TUESDAY FEBRUARY 20 2024
TUESDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK OF LENT YEAR B
Isaiah 55:10-11
Matthew 6:7-15
A LOOK AT THE CONTENT AND STYLE OF OUR PRAYER
Our idea of prayer and the act of praying itself sometimes reveal our lack, our inadequacies and our ignorance. Jesus in today’s gospel criticized the people for their verbosity in prayer and the meaningless babbling during prayer. He corrects their idea and presents us with the precise and supposed content of prayer that pleases God.
One of our most important practice this Lenten season is prayer. And it is not just talking to God, or making request from God or demanding some favour from God. Prayer goes beyond all these. So Jesus begins with first establishing that prayer is primarily a recognition and expression of our relationship with God. It is more or less accepting and building a relationship of filial love and affection. In his teaching on prayer, Jesus says to them to call God as Father.
The Fatherhood of God is one that acknowledges a relationship of a great filial provident one, a protective one, personal and affectionate one. God is not distant from us rather God is very close, very affectionate like our blood father, and very important as we are his heir.
Secondly, prayer content goes far above what we want into what gives honour and glory to God. Prayer should never be oriented at our desires solely as much as it is to hallow the name of God, to exalt the majesty of the almighty and to proclaim the powers in his name. That even though God is personal and close to us, our task is to praise, adore and worship him.
Thirdly, prayer primarily seeks divine will to be accomplished. We become open to understanding and accepting what our God wants and has revealed to us so that we can conform and carry out. Prayer does not desire to uphold our will, our appetite and our wants rather we seek God’s almighty will and we seek to foster a greater understanding, appreciation and conformity to this divine will.
Fourth, genuine prayer that God answers make requests of our daily needs which before now God knows. Yet, in making such demands of our perceived needs, we are not carried away but we stay on our needs not our wants but our needs. We ask for our needs which are well known to God.
But in asking for our daily needs, we must be pure in heart, sincere in spirit and at peace with all. That is, we must try to be sinless, for nothing unclean will ever stand before the throne of God. So our lives must be clean, our sense of sin must be right and just and our abhorrence of sin and evil must be strong.
Even with that strength of purity, one important point is to always forgive others because on that basis are our sins forgiven. So to ask for God’s mercy and forgiveness presupposes that we have equally forgiven others their sins and their faults. On these evidences can we receive the forgiveness of God. So no hurts must be hoarded in our hearts. No sins of other must be held up in our minds and no evil feelings against others or malice must ever be entertained in us.
Finally, we are always in a battle in this world, so we must be proactive and wage the war early so that we are not overwhelmed or confounded by the devil. So, we must be alert at all times and asked never to be confounded by the evil one. Protection from God and deliverance from all evil is his prerogative which we must request and be alert at all times to implore him.
We must strive to maintain these principles so that our prayers are not empty words but are efficacious means of attending to our spiritual life and growth in our relationship with God. For our prayers should always be as the rain falls without watering the ground and making it to provide bread and food for us. May our prayers be that too to the glory and honor of our God.
Heavenly Father, without you we are nothing. We belong totally to you. We are your creatures and you made us for yourself. Help us Lord, to understand better the act of praying. Help us to build a stronger, closer and more comfortable relationship with you in our prayers. May our prayers be pleasing and accepted before you. May our prayers be efficacious, powerful and always attend to our needs through Christ our Lord.
Fr Norbert Uchuno
