Luke ll; 1-13 17th Sunday in Ordinary time. July 25th, 2010

Last we spoke of the importance of prayer; especially contempletive prayer-sitting, like Mary, at the feet of Jesus, looking lovingly at His face and listening attentively to every word He speaks. This week, we read two more accounts of prayer. In our first reading, we see Abraham praying and interceding to God about the fate of Sodom. And in our reading from the Gospel, we read Jesus teaching the apostles how to pray, for we know not how to pray as we ought. The two accounts teach us the importance of prayer and its effect in our lives. If only we would realize how hungry we are for intimacy with God, we would always find time to pray!

It seems that we all lack the time in our busy lives to pray. And so, in our busy and hectic life, how often do we really pray? What if prayer was just as important to us as eating? It seems we always have time to eat if we are hungry.

When giving a retreat to Teens, one priest asked the teenagers this question? “If you only ate food as often as you prayed, how hungry would you be? Most of them admitted that they would definitely be suffering from malnutrition. The priest ended by saying, “Imagine only eating on Sunday for one hour at the most.” Imagine those who don’t even eat at least once per week on Sunday, they must be dead!!! Most of the malaise, emptiness and sadness in our lives, comes from the fact that we don't eat enough of the food that really matters and so are starving ourselves from intimacy with God, the one thing that truly matters.

Along with how often do you pray, is the question, "how persistent are you in prayer? Perhaps you are suffering from Spiritual malnutrition. Just as we can't live healthily without eating regularly, we can't be spiritually healthy without persistent daily prayer. You probably eat at basically the same times each day. Why not have scheduled times to pray each day too? Then persevere in keeping the schedule. We should for sure, each and every day, pray first thing when we wake up and right before we go to bed. What about scheduling a Holy Hour each and every week? For those who are able, about a Holy Hour and Holy Mass every morning; We have adoration of the Blessed Sacrament one hour before Holy Mass, every Monday-Friday.

Besides thinking we are too busy, why is it that we are so hesitant to put time aside for prayer? Perhaps, we think God is distant and uncaring; after all it, seems He doesn't always answers our prayers. In today's Gospel Jesus tells us just the opposite. Jesus in today’s Gospel is doing something very unique- for the first time He is addressing God as Father or in Hebrew “Abba.” A better translation is “daddy.” He is telling us to call God our "daddy."

By giving us the "Our Father", Jesus is teaching that Our God is not distant and uncaring; He is intimately concerned for us, never taking His eyes or His mind off of us; He is actually Our Father. We for our part then are to speak to Him humbly, as a child speaks to its daddy. We are to speak to Him with simplicity and the purity of a child.

Purity and childlikeness helps us to make sure that we never say the “Our Father,” or any other prayer to God, without the realization that it is God the Almighty that we are speaking to. Intimacy and reverence must always go together in addressing our prayer to God. And so our prayer must be reverent and said from the heart to a All Holy Father who Loves us so much.

Because God love us so much, Jesus instructs us that our prayer to the Father should also be a trusting prayer, one that realizes that the Father already knows what we need even before we ask, and so will only give us the good things we need; however, not necessarily the things we want. Along with the Father giving us only the good things that we need, He will also give it in a way, and at a time which is best for us. He answers all prayers, but according to His Holy Will, not to our own.

This brings up another point Jesus that teaches about prayer; and that is, for God to listen to our prayer we must, must first be reconciled both with Him and with our neighbor. In other words, for our prayer to be effective, for it to bear fruit in our life, we must be in a right relationship with God by regularly receiving forgiveness for our sins in the Sacrament of Confession; always remembering however, we will only be forgiven to the extent we forgive others. In order to receive forgiveness, we must forgive others who have sinned against us.

Next week, August 4th, we celebrate the feast day of St. John Vinney, the patron saint of parish priest; He sums up what we have said on prayer very nicely:
“Do you see the effectiveness of prayer when it is done properly? Are you not convinced like me that, if we do not obtain what we ask God for, it is because we are not praying with faith, with a heart pure enough, with enough confidence, or that we are not persevering in prayer the way we should? God has never refused nor will ever refuse anything to those who ask for his graces in the way they should. Prayer is the great recourse available to us to get out of sin, to persevere in grace, to move God’s heart and to draw upon us all kinds of blessing from heaven, whether for the soul or to meet our temporal needs.”

By the way, St. John Vianney discovered the secret of moving and opening the Father’s heart to our humble prayer. That secret was humble, faithful, persistent and reverential prayer in front of the Blessed Sacrament. St Vianney spent hours on his knees before Jesus in the Eucharist, praying for the conversion of His parishioners and for the whole world. When he came to Ars, no one was going to Church at all, by the time He died, there were over 40,000 souls coming to Ars to Holy Mass and to have St. Vianney hear their confessions and to pray for them. His prayer definitely saved many souls.

Thankfully there are many people throughout the world today, both religious and lay faithfully alike, who like St John Vianney, make weekly, even daily Holy Hours before the Blessed Sacrament. "Thank God, there are those who pray each and every day with the faith of Abraham from the heart. It could be their persevering prayer before for the tabernacle that as so far saved our sinful world from God's divine justice. They are the modern day Abraham's dialoging with God, imploring his mercy and forgiveness for the sins of the modern cities of our world.

But are there enough praying? Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, there just weren't enough people--ten--reaching out to God. And so, will you also be one of them that will on your knees before the Blessed Sacrament, reach out to the Father through the Son on behalf of others, so that our world may be converted and so souls be saved? Speak to the Father today from your heart. Beg his mercy for our fallen Cities and country while the Father is still preserving in his mercy, beg His mercy for yourself and others. Persistence prayer to Our Father God will begin to end the persistent sin and un-forgiveness in our world and in our own life.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is if course the greatest of all prayers for it makes present to us Jesus Himself, and His priestly prayer and His sacrifice on Calvary to the Father for us, and for our salvation. Let us at this Mass and every Mass, as we offer ourselves along with Jesus in loving sacrifice to the Father, ask our Blessed Mother to obtain for us the grace of "Prayer from the Heart", prayer stemming from great love of God and great love of neighbor. May she allow us to enter into her school of prayer so that through the power of her Spouse—the Holy Spirit, we may become united to her Son and through Him united to the Father from whom all good things come.