Scrutinized!

On Saturday, April 1, I completed the third of three Rites of Scrutiny. The posture I assumed in the second and third Scrutiny were slightly different from the first one. In the first one, the priest had me stand when he prayed over me. The last two times, he had me remain kneeling, approached me, placed his hands on my hand, and prayed over me. Afterwards, my sponsor, a gem of a lady who I am very blessed to know, prayed over me with her hands on my shoulders.

Prayer is something I am still working on. Not having grown up with prayer as part of my life, developing the habit of prayer is something I have yet to do. I don't remember to pray before all my meals. I don't know many prayers by heart. I even forget to pray the mid-day Lenten prayer that the whole parish is supposed to pray -- you'd think I would remember that one since it mentions me by name!! Maybe I'll start a habit of praying while driving (well, I do some of that anyway since people drive like maniacs sometimes), since I spend about an hour in my commute each day.

People who have been praying a long time might not think too much about prayer requiring submission -- submission and vulnerability to an unknowable, unseen, infinite, omnipotent, and somewhat undefined entity. Who in their right minds would do that? Of course, the independent side of me says to myself, why bother praying anyway, since this being is omnipotent and knows my thoughts and feelings? Why should I have to pray when God already knows everything about me anyway? Then I think to myself, while God may already know everything about me, perhaps God calls us to use prayer so that we can learn more about ourselves, our thoughts/feelings, motivations, take pause to appreciate what we are grateful for, and understand where we need help?

On Saturday, the priest spoke about obedience in his homily. There's another one of those words that sounds my alarm bells. However, at its origin, the word obey means to pay attention to, give ear to, or listen. That makes more sense to me.

In just a couple of weeks, I'll be fully received into the Catholic church through the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and first communion. More to come on that later.