Day 350: Persevering in Prayer (2738-2745)
It’s Day 350!!
What good does it do to pray?
To answer that, we need humility, trust, and perseverance
HOW IS OUR PRAYER EFFICACIOUS?
PERSEVERING IN LOVE
We can’t just pray once or once in a while
We are called to pray without ceasing
We are called to persevere in prayer
We are called to persevere in love
Let’s pray!!
Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we give you thanks and praise. In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, I ask you to please receive the praise that we offer you today. Receive the thanks that we offer you today. We know, God, you are good, and we thank you. In the name of your Son, receive our thanks. Be glorified. Lord God, let every tongue profess Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father in this day and every day, for all eternity. Send down your Holy Spirit, Father, in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ so that we can trust you more, so that we can persevere in prayer until the day that we spend eternity with you. Thank you. Help us to be faithful. And when we are not, meet us with your grace and mercy. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen”
So there we have it!!
HOW IS OUR PRAYER EFFICACIOUS?
If God is good and knows everything, then He already knows what we need before we ask
How in the world is prayer efficacious if God already wants to give us good things?
What would be the point of prayer?
Paragraph 2736 says, “Are we convinced that ‘we do not know how to pray as we ought’? Are we asking God for ‘what is good for us’? Our Father knows what we need before we ask him, but he awaits our petition because the dignity of his children lies in their freedom. We must pray, then, with his Spirit of freedom, to be able truly to know what he wants.”
⬆️Yes, that is from yesterday ⬆️
Blaise Pascal said, “God loves us so much that He extends us the dignity of being causes.”
What does that mean?
God doesn’t always want to do the good without our participation and cooperation
Let’s listen to Fr. Mike talk about his dad building a shed…
Yes, God can do things on His own
BUT…
God doesn’t want to to it on His own
This is the mystery
God wills the good, always
BUT…
Oftentimes, He waits
He waits for our participation and cooperation in what He wants to accomplish
He does this because we have freedom
There is great dignity in spending time with our Father
It brings us closer to God
When we spend time in prayer, we get to know the heart of our Father and in the process, we get to become like Him
Let’s quote another paragraph from yesterday because, why not?…Paragraph 2737 says, “‘Do not be troubled if you do not immediately receive from God what you ask him; for he desires to do something even greater for you while you cling to him in prayer. God wills that our desires should be exercised in prayer, that we may be able to receive what he is prepared to give.”
This is efficacious prayer
It actually does something
C.S. Lewis sort of said (paraphrasing Fr. Mike’s paraphrase at this point), “People think that if you really trusted in God, then you wouldn’t pray. God would just do it. Those people never walk outside the front door in a rainstorm without an umbrella saying, ‘Well, if God wants me to stay dry, he’ll make the rain fall around me.’ They don’t say, ‘Well, if God wants me to be fed, He’ll give me food today.’ No. They get up and they go out, go to work, and buy food for themselves.”
God is involved in every area of our lives
God does what He does
BUT…
We also have to cooperate with this
We don’t just wait for God to bring us food
We go and get it
Same thing with the rain like C.S. Lewis was paraphrased of a paraphrase ⬆️
We pray because that is part of the process
Paragraph 2740 says, “The prayer of Jesus makes Christian prayer an efficacious petition. He is its model, he prays in us and with us. Since the heart of the Son seeks only what pleases the Father, how could the prayer of the children of adoption be centered on the gifts rather than the Giver?”
Jesus begs His Father, “Let this cup pass from me, yet not what I will but your will be done.”
He wanted to be spared the Cross
AND YET…
What He ULTIMATELY wanted was to do the Father’s will
Paragraph 2741 says, “Jesus also prays for us-in our place and on our behalf. All our petitions were gathered up, once for all, in his cry on the Cross and, in his Resurrection, heard by the Father. This is why he never ceases to intercede for us with the Father. If our prayer is resolutely united with that of Jesus, in trust and boldness as children, we obtain all that we ask in his name, even more than any particular thing: the Holy Spirit himself, who contains all gifts.”
Paragraph 2742 says, “...This love opens our hearts to three enlightening and life-giving facts of faith about prayer.”
Paragraph 2743 says, “It is always possible to pray…”
Paragraph 2744 says, “Prayer is a vital necessity…”
Paragraph 2745 says, “Prayer and Christian life are inseparable…”
St. John Chrysostom says in Paragraph 2743, “...It is possible to offer fervent prayer even while walking in public or strolling alone, or seated in your shop,...while buying or selling,...or even while cooking.”
Paragraph 2744 says, “Prayer is a vital necessity. Proof from the contrary is no less convincing: if we do not allow the Spirit to lead us, we fall back into the slavery of sin. How can the Holy Spirit be our life if our heart is far from him? Nothing is equal to prayer; for what is impossible it makes possible, what is difficult, easy…For it is impossible, utterly impossible, for the man who prays eagerly and invokes God ceaselessly ever to sin. Those who pray are certainly saved; those who do not pray are certainly damned.”
A priest said, “Serious prayer and serious sin cannot coexist. One will kill the other.”
If you find yourself struggling with serious sin or repeated sin, keep praying
Because you cannot do both
At some point, you will get so discouraged you will stop praying
OR…
At some point, the grace will win and you will stop sinning
SO MAKE YOUR CHOICE!!
Paragraph 2745 says, “Prayer and the Christian life are inseparable, for they concern the same love and the same renunciation, proceeding from love; the same filial and loving conformity with the Father’s plan of love; the same transforming union in the Holy Spirit who conforms us more and more to Christ Jesus; the same love for all men, the love with which Jesus has loved us. ‘Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he [will] give it to you. This I command you, to love one another.’ He ‘prays without ceasing’ who unites prayer to works and good works to prayer. Only in this way can we consider as realizable the principle of praying without ceasing.”
WE HAVE TO PRAY!!
IT IS ALWAYS POSSIBLE TO PRAY!!
If we don’t pray, we are not living the CHristian life and we cannot be walking in the way of Jesus
So what are you going to do?
Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!
Please pray for Fr. MIke and for each other!!
I cannot WAIT…