Ora is a faith-filled community of women who embrace their vulnerability in order to lead and empower other women to find their true identity in Jesus Christ.
Each week, from Tuesday to Friday, we will unpack the readings for the upcoming weekend mass. We hope your journey with Ora will help your experience of the Sunday mass to be more meaningful and that, at the very least, something in these writings stirs your heart.
Our vision is a Church who is intimately connected to Christ through prayer; that each and every one, regardless of where they are on their faith journey, will come into a deeper knowledge of God's sacred love, healing, and guidance.
Women who seek Him are Gathering At The Well. These gatherings are opportunities to encounter Christ through community. Ora women organize a GATW every few months to eat, share, pray, laugh, cry, and worship together.
"The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God's desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.” (CCC 2560)
The name, Ora, came about (of course) through relationship. After a lovely dinner together (and ten rounds of the cup song), two friends and sisters in Christ, sat musing about God's plans for a women's ministry. After determining that an opportunity to open scripture through a uniquely feminine lens would be a wonderful starting point, they continued on a search for a name that would capture the essence of the ministry's mission. The friends discussed the possibility of naming it after a Saint and considered Saint Scholastica. Saint Scholastica is the sister of Saint Benedict, and the founders of Ora are some of the sisters of Saint Benedict Parish in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Continuing on this train of thought, they researched the meaning of Scholastica's name. It, in part, means "orator". Saint Augustine said, "The aim of the orator, according to Cicero, is to teach, to delight, and to move." (On Christian Doctrine in Four Books) They now felt certain they were moving in the right direction. In a lightning bolt of inspiration, they considered the parallel with the rule of Saint Benedict, "ora et labora", which is Latin for "pray and work".
Prayer is communication with God.
Relationships thrive on communication.
The Bible is God's communication to us.
Ora!!!
Let us pray.