There is a bit of a religious revival in our area today, with all the excitement over the Super Bowl. People all over will be hoping for a win for the local team, yet there is nothing they can do to help make that happen. It seems rather frivolous to beseech God for such a thing: what is a team’s victory in comparison to so many other things happening in our lives and around us? Yet this moment of excitement and anticipation is a good reminder to us of the two things today’s readings prompt in us: trust in the Lord and prayer.
We must remember as Christians that there is nowhere else we can place our trust for anything good or necessary to happen except in the Lord. God is in control of everything, and not in a secondary manner; God is intricately involved in the operation and existence of all things. Nothing exists without His willing it into existence; nothing moves outside of His will; nothing happens beyond His sight. God in His infinite providence, omnipotence, and eternal existence has seen everything happen before the universe even existed. There is no one else in whom we can place our total trust and reliance for all things except in God.
This is what Jesus praises in the Gospel passage in which He enumerates the Beatitudes according to Saint Luke. Only those who are poor will turn to God for their every need; only the hungry will seek the food of God; only those who weep will seek their consolation in the Lord who suffers with them and conquers every enemy; only the persecuted will place their hope in the Lord who triumphs in His resurrection and will have the final revenge on all enemies on the Last Day. Those who do not desire or need these things do not turn to God, they do not seek the Source of all goodness and truth, they do not pray.
We are only a few weeks away from Lent beginning, and joining in the journey of the Lord to Calvary and the tomb. This season is our time to reevaluate our relationship with God, to rectify our sinful lives, and to walk more closely to Christ than before. This walk must begin by placing our total trust in God in all things. If nothing happens outside of His will, if every good and perfect gift comes from the Father, then we must orient our lives towards God and not towards any lower or weaker power or authority. We must hope in God for all things, above all for the graces we need for everlasting life. This hope, this trust, must begin to be expressed in the primary action of the Christian: prayer.
We must pray. There is simply no alternative to prayer for the disciple of Jesus Christ. We are obligated to pray, and to not just pray for ourselves, but to pray for all. Yet we must remember the purpose of prayer is more than just the asking for things. We can and ought to ask, but prayer is far more than that. Prayer is our primary means of communication with God. It is not only a means of speaking to God, but it is also our means of hearing Him. Many will complain that they do not hear God in their lives, but how much time do we give Him to speak to us? How much do we retreat from the noise of the world to pray purposefully before Him? It is not that God doesn’t speak, but that we do not listen.
Prayer is the means whereby we are conformed to God. We adore the living God who loved us into being and loved us enough to die and rise from the dead for us. We praise Him who has done such immense marvels. We beseech Him for all that we require for ourselves, mindful that He is the ultimate source of all things. We ask on behalf of others for what they need, especially to encounter God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit so that they may enter into the way of salvation. All of this is what God desires for us, but it must begin in prayer.
Our lives must be infused with prayer not just in the church but in the totality of our lives. We not only pray here at Mass but we ought to pray in our work, in our rest, in the fun times, in the sad times, in the ease of life which so many of us have in these days, in the difficulties that will come as we draw nearer to the crucified and risen Lord. Whether it is short quick prayers offered in a moment or dedicating ourselves to an extended period of prayer, we must pray in a spirit of hope and trust in God. Whether it is for victory in the big game today, whether it is for more serious requests, whether it is in thanksgiving or in sorrow, we must pray. For if we do not pray now, why would we want to spend eternity with the God we avoid encountering through prayer?
Brethren, let us become a people of trust and prayer in all things. Let us hope in the Lord who has won everything for us in His passion, death, and resurrection. Let us be inflamed by the Holy Spirit to pray as we should so that we may become holy, so that we may become like God. Let us ask the saints to help us to pray as they prayed to God and grew closer to Him in their lives so that we may follow after them. Let us pray to live as Jesus calls us to live, not in a spirit of arrogance and disregard for the Lord, but in humility and trust, that we can encounter God through prayer in this life and be prepared to receive the fullest answer to our prayers in eternal life.
FROM THE PASTOR—PRAYERS AND DEVOTIONS
With only a few weeks remaining until Lent begins, it is time to begin thinking about how we are to observe this sacred season. This Sunday in the traditional liturgical calendar starts the season of Septuagesima: the period of three Sundays and the accompanying days in-between until Ash Wednesday which are a reminder to us that Lent is approaching and gearing us up. While the current liturgy does not have this venerable tradition in it, we should still begin to orient ourselves towards the three Lenten practices of the Church: prayer, almsgiving, and fasting.
This week, to supplement my homily on prayer, I would like to offer some various ideas to help you grow in your prayer life. While we priests may often preach on prayer, we may not offer many concrete ways for how to do it. Here are some practices that I heartily recommend.
· EUCHARISTIC ADORATION—What better way do we have to pray than to spend time before Jesus really present in the Eucharist? Beyond our reception of the Eucharist at Mass, the Church encourages us to spend time before the Most Blessed Sacrament in true prayer: to adore the Lord who humbles Himself to become our living Bread. I will be organizing some times for formal Eucharistic adoration during Lent, so I encourage you to join me in spending time with the Eucharistic Lord.
· THE ROSARY—One of the greatest tools for devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Rosary is also an opportunity to prayerfully consider the mysteries of our redemption: from the conception and birth of our Savior to His passion, death, and resurrection. Through the Rosary we can pray to and about Jesus through the help of His blessed mother Mary.
· THE BIBLE—The Sacred Scriptures are not a textbook on salvation, but the writings inspired by the Holy Spirit to sanctify us. We should read the Bible in a prayerful manner, not merely seeing the words but praying about what we read. We should not only hear what it says, but adore the God speaking to us through this text and calling us to Himself.
· DAILY DEVOTIONS—We should have a regular routine of prayer in our daily lives. We should wake up and immediately pray to give the day to God. We should pray at meals. We should take time to pray to particular saints who we are close to. It should grow to become as natural as breathing to us to pray throughout the day.
No matter what, we need to pray. Lent is our opportunity to increase not only our prayer time but to grow better at it. The only real way to grow is to do it. How will you begin to pray this Lent? Let us pray as Jesus commands us to pray so that we may be close to Him in this life and receive the desire of our prayers in being with Him forever in the next life.
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