What have you prayed for during your lifetime?
A mother was walking by the bedroom of her 12-year-old son. She saw him kneeling beside his bed and heard him praying over and over again, “O Lord, let it be Tokyo. Please let it be Tokyo!”
When he finished his prayers, his mother asked, “What did you mean, ‘Let it be Tokyo’?”
“Oh, we had our geography exam today, and I was praying God would make Tokyo the capital of France.”
Sometimes, we just pray for the wrong things.
Prayer is not some magical genie lamp that we rub in the time of crisis or emergency. But the fact is, many of us think that way.
We pray to sell a house, and it is still on the market.
We pray for the end of school violence, and it still goes on.
We pray that our favorite team will win, and they lose.
We don’t always get what we ask for in prayer.
Like the story of the little girl who prayed every night that God would fix the broken arm of her favorite doll:
Her older brother would hear the prayer and say, “God’s not going to hear your prayer and fix your doll’s arm.”
This went on night after night until finally, he said, “I told you God doesn’t hear your prayer, and God is not going to fix your doll’s arm.”
The little girl responded with confidence, “Oh, God hears my prayers, but sometimes God just says ‘No.’”
When God says “No,” there is the tendency to stop praying or say, “I don’t know how to pray.”
In the Gospel this evening, the disciples said to Jesus, “Lord, teach us how to pray…” Jesus didn’t send them off to an extended seminar or workshop. Jesus just taught them a simple prayer. You and I know the prayer and we have known it since we were small children. Do you remember who taught you the Our Father?
I find it comforting when visiting the sick, terminally ill, dementia or Alzheimer’s patients, and I invite them to pray the Our Father with me. They always remember the words to this prayer.
I share with you a story about myself when I was in the emergency room with a family gathered around the deathbed of their father. I invited the family to join hands, bow their heads and pray together the prayer that Jesus taught. I am not sure where my mind was, but I began and I heard myself say, “Bless us O Lord…” The young daughter tugged on my sleeve to get me to start over.
Yes, we all have been taught many prayers to recite.
What part of the Our Father is the most challenging for you? For myself, it is a toss-up between “Thy will be done” and “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.”
Unfortunately, I rather prefer that God approves my will, and I struggle with forgiving others in the same way God forgives me. The experience of doing God’s will and forgiving as God forgives us is basic to our spiritual health.
Let me say that again: The experience of doing God’s will and forgiving as God forgives us is basic to our spiritual health.
In other words, the Our Father is not only a prayer but it is a lifestyle. Let me illustrate with another short story:
In the novel, The Great Hunter, a newcomer moved to a village in the mountains with a view of a beautiful lake. The newcomer was a loner and refused the friendship of his neighbors, who went out of their way to make him feel welcome.
The first thing he did when he moved in was to immediately put up a privacy fence and a sign that read, “No Trespassing.” One day, a small child sneaked underneath the privacy fence to pet the newcomer’s dog. The vicious animal leaped on her and killed her.
Hostility raged throughout the village. No one would speak to him. No one would wait on him in the stores or have anything to do with him.
The parents of the dead girl heard and saw what was going on and decided to go to his house with food and wine to befriend him.
The recluse asked, “Why, of all people in the world, would you two come with food and drink?”
The grieved father responded, “To keep the loving spirit of our little girl alive in our hearts.”
And the mother added, “My husband and I believe in the Our Father, we accept God’s Divine will and we want to forgive others as God forgives us. We try to live the Our Father as a lifestyle.”
There is an interesting scene in the movie “Shadow Lands,” the story of C.S. Lewis, played by Anthony Hopkins, in which Lewis prays for his wife, who is dying of cancer. His friend asked him why he prays, and Lewis’ response was, “I don’t pray to change God’s mind; I pray that God may change me.”
The secret to learning to pray is to be open to change within ourselves, or as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, “Let Go and Let God. “
What do you have to let go of to live the Our Father? What do you have to let go of to accept God’s will? What do you have to let go of to forgive as God forgives?
Yes, sometimes we do pray for the wrong things, like Tokyo being the capital of France. Sometimes, God does say “No,” and the team we prayed for loses.
Whether our prayers are answered or unanswered, our First Reading and the Gospel reading insist that we persevere in prayer. Never give up on God.
What do you have to let go of to make the Our Father your lifestyle?
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