Any conversation on prayer will have to pay attention to the long and rich tradition of the Church and most world religions that sees prayer in stages of development. The most traditional stages are three: beginners, proficient and perfect. Our dialogue will be influenced by the reality of these stages of prayer.
In preparing for this inaugural Blog on prayer, I collected several dozen questions on prayer from friends and parishioners. I found the following question the most inviting to begin our reflections on prayer.
“God didn’t save my child when I asked Him so I no longer pray. Am I going to hell?”
When we begin to pray for things most often we have a plan and even long range strategy for our happiness. This is our kingdom, the creation of our dreams and desires. In this scenario we most often begin with an image of God up in heaven waiting to hear our prayers for what we need to achieve happiness, the most dominant yearning of the human heart. In this scenario we are the center of things and God is there to help us.
This is the God so many people are angry with. This is a God with punishment and hell on his mind. He is not the God of love revealed in his calling Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane to enter into the passion and death. No, this God of love offered his Son and let him enter into the evil of death to share in all suffering of God’s children throughout history and thus open a way to deliverance and new life.
God’s’ revelation invites us into an encounter with Jesus. His primary message is for us to repent and believe the Good News for the Kingdom of God is at hand. A significant part of the Christian journey consists in a movement that travels from our kingdom as the center to God’s Kingdom as the center. This refocusing is a long and challenging part of our walking with Jesus. Most often it is the work of a lifetime. This journey involves many conversions where the eyes of our heart gradually see God has a better plan for our happiness.
We are on a journey in prayer from an unthinking “give me” attitude usually propped up by the mandates of a consumer culture to a gradual change that prays “hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done.” This gets us ready to pray for what we need more than for what we want. “Give us our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil.”
The experience of the father’s loss of a child raises the critical question: why does God not answer our prayers especially when they involve something as fundamentally good and sacred as the life of a child.
Life has a way of relentlessly pulling us more deeply into the mystery of good and evil. It starts out with prayer for toys for Christmas and escalates to prayer for a better score on the test to getting a job to obtaining food and rent for the family to longing for good results on the cancer exam to clinging to hope for the survival of a loved one to deliverance from the growing threat of terror and war. Jesus laid out this dimension of reality in the parable of the weeds and the wheat. (Mt 13;24-30)
God’s response to the mystery and what we want as the answer to our prayers are caught up in the consequences of sin. In the final analysis, this is not an answer to our specific and general petitions. It is an invitation to enter into the mystery that expresses God’s response. It is God’s Word, Jesus Christ Crucified and Risen.
Right before Jesus raised Lazarus there is a very powerful line, “And Jesus wept.” (Jn 11:35) Many interpret this as Jesus weeping for the overall human tragedy. It is not hard to see Jesus embracing the father who lost his child, sharing his tears with him and all parents. This is intimately connected to the crisis of the Garden about evading the Father’s will. The Father sent Jesus to reveal a God of life and love who will prevail in spite of the power of evil and death. Jesus confronted this evil and in so doing embraced the child’s father and all of us with the only consolation that is real and hopeful, the Resurrection.
When we look at evil in the dead body of a child or in so many other overwhelming expressions of unfathomable horror, God’s response is the Crucified Christ. He sent Jesus to enter into the evil, to share with us and to walk with us in this valley of tears. But this is not the final word. God has spoken and His final word is not death and meaningless suffering, not violence and hatred. God’s final word is life and love, peace and reconciliation. All of this is captured in the mystery of the Resurrection and its song of victory, the Alleluia.
This is why we need to learn to hear and see, and most of all, experience the response of God to our prayer by faith in Jesus, the Incarnate expression of love in the deepest depths of the mystery of good and evil. The Alleluia is the final word but it is not an answer. It is an invitation into a new reality of grace and love that leaves evil immobilized and conquered.
She expressed this in her writings. One little prayer found in her daily prayer book captured her vision in a most enchanting way.
Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing.
God only is changeless.
Patience gains all things.
Who has God wants for nothing.
God alone suffices.
For many of us this is a very comforting prayer. However, when the inevitable conflicts and insecurities of life engulf us anew, the comfort of this prayer goes out the window in a hurry.
Most of us lack the profound faith, hope and love manifested in Teresa’s stunning expression of our relationship with God. We are on the journey. We have a long way to go. Yet this prayer of St. Teresa is a reminder that God really does have a better plan. The Alleluia tells us love will win out.
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