Word to the Wise
Sunday, July 20, 2014 - 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time - A
[Wis 12:13, 16-19; Rom 8:26-27; Matt 13:24-43 or 13:24-30]The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with in expressible groanings. And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the holy ones according to God's will. [Romans]
On the wall of my room there is a painting of a boy standing in a field with a rock in his hand, getting ready to throw the rock at the sky in the hopes of hitting God! I tell this story at parish missions and on retreats when speaking about prayer. The boy in the picture was a student parishioner of mine at the University of Arizona and he told that story about himself. The image is a powerful one. The boy may have been enraged AT God but he was engaged WITH God. That seems to me to be the essence of prayer - to be engaged with God.
St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that the intention to pray is the most important first step. The mind can wander and we can be distracted, but that original intention is what makes our prayer "effective." Yes, we can gain much more from the experience if we are "attentive" to our words and their meaning, but the most important thing is the desire to be engaged with God. [cf. Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 83, aa. 13/14] It is this desire that St. Paul speaks about in today's second scripture. The Holy Spirit will pray on our behalf if only we direct ourselves to God!
For those who need something in writing, I often recommend what is known as the "Merton prayer," which the famous Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, composed in one of his many books:
"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone." AMEN
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