace and enveloped in love.
Amen
Janet Bristow and Victoria A. Cole-Gallo of Hartford, CT established the Prayer Shawl Ministry in 1998.
Additional information on the Prayer Shawl Ministry may be found in Knitting Into the Mystery by Susan S. Jorgenson and Susan S. Izard.
Lenten Book Study
When: Monday evenings - March 5, 12, 19, 26, 2007
Time: 7:00pm - 8:30pm
Where: Mustard Seed Gallery (724-834-0900)
Guidelines: Registration requested - limited to 14 participants
Fr. Bill Berkey, Parochial Vicar of Blessed Sacrament Cathedral, will lead a four-week Lenten discussion group on Ronald Rolheiser's The Shattered Latern, Rediscovering A Felt Presence of God. Discussion sessions will be held Monday evening March 5 - 26, 2007 at the Mustard Seed Gallery, 124 South Pennsylvania Avenue, downtown Greensburg. Seating is limited, please call the Gallery to reserve your space. Copies of The Shattered Lantern are available for purchase at the Mustard Seed Gallery.
Contemplative Prayer
When: Wednesdays
Time: 12:15pm - 12:45pm
Where: Prayer Room at the Mustard Seed Gallery (724-834-0900)
Guidelines: available upon request at the Mustard Seed Gallery or by contacting
www.contemplativeoutreach.org Contemplative Prayer is the normal development of the grace of Baptism and the regular practice of Lectio Divina. Prayer may be thought of as thoughts or feelings expressed in words. This is but one expression of prayer. Contemplative Prayer is the opening of mind and heart - our whole being - to God, the ultimate Mystery, beyond thought, words, and emotions. We open our awareness of God whom we know by faith is within us, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than choosing - closer than consciousness itself. Contemplative Prayer is a process of interior purification leading, if we consent, to divine union.
Centering Prayer is a method designed to facilitate the development of contemplative prayer by preparing our faculities to cooperate with this gift. It is an attempt to present the teaching of earlier time (e.g. The Cloud of Unknowing) in an updated form and to put a certain order and regularity into it. It is not meant to replace other kinds of prayer; it simply puts other kinds of prayer into a new and fuller perspective. During the time of prayer we consent to God's presence and action within. At other times our attention moves outward to discover God's presence everywhere. From: The Method of Centering Prayer by Thomas Keating
International Office:
Contemplative Outreach, LTD
10 Park Place - Suite 2B
P.O. Box 737
Butler, N.Y. 07405
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