Seventeenth Sunday of Year - Rules of prayer

Dear Parishioners. Our readings for today are all about prayer, which is one of the most important topics we can talk about. So often people ask about prayer: How should we pray? Undoubtedly, prayer is right at the heart of the Christian life. Prayer strengthens us, brings us closer to God and helps us depend more on Him. It's something that most of us do on a daily basis. On the other hand, prayer can be a source of great frustration for many people. They often complain: I pray and I pray and nothing really happens. Why isn't it working? Prayer, that intimate communion and conversation with God, is about connecting. Like plugging in an electrical appliance or logging on to the internet, it won't work unless we enable the connection to be made. Similarly, a prayer is a way of connecting to God, enabling us to communicate - to listen and to speak.

The Bible speaks often of prayer. It also reminds us that certain rules ought to govern our prayer if we want it to be effective. First, we have to pray with faith. We must passionately believe that God can do what we are asking for. Have you noticed how often in the gospel before Jesus heals someone he says: Do you believe I can do this for you? We probably remember that when Jesus visited his hometown, where people didn't believe in him, he could work very few miracles because of their lack of faith. In the course of his ministry Jesus often spoke about the importance of faith: If you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, "Move from here to there," and it would obey you. So we can ask: Why does God need our faith? I would say that faith is like the opening of a window. It allows God's power to flow into us and through us to others. Otherwise, if we shut this window down, then the divine power can't get into us because God respects our freedom. So when we pray we should approach him as a child approach his daddy; with the same openness and confidence. God loves that! We read in Mark's gospel this extraordinary line: I tell you, everything you ask and pray for, believe that you have it already, and it will be yours. Why doesn't prayer work? Well, one possible answer is lack of faith. We don't pray like children. We don't believe it. We are a little bit embarrassed to be asking God for things. It's like closing the window or unplugging the plug. Faith is necessary for prayer - that's rule one.

Secondly, our prayer must be accompanied by forgiveness. If we want the grace of God to flow to and through us, we must remove the angers that block it. Listen to Mark's gospel again: When you stand in prayer, forgive whatever you have against anybody, so your Father in heaven may forgive your failings too. Our prayer will not be efficacious as long as we are holding grudges. Somehow if there is a lack of forgiveness in us it blocks the movement of God in us. Perhaps it's because God is Love. Consequently, what's opposed to love in us blocks the flow of God's power. So if we are have a grudge against somebody and we don't want to forgive, we should do something about it. Perhaps that's why our prayer is not effective. The solution is simple: Forgive and then pray. By the way, forgiveness is a choice we make through a decision of our will; not an emotion.

Thirdly, we must pray with persistence. All over the Bible God wants us to persist in prayer. Our first reading for today is that famous account of Abraham praying to God on behalf of Sodom. He says: Lord, perhaps there are fifty just men in the town. (...) will you not spare the place for the fifty just men in it? God replies: I will spare the whole place because of them. Then Abraham asks again: And if they are forty five; would you? Yes. How about thirty? And Abraham goes on and on persistently asking of God. We hear a similar story in the gospel and then these words of Jesus: Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. It means that when we pray and we've not got what we wanted then we should pray more. We still haven't got what we wanted - we should pray again. The whole idea is: keep praying; be persistent with God. Saint Augustine said: Sometimes God makes us wait because he wants our hearts to expand so as to receive the good he wants to give us. When we wait for something for a long time we really appreciate what we have been given.

Finally, we should pray in Jesus' name because he told us so: If you ask anything in my name I will do it. Notice that in all our liturgical prayers during Mass this principle is respected. Whenever we conclude a prayer we always say: through Christ our Lord. To pray in Jesus' name is to pray for the right things - the kind of things God wants us to pray for.

Dear Brothers and Sisters. Why does our prayer not work? Perhaps it's because we are not following these rules. When you pray - do so in faith; when you pray - forgive; when you pray - do it persistently; when you pray - do it in Jesus' name. Amen.

The homilies from the previous Sundays are stored in the Archive