PRAYER AS A GIFT FROM GOD


THURSDAY OF FIRST WEEK OF LENT

Esther 4:17; Ps 138:1-3,7-8; Mt 7:7-12

God and our Supplication

The three practices of the season of Lent will be the recurrent theme of the readings and reflections throughout the season. We deepen our understanding of these practices as we reflect on different aspects of each. The practices are characteristic of our Christian vocation; the Church only emphasises them during the season of Lent to prepare her children to celebrate the Paschal mysteries at Easter. The readings call us to a deeper reflection on the subject of prayer. We say the prayer of supplication in times of affliction or danger; it is a cry to God for deliverance from evil, enemy, or other forms of danger. The prayer of Queen Esther in time of danger is an example of a prayer of supplication and entreaty. The whole Jewish race was in danger of extermination by an enemy with political power. Queen Esther was the only one in a suitable political position to intervene with the king. Grounded in the faith of her people through good religious education, she understood that every power belongs to God and presented herself before God before going to the king. Her understanding of God and infinite power informed her prayer.

Prayer is the primary operation of our faith in God, for it begins at our confession of faith in God. Thus, confession of faith in God gives birth to prayer, and the exercise of prayer is an expression of faith in God. Because prayer is an expression of faith, it also causes faith to grow stronger. Since faith is a supernatural gift of God, prayer cannot cause it to grow without being of God. As such, prayer is an activity we receive from God and cooperate with him. Saint Paul points to this union when he says that our spirit joins with the Holy Spirit to call God Father. Therefore, we understand Esther’s prayer as a gift from God with which she cooperated with him for the deliverance of his people. “My Lord, our King, the only one, come to my help, for I am alone and have no helper but you and am about to take my life in my hands. I have been taught from my earliest years, in the bosom of my family, that you, Lord, chose Israel out of all the nations and our ancestors out of all the people of old times to be your heritage for ever.” From the prayer, we understand that her introduction to the word of God and his deeds in history caused God to dwell within her, as expressed in her lively faith. She encountered God in the bosom of her family, and rightly so, for the Christian family is a place of prayer and religious education. As parents, we are to introduce our children to these three practices of the Church, especially in this season of Lent. When we fail to do this, it leaves a religious and spiritual vacuum in our children.

Understanding prayer as a gift from God leads us immediately to see why God answers such prayers he gives to us. In other words, God does not answer a prayer he did not inspire in us. There are prayers inspired by flesh or self when it sits enthroned in our hearts. True prayers come from the Holy Spirit and are expressed or executed in union with him to further God’s plan in our lives. We have seen the features of true prayer in our Lord’s prayer. It is about the coming of the kingdom of God and the well-being of his children. When we pray for these purposes, as Esther did, we necessarily receive the answer God gives together with the prayer. Our Lord taught this when he said to his disciples: “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For the one who asks always receives; the one who searches always finds; the one who knocks will always have the door opened to him.” We ask in supplication, search in reading and meditation on the word of God, and we knock in the contemplation of the heavenly mysteries that Jesus Christ embodies in his humanity. According to the three practices, we ask in prayer, search in fasting, and knock in almsgiving. Prayer is the way of life of the children of God.

Let us pray: Bestow on us, we pray, O Lord, a spirit of always pondering on what is right and of hastening to carry it out, and, since without you we cannot exist, may we be enabled to live according to your will. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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