Perfect prayer

Some of us have been praying our whole lives.  My parents spoke about God to us and took us to church.  Only they prayed not from books, but from the heart.

When dad lay in bed day after day, looking forward to the priest’s daily visit in the afternoon, his peaceful expression masked the pain he felt: knowing death was near; knowing he’d leave mom with a five-year-old and a six-month-old to care for all on her own; knowing that his dad and his grandmother lived far away and were without transportation to drop by to check on him; knowing that, in as much as he loved us and engaged with us as much as he could, he’d miss out on seeing what we’d become in life.  But, I could tell, always, as he spoke lovingly, patiently, that we completed his existence.  He was at peace with God, and he was accepting of what was to come.

When mom prayed, she was all heart.  Listening to her voice when she’d lie down with my little brother and me, she’d recite prayers learned from her mother, who herself had died during childbirth when mom was barely nine.  She seemed to be somewhere else, in a world foreign yet reassuring to me.  Without a rosary or a prayer book, the sentiment just flowed.  And, when she’d take me with her to church in the middle of the day, she’d kneel to pray for long whiles as I sat behind her on the pew.  She didn’t make a sound but, even now many decades later, I can still feel the strength of her faith.

So, prayer for me goes way beyond religious objects and books, although some are very nice and I have many of them.  And I think that St. Teresa of Avila’s assessment that one is either a noisy aqueduct or a quiet spring rings very true.  I also think that there’s no one prayer that God prefers when he’s given us diversity of expression.  So, for me, the simplest heartfelt prayer suffices because, in the end, all God really wants from us is to be near him, to talk to him, to love him, to do for him, to entrust our all to him, and to learn to listen to his whisperings so that we can be in synch.

“The whole doctrine of prayer, from its practical standpoint, can be summed up by saying that it is talking to God as a friend talks with a friend” (Fr. Bede Jarrett).

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Today’s homilies, recorded and transcribed, and lightly edited were delivered by Deacon A. David Warriner, Jr. at the St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans and the Very Reverend Stanley Galvon, rector at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Cathedral in Vancouver, Canada, respectively.

Perfection is an elusive thing.  Many of us spend a lifetime trying to do one thing perfectly.  I think I’m still in that number.  But, what is it about perfection?  What is it that makes it so unique?  Let’s just think about some of the things that go around us.

In golf, I guess the perfect shot is a hole-in-one.  How rare are those?  In baseball, out of almost 220,000 played in the modern era, there have only been twenty-three perfect games.  And, in bowling, the score of three-hundred is considered a perfect game.  But how often do we see that?  Yet, not even these are perfect.  There are always flaws involved in one way or another.

We will never reach perfection on this side of the Kingdom.  As a people of faith, though, we should strive for perfection in our life with others and in our life with God.  In St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he said, “Your thoughts may be corrupted from a sincere and pure commitment to Christ.”

Now, there were false teachers who were coming in behind St. Paul after he left his Corinthian community; and they were teaching heresies.  They were teaching things that were not true.  And Paul told them, “I teach you the truth, which is Jesus Christ.  And I expect absolutely nothing from you.”  So, if Jesus Christ is truth, what is it that he tells us about prayer?

Jesus says, “This is how you are to pray.”  And he gives us The Lord’s Prayer— as our archbishop calls it, “the privileged prayer”— that each one of us has to say and to pray, and we should do that often.

Now, look at that prayer.  It gives credit to the Supreme Being, to a god who is so immense that we can’t even comprehend.  Then it goes through those beautiful petitions where we ask God for what we truly need in our life.

St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa, says prayer is the interpretation of our hope.  Let’s think about that: the interpretation of our hope.

So, we are to pray, but guess what?  God knows what we need before we articulate that.  God knows what we need.  Prayer is for us.  God doesn’t need our prayer.  Prayer is for us— a gift that God has given to each one of us.  A gift that we have in The Lord’s Prayer is that it is the perfect prayer.

How can we say that?  Jesus identified himself as the truth and, in doing so, the prayer he gave us has to be perfect in every way.

So, pray often.  Pray often is our charge.  It is a talk with God.

The secrets to a good prayer are given to us by Matthew Kelly in his book, I Heard God Laugh.  Be aware of the need to pray.  Begin the conversation.  Ask God what he wants of us.  Give ourselves in prayer, special time, special place.  Transform everything into a prayer.  That only takes an intention.  “Lord, I don’t like to do this, but I’m only going to do it for you.”  That becomes our prayer.  And make time.  God always has time for us.  We’re the ones that slight God of time, so we need to make prayer.  Show up.  Be there so we can pray to God.  God is always there for us.

So, Jesus instructed us in the gospel to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.  And, as we see in these flawed sports games, nothing is ever really perfect.  However, if we pray in the way that Jesus has taught us— the perfect prayer— what better way to perfect our lives?

Relationships are at the heart of the Church— our relationship with our heavenly Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, with each other.  St. Paul has a problem with relationships with the Church in Corinth.  It seems they’re being seduced by false teachers, and Paul challenges them to look at the marriage image as a way of restoring relationships as they should be in Corinth.

The marriage image is based on faithfulness and fruitfulness between the husband and wife; and it requires ongoing ways of sacrifice and service for the good of the other person based on God’s plan.  So, Paul keeps on bringing that to the Corinthians that they look at who is influencing them and what’s behind it.  But, of course, it has to be done with prayer and discernment.  It’s not an instant understanding because there’s weakness of mind, distractions, pride, selfishness, emotions— all sorts of things swirling around in their lives.  And that’s where the gospel points to— the mechanism for clearing all of that focusing on what is lasting, good, and true.  And that is where prayer comes in.

Jesus gives us the perfect prayer pattern where there is glory to God being focused on, as well as human needs.  Our heavenly Father is sincerely interested in our human needs.  He’s also sincerely interested in our response.

The most mature response to God’s goodness is to seek his will in all things.  So, there’s a lot in these readings today for us to ponder.  And Mass is the perfect prayer in which, through Jesus, our prayers are brought to the heavenly Father and graces come back to us to take away from Mass to share with others the outcomes and the benefits of our prayers and our desire to seek God’s will in all things.

Links of interest…  Archdiocese of New Orleans…  My Catholic prayers…  Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Cathedral: architecture / bells / crucifix / history / Mass: archives & livestream / vespers (pdf) / website / windows…  Pray as you go: meditations…  Reflections on the perfect prayer…  St. Louis Cathedral: daily saints / history / photos / tours…  St. Thomas Aquinas: about (Jan 28 – more) / Christian life / Lord’s Prayer / prayers (Blessed Virgin) / quotes (sixty-eight – more) / Summa…

WP posts…  Beatitudes…  Blessed blessing…  Collective heart…  Corpus Christi…  Foundation…  Freedom…  God’s love letter…  Graces shared…  Heaven…  Mary’s gifts…  Most Holy Trinity…  Salt and light…  St. Joseph…  Sunset…  Truth