PRAYER AS SELF EXPRESSION


WEDNESDAY, TWENTY SEEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME  

Jonah 4:1-11; Ps 86:3-6,9-10; Lk 11:1-4

Good Disposition for Prayer

Prayer is essentially a sacrifice we make to God. The sacrifice becomes more meaningful as we deepen our understanding of God. As we stated yesterday, God is our ultimate goal or end as human persons, and our journey to God, our spiritual end, is dependent on our knowledge and relationship with Him. The fact that God made us rational beings implies this vocation to Him, who is being and truth. The Catechism, therefore, rightly stated that God made us to know, to love, and serve him in our mortal life, that we may enter eternal communion with him when this life ends. We have pondered the fact that every sin, both original and actual sins, proceeds from our ignorance of God. What makes our ignorance of God culpable is God’s willingness to reveal himself to us at every turn. So, that we remain ignorant of God is not of God’s doing, but due to our enduring lack of attention or distraction. The attention disorder that the evil one planted in our first parents comes down to each of us as one of the effects of original sin. Man’s distraction from God, his creator, introduced disorder or distraction among his members. The presence of this disorder or distraction in our awareness and members makes it difficult to know God. Thus, our journey to God is the journey of self-discipline guided and supported by divine grace made abundant by our Head, Jesus Christ.

Subsequently, as the disgrace of disorder flowed from our physical head, Adam, to us, in the same way will the grace of order flow from our spiritual head, Jesus Christ, to us for our restoration. The imperfection which we have already noted in Jonah, the prophet, in his decision to escape the will of God, is more plainly given in his rash anger and his prayer to God. “Jonah was very indignant; he fell into a rage. He prayed to the Lord and said, ‘Ah, Lord, is not this just as I said would happen when I was still at home? That was why I went and fled to Tarshish: I knew that you were a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in graciousness, relenting from evil. So now, Lord, please take away my life, for I might as well be dead as go on living.’ The Lord replied, ‘Are you right to be angry?’” God used the event of a castor-oil plant to demonstrate the foolishness of his anger and prayer for death. We feel like Jonah sometimes when we pray and do not receive what we ask for. Whenever we desire to do something different from the will of the Father for us, we display our limited knowledge of God and love of self, in place of love of God. Hence, our sacrifice of prayer improves with more illumination from God.

Our limited knowledge of God and love for Him are always evident in our prayers. As we mentioned above, prayer is the original sacrifice we offer to God. Our prayers demonstrate our level of knowledge and communion with God. If they are full of ourselves and desires, then we have a long way to go on our journey of spiritual transformation. The more the Eternal Word illuminates our minds with the knowledge of the Father, the more our hearts are inflamed with his love, the Holy Spirit, the more we desire and ask for communion with him. Our communion with God or desire for death is not to escape the will of the Father, but to fulfil it in everything. Our Lord Jesus Christ gave this lesson when he taught his disciples how to pray. “He said to them, ‘Say this when you pray: “Father, may your name be held holy, your kingdom come; give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive each one who is in debt to us. And do not put us to the test.”’” The sacrifice, which prayer is, becomes better and more acceptable to God as we know, love, and long to serve God in all things. Therefore, the right disposition for prayer is that of the Son within us. So, prayer is truly the activity of our spirit, which is Jesus Christ within us, in union with the Holy Spirit. True prayer promotes our transformation into the Son of Man through his mysteries. Prayer, especially the Rosary prayer, brings out order from our disorder, which is the effect of the Word within us.

Let us pray: Almighty ever-living God, who in the abundance of your kindness surpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat you, pour out your mercy upon us to pardon what conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not dare to ask. 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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