SESSION 1

Mary Arose and Prayed

 SMALL GROUP SHARING
1. What part of the video speaks to you the most? Why?
2. How is your relationship with yourself? With others (family
and friends)? With Mary?
3. How is your prayer life? Are you happy with it? Are you happy
with it, or do you think you need to work more on it?
Synthesis
The video we have watched is about building relationships: with
ourselves, with others, and also with God. The video, as well as our
own experiences, convey to us that our relationship with God looks
almost exactly the same as our relationship with others. Only that
with God, His love is perfect even though we are not, and though we
oftentimes cannot give back the same love and quality of
relationship. All the same, everyone is able, and is expected, to build
and cultivate that relationship. How? Through prayer.
“And the angel answered her, ‘the holy
spirit will come upon you, and the
power of the most high will overshadow
you; therefore the child to be born will
be called holy-the son of god. and
behold, your relative elizabeth in her
old age has also conceived a son, and
this is the sixth month with her who
was called barren. for nothing will be
impossible with god.’
 Mary, at her young age, had this special
relationship with god. we find this in the
attitude of mary towards god’s call. she
submits herself fully to god, calling herself
fully to god, calling herself as (“doule”, greek
word for “female slave”), god’s lowly servant.
this points to a woman who had already
submitted herself fully to the lord, a concrete
living of her faith which we call and celebrate
as her “fiat”.
 And it is not just because she was conceived
without sin, but because she devoted herself to
building a relationship with god through prayer.

The journey of mary to elizabeth, from nazareth in

galilee to ein karem, in the hill country of judah,
is a 130+ kilometer distance with an elevation of
400 meters. the path itself is believed to be
dangerous for travel for simple folk due to danger
of bandits and wild animals.
Mary could have lived in fear and
not continued with the journey.
but in spite of it all, she arose
and went in haste to visit and
take care of her cousin. putting
yourself in the position of mary,
would you do the same?
 What made mary take it all in humbly is her
personal relationship with god. her faith,
her prayer life made her able to accomplish
this.

Mary was young like us. young as we are,

like mary, we are invited by god to a
relationship with him; this we can through
prayer.
WHY WE PRAY
 St. Teresa of Jesus describes prayer as

“Mental prayer in my opinion is nothing less

than an intimate sharing between friends; it
means taking time frequently to be alone with
him who we know loves us”.

She pointed to an important truth: that prayer

begins by being aware of the love of god. she
also pointed to prayer as this intimate
sharing, to it being a relationship of love.
 Let us explore god’s love. note that
even for saints such as teresa of avila,
this knowledge of god’s love and prayer
did not come easy. for her, this took 18
years of struggling between conversing
with god and being caught up in the
activities of the world before she found
this prayer she described.
 As Filipinos, we have an intuition of
our “kalooban”, a sense of our deeper
self. We understand that deep within
us, we have a sense of good will, of
being loving.
 We find it natural to connect to a
higher sense of love and good beyond
ourselves. This is our natural
inclination to God. Prayer springs up
out of this, prayer that springs out
from our deepest selves. Our
“kalooban” is enabled by God’s Holy
Spirit to connect to Him.
Yet beyond this intuition, we need to
be aware of God’s love in order to
respond to this love, and thus create
prayer. Through this, our prayer
becomes less of an external devotion
but more of an internal turning of our
whole being towards God.
Part of the sad reality of our Filipino
Catholic faith is that sometimes the
external devotion and prayer of
Catholic seem to be distant from an
internal moral life. There is a gap
between our private prayer and living
out a good moral life (cf. CFC, 1472).
 Why do we pray?
- our response to god who love us.
- to build a genuine and intimate relationship
with god who love us.
- never fully repay the love god shown us, but we
can respond in the simplest way we can by
turning to God and building a relationship with
Him in prayer.
 A Model: A.C.T.S.S

A. Adoration
We proclaim the greatness of God. If we accept God
as our Creator, the Creator of all things, the Mover
of our lives, we will be in awe of His works of this
world(cf.CCC, 2628). Adoration is the attitude of
accepting God as higher than us, as maker and
ruler of all, our provider and the main mover of our
life. Here we praise God. We affirm the authority
and power of God.
The Lord is king of the universe!
God, You are in heaven. Holy is Your name.
 A Model: A.C.T.S.S

C. Contrition
We ask for forgiveness (cf.CCC 2631). This is another
way of becoming like the humble Christ who took on
the form of a carpenter and a slave (cf. Phil 2:8). When
we acknowledge our sins, this allows us to be honest
with God, building up our once broken relationship
with God. Just like the feeling when people forgive us,
we try to do this with our heavenly Father by
expressing our sins in prayer. Confess to Christ the
sins we committed, especially in preparing for the
sacrament of Reconciliation.
Lord, I am sorry for these sins I did today..
Heavenly Father, I think I hurt a person today…
 A Model: A.C.T.S.S

T. Thanksgiving
We give thanks to God. To be in a relationship with
the Almighty is already something to be grateful
for! We can thank the Lord for the little cheerful
conversations we had today, for the difficult but
helpful correction, for the love that came from a
person we once hated. Here we acknowledge the
gifts of God to us, through His Son and Holy Spirit
(cf. CCC, 2626).

Almighty, loving God, thank You for this experience of..

Jesus, I am grateful for this grace that You granted…
 A Model: A.C.T.S.S

S. Supplication
We can ask. It is better to pray for people around
you first before praying for yourself (cf. CCC 2635),
such as by praying and asking the Lord to help and
heal those who need prayers, taking the time to
remember all those who are troubled, and asking
the Lord to be with them.

Holy Spirit, strengthen those who are discouraged..

Through Your providence, please supply the needs of…
 A Model: A.C.T.S.S

S. Silence
We dwell in God’s presence in silence. St. Mother
Teresa of Kolkata found silence especially useful in
prayer. It helps us to hear our monologues less and
hear God’s word a bit louder. It is allowing God’s
loving presence to fill our minds, even putting
silence to our minds and peace to our hearts.
 CLOSING PRAYER
Using the handout A.C.T.S.S (writing their own
prayer, turn to next page)

Big Group Sharing

1. What are the things you wrote in your prayer?

Why did you write these?
2. What could be the possible struggles that you
will encounter in developing the habit of talking to
God regularly in prayer?
3. how do you think this activity will help you in
improving your prayer life?
 CLOSING PRAYER
Following guide points:
1. We are all encouraged to recommit ourselves to a life
of prayer, making prayer an essential part of our lives.
Even after this NYD, let us allow ourselves to be helped
by this A.C.T.S.S. prayer guide. As we do this, we can
expect to rediscover how our relationship with God
through our communication in prayer is getting deeper
and more meaningful.
2. Prayer is the form of communication to build our
relationship with God. Including other people’s
intentions into our own prayers also helps build our
relationship with them. It shows that we care for and
love other people who are also God’s beloved. If we love
God, we should love those He loves.
 2. Prayer is the form of communication to build
our relationship with God. Including other people’s
intentions into our own prayers also helps build
our relationship with them. It shows that we care
for and love other people who are also God’s
beloved. If we love God, we should love those He
loves.
3. Also, one way of showing our love for God and
care for others is to pray for one another. Let us
also make it a habit to pray not only for our own
intentions, but for the intentions of other people.
The facilitator then invites the participants for a short period
of silence (around 3 minutes) to review what they wrote in the
A.C.T.S.S. handout. S/He also instructs them to remember their
fellow participants as they pray for them and the intentions
that they keep in their hearts.

This session culminates with the mindful recitation or singing

of the prayer taught by Christ: the Lord’s Prayer (which can be
in the language of the participants).
 A.C.T.S.S.
In each row, write your own personal prayers following each focus or theme: adoration,
contrition, thanksgiving and supplication. leave the last row blank, signifying that this is
something that human words cannot fill, that only god can.
Adoration Who is God for you? What can you say about
Loving God, Giver of all gifts, My One Desire, Light of the God?
world…
Contrition What are sins that you want to ask God for
For nursing anger, for doing nothing in front of bullying… forgiveness?

Thanksgiving What do you want to thank God for? What graces

For the gift of life, for family, for a conflict resolved, for answered has God given you?
prayer…
Supplication What needs or intentions, yours or others, do you
The OFWs, including my mother, be safe… for youth education.. want to lift up to God?

Silence In silence, dwell in God…SIMPLY BE in God’s

Presence..
 THANK YOU SO MUCH!

AMPING UG AMPO KANUNAY!

GODBLESS!!