PRAYER FOR THE INTERCESSION OF THE VENERABLE SERVANT OF GOD, FR. FRANCIS BLACHNICKI
God, Father Almighty, we thank you for your priest, the Venerable Servant of God, Francis, whom you endowed with the grace of consistent faith in a unique way, and who therefore gave his life fully to your service.
We thank you for allowing him to love your Church passionately and to understand that the deepest principle of her vitality and fertility is the spousal gift of oneself to your Son in love, following the example of the Immaculate Mother of the Church.
We thank you also that through this priest you called into existence the Light-Life Movement, which desires to raise up participants who truly possess themselves in making a true gift of themselves and thus contribute to the growth of the living communities of the Church.
Be praised, o God, in the Servant of God Fr. Francis, in his life and work, and be pleased to glorify your name further by granting me through his intercession the grace of ……… that I most humbly implore. Amen.
PRAYER TO MARY IMMACULATE, MORNING STAR OF FREEDOM OF JASNA GORA, THE SOURCE OF LIGHT AND LIFE
Mary Immaculate, Morning Star of Freedom, Our Lady of Jasna Góra, at whose side we, the Polish people, have always been free.
You are for us the source of Light and Life because you were the first of mankind to receive the Light of the world, Jesus, and you followed him, offering all of your life to him in love and obedience, as far as to the Cross.
You can see my enslavement, which means I am often overpowered by the darkness of error and illusions of my imagination and ignorance, and I live for myself in pride and self-love.
Please, set me free, and ask God to grant me the grace of being immersed, together with you, in the only Light, that is Jesus, who knows who I am, what the Father demands from me, and what is good for me.
Please, set me free, and ask God to grant me the power to defeat egoism by receiving the Cross and to live for the Light, for God, and for my brothers and sisters through sincere service and love.
Please, make light shine in me and the spring of life well up in me.
Please, help me know the truth that will set me free, and help me follow Jesus so I do not walk in the darkness, but have the Light of Life. Amen.
You are for us the source of Light and Life because you were the first of mankind to receive the Light of the world, Jesus, and you followed him, offering all of your life to him in love and obedience, as far as to the Cross.
You can see my enslavement, which means I am often overpowered by the darkness of error and illusions of my imagination and ignorance, and I live for myself in pride and self-love.
Please, set me free, and ask God to grant me the grace of being immersed, together with you, in the only Light, that is Jesus, who knows who I am, what the Father demands from me, and what is good for me.
Please, set me free, and ask God to grant me the power to defeat egoism by receiving the Cross and to live for the Light, for God, and for my brothers and sisters through sincere service and love.
Please, make light shine in me and the spring of life well up in me.
Please, help me know the truth that will set me free, and help me follow Jesus so I do not walk in the darkness, but have the Light of Life. Amen.
The Scheme of the Tent of Meeting Prayer (1)
1. “Come Holy Spirit.” → I ask for the help of the Holy Spirit: I can sing a song, say some short prayer or ask him to come in my own words.
2. “Jesus is here.” → I realize that he is truly present here, he is with me here and now.
3. “Face to face, as a person speaks to a friend.” → it is an encounter of friends who are both happy to meet and I can express my joy in prayer of worship. Jesus is my friend, he is delighted to be with me, he loves me, he cares for me; it is like being embraced by him.
4. “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.” → the Lord wants to tell me something particular here and now. It is a prayer for a word for me.
5. “Lord, what shall I do?” → in the state of internal peace, I take the wait-and-see attitude. My heart is full of curiosity. I would like to hear what Jesus wants to tell me today.
6. “Your word is a lamp for my feet.” → only now I read the chosen and prepared passage from the Bible. I do it slowly, attentively; more than once if necessary.
7. “A light silent sound.” → I remain in silence, waiting and listening carefully to the voice of God with patience and trust. It is an encounter with God in my imagination, my mind, my heart and my memory.
8. “To the angel . . . write this . . .” → I write down in my notebook the thoughts that have come to my mind in order to save them from oblivion and to be able to return to them any time I need.
9. “Lord . . . I decide now to . . .” → I make a resolution and I write it down in my notebook. (Obviously only if it arises in me, I do not force myself to make a resolution, because it is not the essence of the Tent of Meeting prayer.)
9. “Lord . . . I decide now to . . .” → I make a resolution and I write it down in my notebook. (Obviously only if it arises in me, I do not force myself to make a resolution, because it is not the essence of the Tent of Meeting prayer.)
10. “Thank you, Jesus.” → I thank God for the encounter and for his word. (You may also react to God’s kindness with heartfelt repentance, but it is not obligatory.) The prayer should end with thanksgiving.
ACT OF DEDICATION OF THE LIGHT-LIFE MOVEMENT TO MARY IMMACULATE, MOTHER OF THE CHURCH
Mary Immaculate, Mother of the Church,
We who are gathered here remember with gratitude your care for the work of the Oasis of the Living Church.
We profess that thanks to your maternal love, the first Oasis of Mary Immaculate,
which was entrusted to your special care,
developed in an amazing way into the Oasis Movement and then into the Light-Life Movement.
We profess that your attitude of limitless, spousal self-gift to Christ in love
is the source of your maternal fertility in the people of God.
Since you are the Immaculate Bride of the Word, particularly in union with him at the hour of utmost love on the Cross, you are the Mother of all the living and the Mother of the Church.
We also profess that being united with you in the attitude of spousal devotion to Christ
is and will always remain the only true and deepest principle of vitality and fertility of Holy Mother Church.
The Church will be the Holy Mother Church together with you only if in her particular members, she becomes with you the Bride devoted to the Lord in faith and love.
We believe that the whole work of the Oasis is based on the understanding of this mystery
and it has no other aim than to raise up its participants to a constantly deepening understanding and implementation of the attitude of truly possessing themselves in making a true gift of themselves to Christ and to their sisters and brothers.
We believe that such an attitude is the source of new life, and this is why it is just to entrust this work to you, more deeply and consciously, and ask imploringly for your acceptance and that you would make it your own.
We truly believe that we shall become “the Oasis of the Living Church” only if we are united with you in implementing the attitude of service and dedication to Christ in his Church.
Receive thus, we ask, as your own property all those who have given their lives and all their powers
to the diakonia of the Light-Life Movement.
Receive them all, particularly the moderators and animators who, within this Movement,
want to serve the great cause of building living communities of the Church.
Receive all those who at the end of their Oasis retreats
have entrusted their resolutions to your hands and give them the grace to persevere.
[Receive also as your own property this place, in which everything is to serve the work of the Oasis of the Living Church, and make it serve this cause only without any obstacles. [This paragraph is recited only in the Light-Life Center]
Mary Immaculate, Mother of the Church,
be also the Mother of the work of the Oasis and the Light-Life Movement.
Amen.
We who are gathered here remember with gratitude your care for the work of the Oasis of the Living Church.
We profess that thanks to your maternal love, the first Oasis of Mary Immaculate,
which was entrusted to your special care,
developed in an amazing way into the Oasis Movement and then into the Light-Life Movement.
We profess that your attitude of limitless, spousal self-gift to Christ in love
is the source of your maternal fertility in the people of God.
Since you are the Immaculate Bride of the Word, particularly in union with him at the hour of utmost love on the Cross, you are the Mother of all the living and the Mother of the Church.
We also profess that being united with you in the attitude of spousal devotion to Christ
is and will always remain the only true and deepest principle of vitality and fertility of Holy Mother Church.
The Church will be the Holy Mother Church together with you only if in her particular members, she becomes with you the Bride devoted to the Lord in faith and love.
We believe that the whole work of the Oasis is based on the understanding of this mystery
and it has no other aim than to raise up its participants to a constantly deepening understanding and implementation of the attitude of truly possessing themselves in making a true gift of themselves to Christ and to their sisters and brothers.
We believe that such an attitude is the source of new life, and this is why it is just to entrust this work to you, more deeply and consciously, and ask imploringly for your acceptance and that you would make it your own.
We truly believe that we shall become “the Oasis of the Living Church” only if we are united with you in implementing the attitude of service and dedication to Christ in his Church.
Receive thus, we ask, as your own property all those who have given their lives and all their powers
to the diakonia of the Light-Life Movement.
Receive them all, particularly the moderators and animators who, within this Movement,
want to serve the great cause of building living communities of the Church.
Receive all those who at the end of their Oasis retreats
have entrusted their resolutions to your hands and give them the grace to persevere.
[Receive also as your own property this place, in which everything is to serve the work of the Oasis of the Living Church, and make it serve this cause only without any obstacles. [This paragraph is recited only in the Light-Life Center]
Mary Immaculate, Mother of the Church,
be also the Mother of the work of the Oasis and the Light-Life Movement.
Amen.
PRAYER OF THE CRUSADE FOR HUMAN LIBERATION
Mary Immaculate, Mother of the Church, you are for us the model of a person fully redeemed and free and thus infinitely devoted in love to Christ in the Holy Spirit. When we fix our eyes on you, we realize the manifold slaveries which entangle our hearts.
Our deepest desire is to get completely free and to help our brothers and sisters who are awaiting the freedom of the Children of God to appear in them. Thus we approach you, and we give ourselves to you so that with you, by the power of the same Spirit, who worked in you, we can realize more fully our freedom in giving ourselves to Christ and through him to God, the Father.
We entrust our promise of abstinence from alcoholic beverages and our decision to get completely free from them to you so that our freedom may liberate our brothers and sisters, who cannot get free on their own. May this act of love be the act of giving a helping hand and of service to our brothers and sisters, the act in which we want to imitate Christ who out of love emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.
We entrust the whole work of the Crusade for Human Liberation to you. We pray that it will become your work and an instrument in your hand to make our nation free.
We want to stand at the foot of the Cross of Christ with you and your dedicated servant Saint John Paul II, and confess that only a union with Christ in love, which is expressed in sacrifice, may set free a life-giving and maternal power for rescuing those who became slaves because they had lost the ability to love, that is to make a sincere gift of oneself.
Saint Stanislaus, Bishop and Martyr, Patron of the Crusade for Human Liberation, inspire us with the courage to give testimony and fortitude in the face of difficulties and persecutions. May we work without fear on rebuilding the moral order in our country.
Saint Maximilian Kolbe, teach us how to love our brothers and sisters at the cost of making a sacrifice of ourselves. Amen.
Our deepest desire is to get completely free and to help our brothers and sisters who are awaiting the freedom of the Children of God to appear in them. Thus we approach you, and we give ourselves to you so that with you, by the power of the same Spirit, who worked in you, we can realize more fully our freedom in giving ourselves to Christ and through him to God, the Father.
We entrust our promise of abstinence from alcoholic beverages and our decision to get completely free from them to you so that our freedom may liberate our brothers and sisters, who cannot get free on their own. May this act of love be the act of giving a helping hand and of service to our brothers and sisters, the act in which we want to imitate Christ who out of love emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.
We entrust the whole work of the Crusade for Human Liberation to you. We pray that it will become your work and an instrument in your hand to make our nation free.
We want to stand at the foot of the Cross of Christ with you and your dedicated servant Saint John Paul II, and confess that only a union with Christ in love, which is expressed in sacrifice, may set free a life-giving and maternal power for rescuing those who became slaves because they had lost the ability to love, that is to make a sincere gift of oneself.
Saint Stanislaus, Bishop and Martyr, Patron of the Crusade for Human Liberation, inspire us with the courage to give testimony and fortitude in the face of difficulties and persecutions. May we work without fear on rebuilding the moral order in our country.
Saint Maximilian Kolbe, teach us how to love our brothers and sisters at the cost of making a sacrifice of ourselves. Amen.
The Scheme of the Tent of Meeting Prayer (2)
1. Calm down your heart to enter silence
(1-2 minutes).
2. Invoke the Holy Spirit.
3. Read the Word of God.
+ For the first time: read slowly and thoroughly the chosen passage from the Scripture.
+ For the second time: Read the same passage, pausing for a moment after each sentence. Try to understand that passage. You can use a Bible commentary.
+ For the third time: Read the passage and write down answers to the following questions:
• What do I learn about God?
• What do I learn about a human being?
• In what way does this passage refer to me and my life?
____________________________________________________________
1. The Tent of Meeting prayer requires:
• A suitable place (a quiet space, where no one will disturb me during my encounter with God).
• Appropriate time (at least fifteen minutes). Do not shorten the time devoted to prayer.
• Appropriate body posture (one that will not disturb, but will help me in prayer and in writing down what I have learned.)
2. The only thing I can really offer to God in prayer is my presence and time.
3. God expects me to be faithful in meeting him and writing down what I learn and what I discern I am called to do.
4. In prayer, I seek God's presence, and I want to get to know his will. As a bonus, I get the answer to the question, Who am I?
(1-2 minutes).
2. Invoke the Holy Spirit.
3. Read the Word of God.
+ For the first time: read slowly and thoroughly the chosen passage from the Scripture.
+ For the second time: Read the same passage, pausing for a moment after each sentence. Try to understand that passage. You can use a Bible commentary.
+ For the third time: Read the passage and write down answers to the following questions:
• What do I learn about God?
• What do I learn about a human being?
• In what way does this passage refer to me and my life?
____________________________________________________________
1. The Tent of Meeting prayer requires:
• A suitable place (a quiet space, where no one will disturb me during my encounter with God).
• Appropriate time (at least fifteen minutes). Do not shorten the time devoted to prayer.
• Appropriate body posture (one that will not disturb, but will help me in prayer and in writing down what I have learned.)
2. The only thing I can really offer to God in prayer is my presence and time.
3. God expects me to be faithful in meeting him and writing down what I learn and what I discern I am called to do.
4. In prayer, I seek God's presence, and I want to get to know his will. As a bonus, I get the answer to the question, Who am I?
From the Guideposts of the New Person
PRAYER is the breath of New Life,
a great privilege and delight of the New Person,
the source of power and the work of the Holy Spirit in us;
therefore I want to be faithful
to the everyday practice of the Tent of Meeting prayer.