Fr John's ready to help broaden prayer horizons at Pray 2010

Published: 24 January 2010
By: Adrian Taylor

Fr John Chalmers: "I like the title Pray 2010 because it's a verb, a 'doing' word, rather than a noun"

SR Wendy Beckett, the famous art lover on British television, is not a figure that normally comes to mind for inciting revolution.

Yet for a young seminarian studying at Banyo in the early 1970s she was precisely that, penning an article about prayer that shook all his previous understandings on the matter.

That young priest, Fr John Chalmers, is today the director of Centacare Pastoral Ministries in Brisbane archdiocese, as well as a lecturer in high demand around the country on practical theology and pastoral ministry, yet he still resonates with the effect her words had on him.

"I think it was an article she had written in the Clergy Review of that year, about prayer, and in it she asked rhetorically 'what is prayer'?," he recalls.

"Her ultimate conclusion was to ask yourself 'do I want to be possessed by God?' and if the answer to that is 'yes' then you are already praying.

"Upon first reading, that was revolutionary for me because it broadened my horizons and opened me up to a different way of thinking about prayer.

"Don't misunderstand me, - I greatly value the 'Our Father', the 'Prayer of the Church' and the psalms, they're great, but for me that's just the beginning and not the end of my prayer."

Fr John will get to expound upon this theme of exploring prayer at this year's Pray 2010 gathering in Brisbane in July when he holds a workshop on "Entering the Gospel Parables".

Pray 2010 features prayer and spirituality in the Catholic tradition and the Brisbane priest is one of many amongst a strong line-up of international and national speakers.

"I like the title Pray 2010 because it's a verb, a 'doing' word, rather than a noun," Fr Chalmers said.

"It's not just going to be another series of lectures on what you 'should' be doing.

"I know, because I promise not to 'should' on myself each day.

"No, I like the practical and experiential set-up of Pray 2010 because it's not something to 'should' with but something to do and enjoy as well."

His presentation on the parables promises to be a transformative experience.

"Parables can tend to be neutered by seeing them merely as a fable or story with a message, for instance the parable about the ten lepers," he said.

"On a simple level everyone sees it as a story about the need to say thank you, but that's a bit tame and domesticated, it doesn't have any bite to it.

"In truth the parables are much more incisive than we think and when we read them right, they also 'read' us.

We can see life and its challenges in a very different way, getting glimpses of what the saints were blinded by."

The structure of the workshop is also revealing, with Fr John describing it as a leisurely walk into the parables and ending up in a "funhouse", where life will be refracted in different shapes and bent and stretched here and there.

"My hope is that people will walk out a little differently from how they came in because they will have been 'read by the parable'.

"I think that will be a great strength of Pray 2010 - to take prayer beyond words, offering as well entry into different styles of prayer.

"It's interesting because I do a reasonable amount of work across all the Centacare directorates - with people who often wouldn't have any church affiliation.

"If you asked them that question they might say 'well, I'm not all that religious or a churchy person', but they often do say 'I have a spirituality', and what I believe they mean is that they don't say formal prayers."

Fr John has been director of Centacare Pastoral Ministries since 2002, a broad area of responsibility that covers hospital and prison chaplains, indigenous ministry, psychiatric pastoral care, AIDS ministry, Catholic Prison Ministry and Apostleship of the Sea.

Pastoral ministers deal with people at extremely vulnerable times in their lives and prayer underpins their service.

He said unexpected illness or serious accident can confront people in a way that not much else does, and they usually try to make some sense of it.

"I see pastoral ministers as humane people who engage upfront and genuinely, but with appropriate boundaries as well. Consequently they don't take on other people's problems and make them their own," he said.

"They sensitively engage people with a right heartedness, assuming that God is playing a part in people's lives always, even in the lives of people who claim they don't know God.

"Often times pastoral ministers say, 'I just sat there. I didn't do or say much'. And yet at the end of the visit the people ministered to, with tears streaming down their face, thank us for what we have done."

Given his busy schedule, does Fr John find room for prayer?

"The answer is easier than the actuality, because as Sr Wendy suggests, the question is: do I want to be 'possessed by God'. I, like many human beings, have a great capacity for both self-deception and putting off till later, so it doesn't always happen.

"Still, I've got oodles of time to pray in the car, when I'm travelling to and from meetings. That's where I pray, mostly, other than when I preside at worship.

"Yesterday I had four external meetings and I placed those people and circumstances in God's hands as I trotted off to each. Then on the return journey, I always pray for the outcomes of what may have happened and what may have occurred.

"As well, I've a list of about 15 people that I name every day, and if people ask me to pray for them I'll ask what do they want me to pray for, because it's not always obvious ... so that's how I do it."

In the spirit of Pray 2010 he is also open to different models of prayer, enjoying the Ignatian model, as well as the Benedictine.

"With the work (referring to the Benedictine model), I like to tease that out a little.

"One of the things that Pope Benedict XVI said in his second encyclical Spe Salvi was about 'offering it up' (our suffering).

"I've had more than enough pain in my life, and I try never to waste or undervalue it.

"Pain is not good or inherently virtuous, but it is real - I hate it. So I offer it up for some particular person. It doesn't make it go away mind you, and I don't pray to get rid of pain, but I intentionally put it in God's hands to transform and to use in someone else's life.

"I know pain as a deeply human experience, and therefore I refuse to sideline it as inherently evil.

"That would be to devalue something that is a regular part of my life.

"Rather I believe that God can and does transform it and draw goodness out of something that takes a lot of human energy to live with."

Pray 2010 will be held at Clairvaux MacKillop College, Upper Mt Gravatt, from July 7-10, 2010.

Visit www.pray2010.org.au to register online.