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We live a pretty full life, don't
we? Up at six, give each kid a couple bucks for lunch, stop at the doughnut
drive-by for a quick cup of Java, finish that presentation for the ten o'clock
conference and later inhale a can of jolt to keep up the pace all afternoon.
Finally, we jump the four o'clock end-of-the-business-day to pick up the baby at
the day care, rush Timothy to karate class and swing Cathy to the Aspiring
Ballerina School. All that's left is to stop by the cleaners and fly through the
fried chicken shop to have supper on the table by 5:30 PM. There a PTA meeting
tonight, the pastor volunteered you to lead the Volunteer Guild, Tim is not
doing his homework and you can't find the baby. What a day! Adam and Eve had
plenty of time to pray, as life in the Garden of Eden was simple. Abraham,
Moses, King David, Elijah and John the Baptist had plenty of time on their hands
to mediate, meditate, contemplate and pray. Nice but this is the 20th century!
Yet, Mary prayed with all her
heart. Jesus prayed constantly even though some of us may think that as the Son
of God he probably didn't need to pray. Look at the four Gospels and the Acts of
the Apostles carefully. We find that Jesus prayed constantly. After his
ascension into heaven the Apostles prayed with great love and care at every
gathering.
Satan does not want any of us to
pray. By making our world and ourselves super busy we are probably giving his
strategy considerable support. This is not something new. In the garden of
Gethesemane when Jesus said to the apostles "Pray that you may not undergo the
test." (Luke 22-40) they promptly fell asleep. However, we can find the required
time to do almost anything as long as it's very important to us. So we need a
plan.
Unfortunately, we too often pray only
when in trouble, face a serious illness or injury, suffer the loss of a loved
one or have a great desire to acquire something to help us keep up with Jones.
Perhaps it's the loss of a job that puts in jeopardy the house, auto and boat we
paid too much for. So we have a number of questions here. Why, when and how do
we pray.
First we need to understand that God
hears and desires our prayer and that Jesus taught us how to pray by his example
and by providing the "Our Father". Then we need some idea of why we are praying.
The Catholic Catechism in paragraph 2559 states that "Prayer is the raising of
one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God." It's not
likely that this includes requesting winning the lottery. Yet, this is but one
of many definitions in the Catechism and available from other sources. Briefly,
we can think of praying to our heavenly Father similarly to a pleasant event
with or requested from our parents or significant person in our lives. Prayer
between man and God, as with our parents, is reciprocal.
We should pray often. Our lives are a
complexity of events in which we or those around us require constant support.
The author Henry David Thereau said, "The average man spends most of his life in
quiet desperation." It does not need to be that way. We need not be that proud.
Pride precludes prayer as sincere prayer requires humility. This may not make us
a hero with the average Joe. But why should be satisfied with being just average
when we can be God's servant, share in his love, wisdom and eventually a place
with Him.
We can easily pray any time, any place
and God hears us.. There are the traditional prayers we perhaps memorized as
children, on our parent's knees or some form of religious education. We can sing
out praise to the Lord in church, we can whisper to Him while alone in a
deserted park or field or join others in prayer at a chapel. We can be creative
and God won't mind. We can tell God about everything from little nothings to
great big problems and He will be interested.
No matter why, when or how we prayer,
we can count on Jesus, his Father and the Spirit. Who knows, at some point, we
may realize that He can count on us. Let us give God chance.
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