The Twenty-ninth Sunday of the Year - October 17, 2004

    Can you remember the first time in your life that you prayed, really prayed? I would hazard to guess that, if we can remember that time, it was probably on an occasion of crisis. That’s the way it was with me. I was walking at night on the grounds of a hospital, about 12 years ago. My mother was in a hospital room a few floors up, dying from leukemia, or really from the effects of the chemotherapy. Her immune system had been destroyed by the treatment, and pneumonia had set in. She had no way to fight it.
    And so I prayed. I remember saying to God something to the effect: “I haven’t really bothered with religion, with You, much before now, and I am a bit embarrassed at coming to you only because I have no where else to go. But I do remember hearing in church that we are supposed to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” And so I am asking you for something much more important to me than bread.”
    Earlier in the evening the doctor had told me that what my mother needed to fight the infection she would not even be able to produce in her body for another two weeks. And her lungs were getting worse. He advised me to call the rest of the family. Then, something happened. By the morning of the next day, mom was sitting up in the bed able to wave and smile to her grandchildren who stood in the doorway to greet her. She went from there into complete remission, which was to last for a year.
    A miracle in answer to prayer? I don’t know absolutely for sure. The doctors had no real explanation, except to say that strange things do happen. I knew, however, that in some sense our prayers had been answered. And the next crisis we much more prepared for. This time, though, the answer was different. No wondrous recoveries. No miracles of healing. But a whole year of miracles within the family and a funeral marked with abundant signs of faith and hope.
    Prayer, I had begun to learn, changes the one who prays. And God gives the answer to prayer that sparks and encourages that change. Our prayers do not change a God who is perfect and infinite in His love, mercy and goodness. Prayer is not our means of convincing God that what we feel we need is best for us, but of coming to recognize what God’s will is for us. Certainly, though, I am quick to add, we are to ask things of God. Christ commanded us to do so. Yes, and even ask for a miracle. Even our Lord, in the Garden of Gethsemene, did that: He prayed, “Father, let this cup of suffering pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.”
    Maybe for most people, including myself, the place to start has to be that moment of crisis, when we have nowhere else to turn to, and so we pray. But by that very act of praying, of asking something of God, we express in our actions a fundamental truth: that we are truly dependent on this God who is the source and end of all life; that it is by His very present power that we are sustained in existence; that we do not have life in our control; that we are in many ways fragile beings, tossed and turned about by things that are much bigger than we.
    And so we pray. From expressions of dependence on God, we move on to a kind of familiarity with our Creator, familiarity in the sense of being more and more at home with the idea of not only asking things of Him but also of seeing God as the One in whose hands are all the worlds, past and present. That past, present and future are all under the eternal, watchful, caring gaze of His love. That there are movements in heaven and the in realm of the spiritual that far surpass our ability to grasp, and yet in which we know we must play a role, primarily the salvation of our own souls and the work for the accomplishment of God’s will everywhere. That, somehow, by raising our hearts and minds in prayer to God, we are accustoming ourselves to, preparing ourselves for, that world that never ends.
    And here is the struggle of prayer. That God doesn’t seem to hear us. That it doesn’t work. But of course it does, if we know what prayer is for, what the aim of a Christian saying his or her prayers is. On our knees before the divine majesty, we are accorded a glimpse of the heart of God, which, despite our trials and troubles in this life, we see that that heart is boundless love. A love so rich and full, so perfect and limitless that it will not rest until our happiness, our ultimate happiness -- and not merely a happiness in the passing, dying things of this world -- until our happiness is secure....eternally.
    Thus the seeming slamming of the door of heaven in our face. The seeming cold shoulder of God. The seeming silence of heaven in response to our cries. Persistence in prayer, as illustrated in today’s Gospel, causes us, enables us, to pass through all this and to realize that God is drawing us ever away from our own limited understanding of what will make us happy, ever deeper into the mystery of the divine, ever more aware that this God of love will not hesitate to shatter to pieces the little houses-of-cards kind of happiness that we build for ourselves. So when that divine hand of love strikes, we hurt; but God -- as the Holy Scriptures attest -- only wounds to heal. And prayer is where we know that.
    Prayer then is where we move on to a heartfelt gratitude to God for His determination to bring us to the only thing that will ever really satisfy our longing for happiness: namely Himself. Strange how it works, but we begin this journey of prayer thinking and worrying about so many things, so many real and imagined needs, so many wants and desires, so many concerns about the future and security. And slowly, as we learn over time to pray, through all the clouds of these many disturbances, the Sun begins to break out and we recognize our Savior, who has not only just then come to us, but who has been with us all along and who promises to be with us even to the end of the world.
    So prayer sheds the light of heaven on all of life, whether we are praising God for the miracle of a healing that signifies the coming of that kingdom where there is no disease or death or whether we raise our hearts in thanks for the birth of a child, the beginning of that friendship, the meeting of one’s future spouse; or whether we are holding the hand of one we love as they pass from this world – all of it is transformed by the real presence of a God whose love is so vividly portrayed in the Crucifix. There we behold Him, who suffered and died for our sake, and we realize – only in prayer – that indeed if we have our sufferings, disappointments and sorrows, how much more did He! We come to see then – only in prayer – that when – not if, but when – we go through a crisis, the sufferings that come with living in a fallen world, we are but being given the opportunity to draw near to Christ crucified. It is only there, really, that we have the great vantage point of seeing, truly beholding, the great heart of God. And that is enough for us. It explains everything.