Sacred Space (website)

Sacred Space is a prayer website which has achieved considerable fame since its foundation in 1999. It was created by two members of the Jesuit order, Alan McGuckian SJ and Peter Scally SJ, and was managed by the Jesuit Communication Centre, Dublin, Ireland, until June 2008. It is now being maintained and developed by a dedicated Sacred Space office at 36 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin.[1] The site is updated daily, guiding users through a ten-minute session of prayer centered on a passage of scripture.

History

The Irish Jesuits were among the first to realize the potential of the Internet for prayerful reflection.[2] Editors of print magazines like the Sacred Heart Messenger and Studies find a considerable time lag between the writing of an article and reader response. With Sacred Space it is a time-lag of only a few minutes. The notion of a website about prayer came to the two Jesuits when they were working in communications. McGuckian and Scally noticed that increasing numbers of office workers sit at a computer for hours every day, often doing repetitive work. They reasoned that people work better if they break that routine every now and again; and prayer is one way of breaking the routine.[3] People as far away as the Arctic Circle and Australia log onto the site.

Speaking in The Tablet, Jan 18, 2003, Scally stated, "A person at the computer has a sense of privacy and intimacy; comfortable, upright, and attentive, subconsciously screening out all distractions, he concentrates on the screen -gazes in fact on that screen. What better description of the attitude of attentive listening to God?"[2]

The appeal of the Internet for prayer is perhaps understandable, not only because it provides the user with the privacy needed for personal prayer, but also because the multi media approach to prayer, now offered by many websites makes prayer more stimulating than a mental exercise.[2]

Developments

Sacred Space attracts over five million visits annually. Most of this traffic has been engendered by word of mouth. The website has been produced in almost thirty languages over the site's lifetime. This level of interest led an Australian publishing house, Michelle Anderson Publishing, to approach the Jesuit Communication Centre about bringing out a hard-copy version of the daily prayers. Ave Maria Press, Veritas and Jesuit Communications in Manila, also bring out annual volumes of Sacred Space - The Prayer Book of which a Kindle edition is also available from Amazon. Advent and Lent editions have proven popular and have helped thousands of people to bring the simple yet helpful structure to their prayer.

According to Piaras Jackson, an Irish Jesuit priest who has been involved with the site for a number of years, only five percent of users are from Ireland. Of the English language section, most visitors are from the United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Piaras attributes the popularity of Sacred Space to the facts that it is immediately available 24/7, current with daily scripture readings; and allows anonymity, requiring no log-in.[4] Last year alone its pages were viewed almost 30 million times from over 200 countries.[5]

Site elements

In addition to the Daily prayer, Sacred Space offers commentaries on the daily scripture readings that are used in Catholic liturgy. These commentaries form the Living Space section of the site were written by Frank Doyle (1931-2011), an Irish Jesuit priest. Inspired by the spirituality of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the website aims to provide opportunities and stimuli for prayer in everyday life. It normally follows the scripture sequence of the Revised Common Lectionary. In acknowledgement of the international readership of the site, adaptations are made to the Irish liturgical calendar.[6] Sacred Space's Lenten offering has been recommended by Wheeling Jesuit University President Julio Giulietti S.J.[7]

References

  1. ↑ "Work and pray at Sacred Space", Irish Jesuit News, July 29, 2008
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Botelho, Jude. "Church on the Internet", Communication as Mission, National Consultation at Ishvani Kendra, Pune, ed. by L. Stanislaus, Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Delhi, 2007, ISBN 978-81-8458-006-8
  3. ↑ "Sacred Space", The Messenger, Irish Jesuits, December 2006
  4. ↑ "Jesuit Voices", Jesuit Curia in Rome
  5. ↑ "Big sales expected for latest edition of Sacred Space", Clerical Whispers
  6. ↑ "Being Catholic", Bishops' Conference of Scotland
  7. ↑ Giulietti S,J., Julio. "Lenten Message from University President Julio Giulietti S.J.", Wheeling Jesuit University

Further reading

External links