Word to the Wise
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - Tuesday in the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Corinthians 6:1-11 and Luke 6:12-19]Jesus departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God
One of most persistent images of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke is that of a man who prayed a lot! One commentary I checked showed nine different instances in this gospel where Jesus is portrayed as praying! One reason for this portrait is that the community for whom the Gospel of Luke was immediately written was persecution. They were suffering the loss of family and fortune as a result of their belief in Jesus. If they were going to survive as individuals and a community they had to find their strength in their relationship with God! This is what sustained Jesus on his long journey right up to and including the cross! On retreats I challenge participants to do a "history of prayer" in their lives. Where and how and from whom did they learn to pray? How did this change over the course of growing? What does their prayer tell them about their idea of God? Does their "prayer" consist exclusively of "prayer(s)" already written or memorized from youth? Are they conscious of what is being said when they pray those "traditional" prayers: Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be?" Or does their prayer consist of conversation or even argument with God? I have a painting on the wall of my room showing a young man out in a field throwing a rock at the sky in the hopes of hitting God! Whatever form prayer takes in the life of a person, Jesus' example underlines the importance of prayer and that it must be persistent and that it may be specific if we wish, and that it helps us to realize that God is not distant. (We're not sending e-mails to God when we pray!) One way I express this to retreatants is to say to them, "You wouldn't leave the house in the morning without brushing your teeth, would you? Why would you neglect your relationship with God?" Jesus was not "praying to himself" up on the mountain. Prayer is essentially our expression of our relationship with God. If we lose that, we lose everything! AMEN