What is the prayer culture of the John Paul II Center? Why is it so hard to put you in a box? You pray breviary and sing worship songs. You love Eucharistic Adoration and pray for healing. You treasure silence and sometimes your singing gets really loud. You follow the rubrics of the Catholic Mass very closely and yet one has the feeling that you have great freedom. You cultivate spontaneous prayer – and then suddenly the rosary. Your masses can be very solemn and yet they never lose their simple character. You pray in so many different ways and yet one has the impression that it is about the essentials. What follows is an attempt to explain…

 

THE 5 PRINCIPLES OF OUR PRAYER CULTURE

 

1.FIDELITY TO WHO WE ARE. The John Paul II. Center is under the responsibility of the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ and in the broader sense of the Federation of Regnum Christi (where LC, there also RC). The Center is the way that RC is configured in the city of Vienna. Fidelity to what is our own requires that the Center’s Spirituality be in harmony with LC/RC spirituality. That is, our approach to prayer at the John Paul II Center is rooted in LC/RC spirituality and the missionary mandate of the Church.

 

2.CENTERED ON CHRIST. At the heart of LC/RC spirituality is Christ-centeredness. The communion with Christ by grace through the power of the Holy Spirit. Knowing him, loving him, following him, being drawn into his passion for people, that’s what matters to us. That means at the same time: to love what he also loves; namely the Father, to the Holy Spirit, the struggle to build the kingdom of God, love for the individual and his integral salvation, unity and charity, the Church and the Pope, Mary, one’s own vocation.

 

3.VARIETY OF FORMS. It would be a mistake to try to nail down the core of LC/RC spirituality, and therefore of the JP2 Center, to an external expression such as a particular form of prayer or a genre of music. When the core is clear, the path to the core and the expression of the core itself can take many forms. The communion or „incorporation into Christ“ by grace through the work of the Holy S