St. Therese of Lisieux describes prayer as “a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy” (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2558). In RCSC 105 Letting God Behold You Fr. Jason Smith, LC introduces you to mental prayer and shares tips from his own prayer and experience to help you grow in your prayer life and union with God. Topics covered include the two types of mental prayer–meditation and contemplation, what the Lord is doing during your prayer, the role of the theological virtues in your prayer, the importance of time and place for effective prayer, and how to harness your imagination in meditating on the Lord and contemplating him and his mysteries. Mental prayer can take your prayer life and union with God to a whole new level.
Q: I recently had a crisis regarding discernment of my vocation. I was always open to both religious life and married life. I have a girlfriend. Now, my concern is, if virginity and priesthood are objectively better states of life, why should I not just pursue holy orders? I am aware that one can also attain sanctity through marriage, but would it not be better to choose a path that can better develop your sanctity? Maybe I am just being scrupulous about whether I can attain sanctity through marriage rather than religious life. I am really having a hard time discerning. – K.M.
Answered by Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC
A: The key thing is that we are open to the path to which God is calling us.
Certainly there are elements of consecrated virginity and priesthood that can be said to be higher than marriage.
But that presupposes that God is calling a person to that path. A person who avoids marriage, for instance, out of fear of commitment, wouldn’t necessarily be following a higher call than someone who marries.
Also, someone who pursues priesthood for the wrong motives wouldn’t necessarily be doing better than a married man who is faithful to his wife and family.
Another core issue here is discernment.
It’s good to remember that discernment very much involves the Church. It’s one thing for a man to feel drawn to the priesthood. But that attraction needs to be evaluated by vocation directors, seminary formators, and a bishop or religious superior.
So, the best thing would be to speak with your pastor or a vocation director or spiritual director. Or, if you feel called to religious life, speak with the vocation director for that congregation.
It helps to have the guidance of an objective third party who can guide you and help you work through the concerns and issues you have.
In the meantime, it would be good to intensify your prayer life and sacramental life.
Today’s secular world throws curve balls at us all the time. AskACatholicPriest is a Q&A feature that anyone can use. Just type your question HERE and you will get a personal response back from one of our priests at RCSpirituality. You can ask about anything – liturgy, prayer, moral questions, current events… Our goal is simply to provide a trustworthy forum for dependable Catholic guidance and information. So go ahead and ask your question…
Jesus, the Kingdom Incarnate and the Heart of the Encounter
Uniting ourselves to the whole Church on the synodal journey it has begun, and walking this path together as a global community of Regnum Christi apostles who want to listen and discern where the Lord leads us, we pray that through this novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus we may find renewed enthusiasm to go out to meet people where they are and where they need to meet Christ, and bring them his love in a more fruitful way as missionaries of the Word and apostles of the Kingdom.
We seek to “contemplate God with the eyes of faith through his revealed Word and the life-giving contact of the Sacraments, so that, in daily life, we may see the reality that surrounds us in the light of his providence, judge it according to Jesus Christ, Way, Truth and Life, and act from the Church, Mystical Body of Christ and universal Sacrament of salvation, in the propagation of the kingdom of God, which is sown on this earth and which bears full fruit in Heaven.” (concluding document of the the 5th General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate)
Day 1: Wednesday, June 15 — God, Friend of Mankind
V/ Come Lord Jesus!
R/ Make my heart like yours!
V/ O Sacred Heart of Jesus
R/ I trust in you.
Jesus Christ, God made man, reveals himself as Emmanuel, God with us (Matthew 1:23). Contained in this name is the secret of God and his deepest identity. From the moment he took human flesh, my flesh, God showed me the solemnity of his promise to be with me every day until the end of time (Matthew 28:20).
In the Sacred Heart of Jesus, flesh of my flesh, the human and the divine are unified. This burning heart is a covenant of loving friendship with me. Through it I can see the heart of God in all his immense tenderness, goodness, and mercy for me. In Jesus Christ, “God wished to enter into the limits of human history and the human condition. He took on a body and a heart. Thus, we can contemplate and encounter the infinite in the finite, the invisible and ineffable Mystery in the human Heart of Jesus” (Benedict XVI, Angelus, 1 June 2008).
V/ Let us pray:
Christ Jesus, give me the grace to experience the full strength of your heart’s love. Help me to always be willing to let myself be found by you. May we know how to live within your Sacred Heart so that, remaining united to you, we may live life as a profound encounter with you and with others, in your love.
R/ Amen
V/ Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
R/ As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
V/ Sacred Heart of Jesus
R/ Thy Kingdom Come!
Day 2: Thursday, June 16 — Mankind, Friend of God
V/ Come Lord Jesus!
R/ Make my heart like yours!
V/ O Sacred Heart of Jesus
R/ I trust in you.
The encounter with Christ involves two actions: that of God, who never tires of seeking me, and that of my heart, ready to listen to him and to accept his word. My life-long goal is to learn to listen to God and make the decision to let myself be found by him. This is how I demonstrate my friendship to him.
Although I sometimes do not listen, although I do not always accept him (see John 1:11), God, who cannot contradict himself, will always be a seeker of my heart. Like the father of the prodigal son who eagerly awaits the return of his beloved son, like the good shepherd who longs to find his lost sheep, or like the woman who seeks her coin (see Luke 15). God’s heart is restless until it rests dwelling in me (see John 14:23). His love is the foundation of my love, of my friendship with Him.
V/ Let us pray:
Christ Jesus, give me the grace to experience the full strength of your heart’s love. Help me to always be willing to let myself be found by you. May we know how to live within your Sacred Heart so that, remaining united to you, we may live life as a profound encounter with you and with others, in your love.
R/ Amen
V/ Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
R/ As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
V/ Sacred Heart of Jesus
R/ Thy Kingdom Come!
Day 3: Friday, June 17 — The Encounter with Christ
V/ Come Lord Jesus!
R/ Make my heart like yours!
V/ O Sacred Heart of Jesus
R/ I trust in you.
Above all, my life is called to be an encounter with Jesus Christ, an experience of his personal, real, passionate, and faithful love for me and for others. By the work of the Holy Spirit, I discover myself as a child in the Son. Christ becomes for me the center, criterion, and model of my life. Of all the possible places for my encounter with the Heart of Christ, the most profound ones include the Gospel, the Eucharist, the cross, and my neighbor.
This encounter with God’s love in the Heart of Christ not only allows me to experience what love really is, but also my great need for him. It is an encounter that leads to conversion of heart and thought, so that it may be more and more Christ and his love who lives in me. In this way, encountering Christ allows me to discover more deeply who I am, and who I am called to be.
V/ Let us pray:
Christ Jesus, give me the grace to experience the full strength of your heart’s love. Help me to always be willing to let myself be found by you. May we know how to live within your Sacred Heart so that, remaining united to you, we may live life as a profound encounter with you and with others, in your love.
R/ Amen
V/ Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
R/ As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
V/ Sacred Heart of Jesus
R/ Thy Kingdom Come!
Day 4: Saturday 18 June — The Communal Dimension of the Encounter With Christ
V/ Come Lord Jesus!
R/ Make my heart like yours!
V/ O Sacred Heart of Jesus
R/ I trust in you.
In the dead and risen Christ and in the outpouring of his Holy Spirit given to me without measure (see John 3:34), I find myself sharing in the divine intimacy between the Father, the Son, and this very same Spirit. God who is a perfect communion of love invites me to discover him in community by breaking the bread of the Word and the Eucharist with others (Luke 24:13-35). For where “two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst” (Matthew 18:20).
A lived faith frees me from the isolation of self because it leads me to communion. This encounter with the triune God is an act of being called together, of being unified with others, and at the same time, of living my responsibility towards others. In experiencing God who became poor for me so he could unite with me even in my poverty (2 Cor 8:9), I discover the call to walk together with others in their various needs. This personal encounter with God who was made man for me frees my heart from being closed in on itself, giving it direction and meaning in a community of faith.
V/ Let us pray:
Christ Jesus, give me the grace to experience the full strength of your heart’s love. Help me to always be willing to let myself be found by you. May we know how to live within your Sacred Heart so that, remaining united to you, we may live life as a profound encounter with you and with others, in your love.
R/ Amen
V/ Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
R/ As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
V/ Sacred Heart of Jesus
R/ Thy Kingdom Come!
Day 5: Sunday 19 June — Missionaries of the Word, Apostles of the Kingdom
V/ Come Lord Jesus!
R/ Make my heart like yours!
V/ O Sacred Heart of Jesus
R/ I trust in you.
“Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32). As in the case of the disciples of Emmaus, the experience of the Word of God resonating in my heart has the power to transform my life, to the point of turning my sorrows into joy and making me a missionary disciple of the Gospel: “they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:33)
Jesus Christ, a person both human and divine, is the ultimate Word that the Father speaks to us. The encounter with this Word, with the Living Christ who calls me to follow him, is made possible in a special way through reading, meditating on, and sharing the Gospel texts. His Word, listened to attentively in community, sets us on the path, because it is also addressed to others, to all others. As a baptized person, I become a messenger of the Living Word together with all other baptized people, so that this Word may be heard throughout the world.
V/ Let us pray:
Christ Jesus, give me the grace to experience the full strength of your heart’s love. Help me to always be willing to let myself be found by you. May we know how to live within your Sacred Heart so that, remaining united to you, we may live life as a profound encounter with you and with others, in your love.
R/ Amen
V/ Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
R/ As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
V/ Sacred Heart of Jesus
R/ Thy Kingdom Come!
Day 6: Monday 20 June — To See as the Heart of Jesus Does
V/ Come Lord Jesus!
R/ Make my heart like yours!
V/ O Sacred Heart of Jesus
R/ I trust in you.
I want to see you, Lord! I want to behold your power and your glory, for your love is worth more than life! (see Psalm 63:2-4) The Lord, with his Heart full of love, is present in my life, in the day-to-day, and if I open my eyes of faith, I will be able to contemplate his face. Through all the events in my life, God himself speaks to me and calls me to collaborate with him, for he is always present with his providence. With his power, he grows his Kingdom even where it might seem to me to be absent (Mark 4:26-29).
To see him, it is necessary to observe the reality I live immersed in with the desire to discover his face. This desire is a living faith. It is a discernment made by listening to the Holy Spirit to find the beating Heart of the Lord around me. Where are you Lord? Where do you dwell? (John 1:38) These questions asked of the Lord allow me to open my eyes of faith to see the events of my life as he sees them and to love through them as he loves. In this way, I can stay with him, even during the darkest nights of my life.
V/ Let us pray:
Christ Jesus, give me the grace to experience the full strength of your heart’s love. Help me to always be willing to let myself be found by you. May we know how to live within your Sacred Heart so that, remaining united to you, we may live life as a profound encounter with you and with others, in your love.
R/ Amen
V/ Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
R/ As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
V/ Sacred Heart of Jesus
R/ Thy Kingdom Come!
Day 7: Tuesday, June 21 — To Discern as the Heart of Jesus Does
V/ Come Lord Jesus!
R/ Make my heart like yours!
V/ O Sacred Heart of Jesus
R/ I trust in you.
In my life there is wheat and there are weeds (Matthew 13:24-52). It’s neither all good nor all bad. Sometimes envy, suspicion, and negative perspectives have rooted in my heart so deeply that they lead me into a slavery that makes me scream, “Who will deliver me from this mortal body?” (Rom 7:24) Approaching the Heart of Jesus not only allows me to see my life differently, but it transforms my judgment about things.
Only the Sacred Heart of Jesus allows me to discern correctly between good and evil, between the life and death present in my daily life, to be able to choose what leads me to life. Like St. John, it is a matter of reclining my head on the Master’s chest to listen to his heartbeat and align my heart with his, to experience this God-with-us, this God-with-me, in the daily moments of my life and thus experience the treasure of the Good News already present in my field (Matthew 13: 44-45).
V/ Let us pray:
Christ Jesus, give me the grace to experience the full strength of your heart’s love. Help me to always be willing to let myself be found by you. May we know how to live within your Sacred Heart so that, remaining united to you, we may live life as a profound encounter with you and with others, in your love.
R/ Amen
V/ Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
R/ As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
V/ Sacred Heart of Jesus
R/ Thy Kingdom Come!
Day 8: Wednesday 22 June — To Act as the Heart of Jesus Does
V/ Come Lord Jesus!
R/ Make my heart like yours!
V/ O Sacred Heart of Jesus
R/ I trust in you.
Contact with the Heart of Jesus burning with love can only ignite me to serve others attentively in their many needs. If he has loved me so much, how can I not love as he has loved me? (John 13:34).
Letting myself be ignited by his Spirit of love, my life becomes the presence of Christ in today’s world. In my face, his face lights up, in my hands, his hands work, in my action is his action. We become collaborators with God in his work of making the Kingdom present and the acclamation, “Christ Our King, Thy Kingdom Come!” is increasingly made real in my life and through my life.
V/ Let us pray:
Christ Jesus, give me the grace to experience the full strength of your heart’s love. Help me to always be willing to let myself be found by you. May we know how to live within your Sacred Heart so that, remaining united to you, we may live life as a profound encounter with you and with others, in your love.
R/ Amen
V/ Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
R/ As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
V/ Sacred Heart of Jesus
R/ Thy Kingdom Come!
Day 9: Thursday, June 23 — The Sacred Heart, Place of Encounter With Christ
V/ Come Lord Jesus!
R/ Make my heart like yours!
V/ O Sacred Heart of Jesus
R/ I trust in you.
Sometimes my heart experiences a great yearning, a deep homesickness, for God. Rather than feeling guilty for having lost my way, in this deep desire I am called to discover the invitation to welcome his living presence in me once again. The sanctuary of this encounter is my own heart, where my freedom and intelligence meet Christ and his Heart.
It is quite a discovery to realize that the place where I meet Christ is precisely in this union between his Heart and mine. It is the dwelling place that God has made in me (John 14:23) and from it he calls me to make his Kingdom present in the world. Knowing this, a prayer springs from the depths of my being, at once simple and profound, “Jesus, make my heart like yours!”
V/ Let us pray:
Christ Jesus, give me the grace to experience the full strength of your heart’s love. Help me to always be willing to let myself be found by you. May we know how to live within your Sacred Heart so that, remaining united to you, we may live life as a profound encounter with you and with others, in your love.
R/ Amen
V/ Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
R/ As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
Alex Kucera has lived in Atlanta, GA, for the last 46 years. He is one of 9 children, married to his wife Karmen, and has 3 girls, one grandson, and a granddaughter on the way. Alex joined Regnum Christi in 2007. Out of the gate, he joined the Helping Hands Medical Missions apostolate and is still participating today with the Ghana Friendship Mission.
In 2009, Alex was asked to be the Atlanta RC Renewal Coordinator for the Atlanta Locality to help the RC members with the RC renewal process. Alex became a Group Leader in 2012 for four of the Atlanta Men’s Section Teams and continues today. Running in parallel, in 2013, Alex became a Team Leader and shepherded a large team of good men.
Alex was honored to be the Atlanta Mission Coordinator between 2010 to 2022 (12 years), coordinating 5-8 Holy Week Mission teams across Georgia. He also created and coordinated missions at a parish in Athens, GA, for 9 years. Alex continues to coordinate Holy Week Missions, Advent Missions, and Monthly missions at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Cumming, GA.
From 2016 to 2022, Alex also served as the Men’s Section Assistant in Atlanta. He loved working with the Men’s Section Director, the Legionaries, Consecrated, and Women’s Section leadership teams.
Alex is exceptionally grateful to the Legionaries, Consecrated, and many RC members who he’s journeyed shoulder to shoulder, growing his relationship with Christ and others along the way. He knows that there is only one way, that’s Christ’s Way, with others!
