Dillon Hall Diaries: The Four Reasons You Pray, & The Grotto

I had a buddy in high school who became a priest. I talked to him right after he was ordained, and I remember he told me that in the seminary they taught the seminarians that the ideal homily was seven minutes long. Anything longer risked losing the congregation's attention; anything shorter was too light weight. I often wish he had never revealed that "secret" to me, because nowadays when I'm in church I just can't bring myself to give the homilist more than those seven minutes of my undivided attention. To be honest, I usually make a judgment about three minutes into his sermon, and if what he has to say hasn't grabbed me by that time, I tune him out. Shame on me! (By the way, if the homilist is reading a canned sermon, shame on him!) I'm sorry to report that at my church, my "stick with the sermon to the end" record is rather poor. But... here is where my rationalization comes into play. In those circumstances when I'm not into the sermon, instead of using that time to mentally DCE the Notre Dame football roster or think about what I'm going to eat for Sunday brunch, I use that time to pray.

I went to a Catholic grade school and a Catholic high school. Somewhere along the way we were taught that there are four stages of prayer: adoration, thanksgiving, contrition and petition, and they MUST be done in that order. If you start asking God for favors as soon as you hit your knees, your prayer request has little chance of being granted by The Man Upstairs. On the other hand, so said my religion teachers, if you first take the time to give a prayer of love/adoration, then thank God for all He has given you, and follow it up with an act of contrition, only THEN are you in a position to ask for favors.

This morning at Mass was one of those "tune out the sermon early" kind of experiences, so I did a little praying. As I was praying, my mind drifted (again!) to my visitations to the Grotto at ND when I was a student. I was there quite a lot. What better place to do some serious thinking, if not praying? I must admit, when I visited the Grotto I totally blew off what I had been taught in grade school and high school about prayer. I hastily skipped the first three stages and launched directly into my all-important petitions. I particularly needed some supernatural help first semester freshman year. About two weeks before leaving for ND in the fall, my high school girl friend and I broke up. Emil T's chemistry class was causing me too many sleepless nights. I was a little homesick. I had virtually no spending money. I wasn't pulling down the "A's" that I used to get in high school. Lots of things to worry about and pray for.

Things started to turn around for me in the latter half of freshman year. I firmly believe that year would not have had a happy ending without my visits to the Grotto. Now when I'm back on campus for a football game or a reunion, I make a point of stopping by there, but I do a little more thanking and a little less asking. The area surrounding the Grotto is much the same as it was forty years ago. (One huge difference: Brother Duck is no longer doling out bread to his favorite web-footed creatures treading water in St. Mary's Lake.) On the morning of game day there are usually hundreds of people visiting the Grotto, many of them sporting attire for our opponent. When I look at the throng I wonder how many of them are ND alums thinking back to their days of invoking help there as students. It's probably a safe bet that most of them went right to Prayer Step # 4 then, just as I did.