4 minute read
Flame of Love Cenacle: Bringing Group Members Together in Prayer and Fellowship
As Catholics, an important part of being “in the world but not of the world” is to have an active life of prayer. In light of everything going on in our world today, prayer is more important than ever. Our parish’s Flame of Love cenacle, or prayer group, follows the Flame of Love spiritual movement based on the diary of Hungarian Mystic Elizabeth Kindelmann. Through this group, members can unite in prayer for the whole world, and support each other in fellowship and friendship.
“There is a great need to be in prayer right now — prayer is the basis for healing, for finding answers, and a means to grow in faith,” says group member Mary Anne Ettlin. “We feel a sense of support and community when we pray together.”
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Elizabeth Kindelmann was a laywoman from Budapest, Hungary who died in 1985. The Flame of Love movement’s foundation comes from her diary, in which she details how Jesus and Mary revealed to her a certain form of prayer and sacrifice.
“The emphasis of the Flame of Love movement is that the Mother of God wants to gather souls who will pray with her for the battle that the Church is going through,” Mary Anne says. “The intentions of our prayer include: to save souls, to release souls from purgatory, for priests and new vocations in the Church, and last but not least, for the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and to make reparations for sins.”
The group meets once a week on Thursdays, after the morning Mass. While it has been active in its current form for about a year, it actually grew out of an existing Rosary group that had been active for over 10 years. This group would gather to pray the Rosary in group members’ homes. The group members became familiar with the Flame of Love movement about five years ago, and later on, decided to adopt that prayer format for the group. This includes several requests that Our Lady revealed to Elizabeth, which she recorded in her diary.
“One of the requests she made was to go into the parish and pray in the parish, so we have now moved from meeting in homes to meeting in the church itself,” Mary Anne says. “In the diary, Mary makes a surprising statement to Elizabeth — she says the Flame of Love is the greatest grace given to mankind since the Incarnation. Mary has obtained this extraordinary grace from the Eternal Father through the merits of her Son. One way this grace is given to us is through the Blessed Mother’s request to Elizabeth to have a new phrase added to the Hail Mary, ‘Spread the effect of grace of thy flame of love over all of humanity.’ “There is also a second prayer that Jesus gave to us called the Unity Prayer,” she adds. “Through these newly added prayers, we receive a special promise, an effect of the grace that is given to all of humanity. The promise is that these new prayers, if prayed, will make it so that Satan becomes blind to mankind and his influence over them, and then souls can respond with actual grace. So if we as a group commit to praying these prayers, Satan will not have influence over us. So when we understand that promise, it’s really an incentive for us to pray.”
Through Flame of Love, Mary Anne and her fellow group members have been able to grow in faith and in fellowship with one another.
“When you pray with others and reflect or meditate on the prayers and teachings of the Church with them, it’s a natural consequence to grow in faith,” she says. “We grow closer to each other — our friendships increase in love for each other. We also pray for each other — many people come with big burdens, a lot going on in their lives. When they know people are praying for their specific needs, it helps them to grow closer to each other. It’s a really special bond.”
