~ A little girl approached her slightly older brother with a question, “Charlie, can anybody see God?” Charlie curtly replied, “No, of course not, silly. God is so far up in heaven that nobody can see him.”
Still wondering, she approached her father, “Dad, can anybody really see God?”
“No, not really,” her father answers, “God is spirit and dwells in our hearts, but we can never really see God.” The answer satisfies her for a moment, but still she wonders. The next day the little girl spends a wonderful day with her grandma. They play in the park, they feed the ducks and the fish in the pond, and at the end of the day they sit on a park bench and share an ice-cream cone as the sun sets. They are quiet for a moment as they look at the sky, and the little girl thinks for a moment and asks hesitatingly, “Grandma, I wasn’t going to ask anybody else, but I’ve been wondering for a long time. Can anybody see God?”
The old woman does not even turn her head, but a long moment slips by before she finally answers, “My dear, I see God all the time. It’s getting so I don’t see anything else…”
Today’s readings speak of prayer. We hear Abraham speaking with God, bartering with the lives of the people in Sodom and Gomorrah; in the first line of the Gospel, we see Jesus at prayer himself; and we hear the Lord teaching his disciples to pray and urging them to persevere in prayer. Prayer is at the heart of being a Christian; it’s what gives us union and communion with God. Most of us learned your Sign of the Cross and some prayers when we were younger, and many of you have your prayer books and devotions. Some of you may have even experienced prayer through meditation or silence or the Scriptures. Some of you may have had deep, intense, wonderful moments of prayer where God seemed very close. But very few people are satisfied with the way they pray. I’m not. Prayer is one of those things that I hear a lot of people add the word “should” to. Father, I know I should be praying more… I should take more time to pray… I should learn how to pray better.
But, friends, today’s readings about prayer, I think, aren’t just about learning how to pray, but learning better what prayer is. Authentic prayer is not a formula or a ritual, but an awareness of God’s prayer and action in our lives, just like that grandmother had learned to experience. She learned through the course of her life that she found union with God through her family, through nature, through good times and bad… It’s hard to see anything but God, when all your life is a prayer. You see, prayer is not just what we do here at Church, or before meals, or before we go to bed, or when tragedy occurs. It’s it a striving to be constantly aware of God’s presence in all things. And when we are aware of God’s presence in all things, prayer flows naturally: praise, adoration, thanksgiving, contrition, petition…
Let me confess to you: I have struggled with prayer all my life long. You may think that sounds odd coming from a priest; I think it sounds pretty normal and human. Part of that comes from a lifetime of people telling me how I should pray. After all, in the seminary, we were told to pray Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer and Night Prayer. Spend an hour with the Blessed Sacrament. Daily Mass and Rosary and frequent confession. But I’ve always found it tough to spend long quiet time in prayer. And I struggle because sometimes I think that is how I should be praying. I read about the great saints and mystics who spend hours in rapture and prayer. The pope and certain bishops and priests spend hours before the Blessed Sacrament and urge us to follow their example. So I feel like I should be doing that, but I find it difficult. I think all of us are like that to some degree. We think we should be praying the prayers we learned in grade school, but now we’re adults, and we still pray like children, and we wonder why God seems so far away. We are told that we can find God in the Bible or in a devotional book, but we don’t even take the time to read the paper. We’re told to talk to God, but many people don’t even talk deeply with their family or friends, because we’re texting or tweeting or trying to catch Pokemon. We are told that we will find God in the quiet, but our lives are so busy. Now don’t get me wrong. None of those things are bad! And if they work for you, great! But here’s what I’ve learned: there are as many ways to pray as people who pray.
So how do I pray? I try to take some quiet time each day, and I certainly pray preparing for Mass and celebrating Mass. When I’m at my best, I pray all day long. I pray in the car, especially if I’m going to visit someone, I’ll pray for them. I’ll pray for the person on the other end of the phone before I pick it up. I pray before meetings or appointments, asking for whatever grace we may need. I thank God when I find a parking space or when things are quiet at home. I pray when I watch the news or read the paper, asking God to give peace and comfort and healing to those who are hurting. When someone asks me to pray for them or for someone they know, I do so immediately, lest I forget, and I add them into a book of prayer petitions that I keep. For me, prayer is much more than words I recite. Prayer is a way to live my life, seeking to be in touch with God in all things. And I’ll admit, some days I do a better job at it than others.
No matter how you pray, prayer takes some effort, and none of us does it perfectly. But the result of our effort is union with God! As we gather to pray at this Eucharist, ask yourself… do I pray? That’s a good place to start. Do you pray? Then if you really, honestly do pray, ask yourself, How do I pray? Is my prayer different than it was as a child, a teenager, a young adult? Is my prayer different than it was a year ago? How can I pray better? Am I learning better what prayer is for me, in my own life, with my own concerns and cares? Do I remember that prayer is a two way street, talking and listening? Yes, none of us is every satisfied with our prayer, and that’s OK, because prayer is the work of a lifetime.
May our prayer, and our faith, and our union with God, always and ever increase!