Prayer and Action a transformative ministry for all it touches

In 2025, Prayer and Action in the Diocese of Wichita will run three weeks, for which openings remain for June 8-13 and June 15-20. Learn more and register at https://catholicdioceseofwichita.org/faith-formation/prayer-and-action/.

Grief set in as young Isaac Coulter’s magnificent summer drew to a close. Now he had to shift from the itinerary of his preceding weeks, bid a fond farewell to many new friends, and return to home and school.

“I finished that summer with a great sadness, and longed to continue living as I was,” he said. “By the claims of the world, I should have been happy it was over. All summer, I slept on the floor of a poorly air-conditioned classroom with four other smelly guys. We spent our days sweating for people we just met and showering in cold water, but I was so happy.”

Sarah Klosterman can identify. “I got dirty and sweaty every day. I did not eat the fanciest or most expensive food and was never on my phone,” she said. “It was beautiful.”

Andrew Meyer also gets it. “It was lots of hard work,” he said. “It was the best summer of my life.”

A Pivot Point

Human lives often are characterized by significant “before” and “after” occasions, from a death in the family to meeting a certain someone, they make up the landmarks of one’s life story. Heidi Lydic, coordinator of Prayer and Action for the Diocese of Wichita, deems her participation in the ministry as one such turning point. 

“It was pivotal in my Christian journey,” she said. “I spent two months every summer during my college years as a Prayer and Action missionary in the Diocese of Salina and then Savannah, Georgia, which really ingrained in me what the joy of the Christian life should be like.” 

Like many who participate in the ministry, all of the aforementioned people arrived at Prayer and Action with strong faith. Isaac Coulter – who is now Fr. Isaac Coulter of Holy Family Parish in Florence, Marion, Tampa, and Pilsen – grew up in Wichita’s Church of the Resurrection, and was in between years of seminary during his first summer as a Prayer and Action missionary. Those missionaries are young adults who work in the ministry for a summer and, with the help of older adult chaperones, help direct the participating high-school-aged youths. 

“My parents, pastors, and teachers all taught me to pray. Going straight into seminary after high school, I am really grateful for that foundation,” Fr. Coulter said. “But to that point, I had not yet sat in silence, praying with sacred scripture slowly and simply dwelling with the Lord. One of the beautiful things about Prayer and Action is that every day, we take a moment to sit in a circle with a small group of people (comprised of missionaries, adult chaperones, and students) open up the sacred word, and learn how to sit still with the Lord in sacred silence.”

Klosterman, who is a student at Benedictine College, grew up in Rose Hill and got her first taste of Prayer and Action as a youth who signed up for a week with other youth from her home parish of St. Mary in Derby before becoming a missionary years later. She also credits her family and parish community for catechizing and forming her in devotion to prayer, Mass, and the sacraments. 

“I have gone to Catholic schools my whole life, but there’s something different between learning in a classroom and having an experience,” she said.  “I was at an age where I really needed the witness of other young people – college students I could look up to and want to be like – to show me something I didn’t know I wanted until I saw it in person. We went to Pittsburg, spent the week painting a house avocado green, and over the course of the week, my life totally changed. I came to see that the Christian life is one of joy, service, laughter, and community.” 

Part of that change, she said, came from serving others in a tangible way that improved their lives, a component to which Meyer also points.  “It was an opportunity for spiritual growth that included a chance to work with my hands,” he said. “It’s different to actually see what our work accomplished.”

That sense of accomplishment also helps build camraderie among the participating youth, Meyer says. Although he did not have the opportunity of spending a week participating in Prayer and Action during high school, he heard enough to pique his interest. 

“A lot of my friends had talked about how amazing it was,” he said. “It wasn’t any kind of unusual, crazy or impossible proposition. The goal is to provide a realistic model people can follow for the rest of their lives, which is why my friends loved it so much, and so I applied to become a missionary.”

As the summer got underway, Meyer said he found a group pursuing a way of life that followed the template described in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

“I was hoping for that, and happily found it,” he said.

Recognizing Christ

The “prayer” component of Prayer and Action includes daily Mass, rosary, lectio divina, as well as times for sacred silence. Other spiritual practices include nightly times set aside for discussion, as well as a time during the week for confession and Eucharistic adoration. 

Of course, prayer also is common during the “action” part of Prayer and Action, such as when the crews join in prayer with the people they are serving. That service comes in many forms. Although house painting is a common task, so are clearing brush and decluttering. 

“If people lose sight of themselves as daughters or sons of God, sometimes they neglect or lose sight of maintaining their human dignity,” Lydic said. “Sometimes they don’t even have the ability, whether it’s a physical, mental or spiritual war that might bring them up short. So we do a lot of manual labor, from cleaning out gutters, mowing lawns, trimming vegetation in overgrown backyards, but really it’s whatever sort of manual labor people need.”

Jesus spent much of his ministry serving the poor, she notes, and he expects his disciples to do the same. 

“It is not optional,” Lydic said. “It is about recognizing and serving Christ in the sacred poor, helping them to recognize their own dignity in Jesus, because a lot of folks who have been suffering in poverty for many years fail to see Jesus in themselves. We want them to recognize Jesus not only in the kids, missionaries, and chaperones serving them, but to see his image when they look in the mirror.”

Meyer recounts a Kingman family his team served. Poor health had greatly limited the father’s mobility and left him largely shut in at home. “His wife worked a lot and his son was at home taking care of him most of the time,” Meyer said. “Their house desperately needed to be painted, but was so big we weren’t sure if we could finish. We decided we had to try, because they had no other option.” 

The upper parts of the house reached so high, he describes, that the team lacked access to sufficient ladders, and so they approached a local roofer. “We asked to borrow their ladders and they told us to take whatever we needed as long as we brought it back,” he said. “They appreciated what we were doing and so helped us in that way.”

Meanwhile, Meyer said some of his favorite moments transpired when he noticed some of the students set down their paint brushes and stepped away from the work. “Occasionally, members of the family would appear and the kids on the crew would go talk with them,” he said. “I was focused on managing the tools and work site, but it struck me that the kids realized building these relationships was more important.”

And when the allotted time passed before the job was complete, Meyer said, the missionaries came back on their own to finish it without the students. “Later, over winter break, we had a little reunion and the kids asked if they could go see the finished house,” he said. “While we were there, they were excited to see the son, who was excited to see us.”

Klosterman recounts an occasion with an elderly homeowner. “She lived alone and needed help with some yard work and organization throughout her home,” Klosterman said. “At the end of the afternoon, to show her gratitude, she brought us popsicles, which we enjoyed while she sang and played the ukulele for us. Then we all prayed the Apostles’ creed together as a sign of our common faith in Christ. This homeowner who we had just met told us that day was the two-year anniversary of one of her parents’ death and it was a very moving experience.”

The day’s work then feeds back into the evening’s communal prayer and contemplation.

“Students, missionaries, and chaperones gather and share ways in which they recognized Jesus that day,” Lydic said. “We constantly recount questions: ‘Why are we here?’ ‘What’s our life’s purpose?’ ‘Who are we serving?’ Sacred scripture is a way for us to bring everyone back to our purpose not only during this mission, but in life.”

Fr. Coulter says he chooses to continue his involvement with Prayer and Action not out of a sense of duty, but because he recognizes its ongoing benefits. “Every day it’s so easy to choose my comfort, preferences, and ease, but spending an entire week at Prayer and Action with my parish’s high schoolers reminds me that living with risk – not holding back for my comfort and ease – makes life so much better,” he said. “Even an introvert is regularly tempted to skip the work of spending time in sacred silence. It’s easier just to get on YouTube or to even read something about prayer instead of actually praying.”

More Than Youth

Youth participation in Prayer and Action is for students who have completed grades 8-12. Klosterman suggests anyone weighing the possibility may want to consider it a daring experiment. “The week will be unlike any other throughout your year,” she said. “You will be more uncomfortable, will not sleep as well as usual and will probably sweat more and have more paint on you than at any other time of the year. On paper, it looks like a risk: A tough week of hard work, but we are told we get the most joy from giving of ourselves. Prayer and Action is a chance to test that. See if it makes you joyful.”

“High schoolers are pulled in 1,000 directions for how to spend their summers,” Lydic said. “A lot of those directions are good: improving your sports skills, putting some money away for further schooling, participating in camps and more. I simply encourage those students reading, or especially those parents reading this, to review their summer plans. Ask yourselves, ‘What is my child doing this summer that is not for themselves.’”

In 2025, Prayer and Action in the Diocese of Wichita will run three weeks, for which openings remain for June 8-13 and June 15-20. Youth depart at noon on a Sunday and return at noon on a Friday. Learn more and register at https://catholicdioceseofwichita.org/faith-formation/prayer-and-action/.

Furthermore, Lydic notes, Prayer and Action is also an opportunity for others to serve, whether as missionaries, chaperones or other support from the parishes at which a crew is based, which this year will be at Holy Name in Winfield and St. Mary in Oxford. “We have a lot of needs and invite parishioners to participate in the mission, whether it’s by providing ladders, bread, or even names of the poor in our midst to serve,” she said.

As he ponders his evolving experience, first as a missionary and now as the ministry’s chaplain, Fr. Coulter describes the contrast he perceives in how the youth arrive at Prayer and Action versus how they depart. 

“Some show up suffering from what is typical for many high schoolers. They protect themselves by acting like they don’t care about anything or anyone, although it’s apparent they’re nervous about a week away from their phones with some people they have never met,” he described. “By the end of the week, they’re completely transformed as human beings, truly alive, who are really quick to laugh and willing to be vulnerable and share their experiences in front of everyone. They are really zealous about praying with other people, and are really excited to go back to their lives at home and school, but choosing to live what they have learned. That strikes me every week.”