Missionary to Mars: A Catholic Prayer Drama

Part Two of Episode One — "Silence": A Reflection with the Shema Council

The spacecraft has gone quiet. The engines have shut down. Marisol Reyes is in Mars orbit — and something she didn't plan for happened during those four minutes of fire.

In Part Two of Episode One, we step outside the drama to examine what it just showed us.

The Shema Council — a company of voices drawn from Scripture, Church history, and the tradition of conversational prayer — gathers around three moments from Marisol's story: the prayer she whispered without knowing it was one, the silence that felt like abandonment but may have been invitation, and her commander's challenge that set faith against competence as if the two were strangers.

Frank Laubach, Madame Guyon, Brother Lawrence, George Müller, John of the Cross, Andrew Murray — these are not names dropped for credibility. They are witnesses. Each of them arrived, by a different road, at the same discovery: that God speaks continuously, that the interior life is simply the discipline of learning to hear what has always been said, and that the stripping away of familiar spiritual supports is not a punishment. It is the gift underneath the gift.

The reflections are followed by three questions — not rhetorical ones. Ones with edges. Ones designed to locate, in the ordinary geography of your week, the exact lines Marisol is navigating sixty-three million kilometers from home.

This is not commentary on a story. It is the story continuing — in you.

For those who recognize the room she is standing in.

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Missionary To Mars — Episode One: "Silence"

An Audio Drama for Spiritual Formation | Runtime: Approx. 45 minutes

Sixty-three million kilometers from Earth, with no margin for error and four minutes to live or die by her own calculations, mission specialist Marisol Reyes discovers that the prayer she's practiced for thirty years may not be prayer at all.

Red Desert is not science fiction. It is a desert story — the oldest kind. Like the fourth-century monastics who walked into the Egyptian wilderness until only God remained, Marisol has been placed somewhere the familiar supports no longer reach: no parish, no schedule, no comfortable noise to fill the silence she's been quietly avoiding. What happens in that silence — and in one unscripted moment of surrender at engine ignition — is the subject of everything that follows.

In Part One, hear the drama unfold aboard the spacecraft Ares VI as orbital insertion forces a crisis that strips away technique and leaves only the real thing underneath. In Part Two, the Shema Council — drawing from Frank Laubach, Madame Guyon, Thomas Kelly, George Müller, and the Desert Fathers — reflects on what Marisol encountered, why the dryness is not God's absence, and why Park Jin's challenge ("your invisible friend didn't write those equations") may be the most theologically honest line in the script.

Both parts close with a practice — not a suggestion. An invitation to sit in what Marisol is learning to sit in.

Bring your silence. Bring your trying. That's enough to begin.

Unlike the audio-drama format making up all the following episodes, we begin with something different, for us at least.

Thanks to the realm of technology we feature an interview of the Missionary to Mars series creator by the fictional Spiritual Director of the story, Father Ambrose Pierce.

And while we normally do not do talking heads on purpose, it seems appropriate to take a step back and answer some fundamental questions about the project itself.

• Why do an audio drama?
• Why is it set on Mars?
• How can listeners participate themselves in prayerful exercises as story characters go through the paces themselves?

If the following important statement loses your interest, it does so intentionally so get ready:

THIS IS NOT A SCIENCE FICTION STORY DRAMA. IT IS HOWEVER A MODERN PARABLE MEANT TO REVEAL THE KINGDOM OF GOD TO A MODERN AUDIENCE.

Certainly, some statements or answers may need clarification and we welcome episode feedback. This is the start of a brand new enterprise and it is felt better to actually get product to air than to tinker with constant editing and improvements.

We thank you for your grace, your patience and encouraging participation.

P.S. A quick note--Some may wonder why the broadcast story and targeted audience is Roman Catholic. Does that mean no one else should listen or can benefit from what you hear?

Everyone can either learn or confirm what they already know, to grow in a greater appreciation of what it means to deepen a current existence's meaning through the interactive form of prayer with our Creator.

Be you atheist or any other religion, God desires communion with all of His children. That said, there are close to two billion Roman Catholics on the planet this year and despite solid affirmation by the Vatican, Catechism and the writings of the Desert Fathers or Saints, this kind of prayer formation seems lacking in volume despite strong evidence that parishes desire it.

Thank you and God richly bless you.

Graham

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Patreon.com/Missionary_To_Mars