| Lord Teach us to Pray
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Katherine Edwards, who teaches at New Hall School in Essex, and is one of the leaders of the prayer group at St James the Less in Colchester, shares how the prayer course Lord Teach Us to Pray, has helped reinvigorate their group We have quite a well established prayer group that has been going for about ten years. It has fluctuated in numbers over the years and once had about 40- 50 members. By the end of last year we were down to about ten regulars, and there were only two leaders left, myself and John McCabe. It became rather a strain because I was going through a down period myself and I wished that someone else would take over for a while, but there didn’t seem to be anyone confident enough to take on the leadership. I was sure there were other gifts in the group too but I didn’t seem to be able to encourage people into using them and I didn’t know what to do. Then the Brentwood diocesan team decided to run some teaching days. One of these was about a prayer course called “Lord teach Us to Pray”. This was devised by Fr Bob Faricy SJ and Sr Lucy Rooney and published by ICCRS (International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services in Rome). It’s based on Ignatian spirituality and, like the Life in the Spirit Seminars, is done over a period of seven weeks, with daily readings and a weekly sharing group. The aim, however, is to help people deepen their prayer life and relationship with God and help them discover their spiritual gifts. It sounded ideal and just what our group needed and I persuaded them to do it. We had just fixed the dates when John, the other leader, told us that he was going to be away in Australia for a couple of months and wouldn’t be able to attend. I was tempted to postpone it until he came back, but I decided that we should press on. Everyone lives such pressurised lives that there is never a convenient time for these things and I felt there was a danger that we would never get down to it. I was sure that if we did the best we could, God would do the rest. And He did - in a much greater way than I could have imagined. John, in fact, didn’t miss out and followed the course with us while he was in Australia. The beauty of this particular course, is that you can do it on your own, as well as in a group. There was no way I was going to do all the talks, so I decided to ask two of the members of the group if they would take on a couple of the talks too. They were quite new but they were both teachers and used to speaking to groups, so I was hopeful they would manage. And they did. They were both better than I could have hoped for and gave such deep sharings about their lives that it encouraged everyone to open up and share too. To be honest I was so busy that I didn’t even have time to read the manual thoroughly and so I didn’t emphasis what they do in the book about the importance of commitment, which I think was just as well as it might have put people off. What happened, however, was that the course was so good that instead of people dropping out, more people joined. We began the course with ten and finished with 17 people, and we regularly get over 20 for the prayer group now too. As well as increased numbers, the use of the gifts has increased too. We have a greater emphasis on healing, and several members now use the gift of prophecy and the word of knowledge. One lady, who had only come for the first time and never spoken at a prayer meeting gave an interpretation of a prophecy in tongues, which was very powerful. The level of sharing has also grown a lot and we have generally come together much more as a group, which is all thanks to this course and people’s response to it. Praise the Lord!
Wendy Hayes, from St Mary Immaculate parish in Kelvedon, shares how Lord Teach us to Pray helped her small ladies’ prayer group I had a big conversion experience about four years ago and through this became involved in the Charismatic Renewal and started going to the Mustard Seed prayer group, which is quite an established group. Then last year I did the Life in the Spirit seminars that the DST organised at Abbotswick. John Vaughan Neil, the speaker at them, encouraged us to be bold and to go out and start prayer groups in our own parishes. I felt very nervous about this, as I was pretty new myself, but I decided to take the plunge. I prayed about it and it seemed that the Lord was saying to me that I should start a ladies’ prayer group, so I invited some of the people I knew to come. None of them had any experience of prayer groups before and were, I suspect, just coming out of loyalty to me. We were only a small group with between 2-8 of us coming, once a fortnight. They weren’t used to spontaneous prayer or praying out loud unless it was set prayers, so usually the sessions would end up with me doing all the talking. They would also ask me a lot of questions about the Charismatic Renewal and things like tongues and prophecy, which I didn’t really feel equipped to answer and it was all getting a bit of a strain. Then I heard about this course, and felt it was ideal for us. The rest of the group found the idea a bit scary because they had never done a prayer course, but I suppose I bullied them into it. I led the first session but then I photocopied the next session and said “Who’s going to do this one?” I explained that they simply needed to read the notes and then prepare a sharing based on their own life experiences and that’s what people did. It was absolutely wonderful. The meeting became so deep and we shared such huge intimate things. The ladies chose the hymns, said the prayers and some even brought along poems and things to share. It was amazing. Everyone became so close as a result. Three of the group began to pray John Vaughan Neil’s prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit every day and they began to ask me a lot about the Holy Spirit and how they might receive more of him. Since the course I have brought some of the ladies to the monthly day of renewal at Euston, which would have been an impossibility a year ago. Another lady is coming away with me on a healing retreat, whereas before people would have considered retreats something only nuns and priests did. People now are also happy to pray aloud too and participate in the prayer group, which has been transformed as a result. Starting the group was a massive step for me but I was finding it really difficult and this book gave us a structure and a way forward and helped us a lot and I can really recommend it. If you would like to discuss running the course with Wendy the Goodnews
Office can put you in touch with her. Our e-mai is:
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Lord
Teach Us to Pray by Fr Bob Faricy SJ and Sr Lucy Rooney is published
by ICCRS and costs £7.99 plus £1 p&p available from
Goodnews Books, 60 Wickstead Ave, Luton LU4 9DP 01582 571011 Fax
01582 571012 
