Prayer Cards

How do you pray?

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial." And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he answers from within, 'Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. "So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" - Luke 11:1-13

I am glad the disciples asked Jesus how they should pray.

Prayer is a very personal thing, a conversation with God, which Jesus says that we should do in private.

He says that because in his day, people would make a point of showcasing their prayers before others so as to beef up themselves and more righteous.

We shouldn't do that.  When we pray together in church, it is not to exclude others, but to include them.

God will not ignore our pleas as we might try to ignore a neighbor who comes in the night looking to borrow bread.  Even then, he says, we will give in if the neighbor persists.

So, we should pray and we shouldn't give up.

My grandmother was a structured prayer lady.  She had a stack of prayer cards, you know, those cards with a picture of a saint on one side and a prayer on the other.  

She would take her stack, along with her rosary beads and head to the bedroom at night to have her conversation with each saint, and with Mother Mary, before retiring.

Sometimes I would find her fast asleep with her cards and beads on her chest, her hands still clutching them.

But she prayed by reading these prayers, sometimes aloud, sometimes quietly.  

She taught me how to pray the rosary and how to pray a novena with the rosary beads.  

With all this training, today I wing it.  I find some time and space where I can just catch God's attention, or more likely, recognize that God is already attentive and I need to meet Him where He is.

I quietly ask for His help for me or for someone else, and then I go back to what I was doing.

Should I be more persistent, like Jesus says?  Maybe.

People have said that God hears all our prayers and answers them.  The answers may not be the way we expect, though.  And I have had a problem with that at times, especially times when all seems lost.

Today in church, we will pray for a whole bunch of people who have asked for our prayers, and for some who have died, and we will add our own thoughts and prayers for people we know.  We will also pray for ourselves, the church, people in authority, people in conflict throughout the world.  We will pray for everyone.

Will all these prayers be answered?

I believe they already are.  God promised to be with us in many ways so that we are not alone in our struggles.  He did not promise to take the struggles away.

Life is a series of struggles.  Jesus promised to make our burden lighter.

Maybe when we finally meet God, we will understand why we can't always rely on prayer to take away our illnesses, eliminate our pain, extend our lives.

For now, we just have to deal with what comes, and we pray that God will help us do that.

More to come...