Is it guilty to pray for yourself?

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katpants

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I grew up fundamentalist - lite as we’d call it, and it was thought of rather selfish to pray for yourself at all. You should always pray for others more.

Is this the same in the Catholic religion? I feel that praying to the Saints is so personal that it’s fine to pray for yourself (and of course others too).

Also, is there a forum for ex fundamentalist protestants here? I"m bad at navigating the board 🙂 lol.

Thanks a bunch!

Katrina
 
No problem praying for yourself. For me, I would be most inclined to pray for things I don’t have guess whether God would like me to have.

For example, God was pleased with what Solomon asked for: "Give your servant, therefore, a listening heart to judge your people and to distinguish between good and evil. For who is able to give judgment for this vast people of yours?”

There is no “rule” that says you must pray “more” for others than yourself. To me, Jesus says to love others as ourselves. You might want to go to special effort to think of others, in order to move toward this, but that’s personal and up to you. Plus we need to get the specks out of our own eyes before we can help others, so there is reason for us to pray for ourselves IMO.

MS
 
Hi katpants,

Sure, you can pray for yourself and your own needs, too.

I have mentioned this before too, that I also ask Jesus to make me a better person–to be more like Him. I have found that He will answer those prayers for me.

Of course, I pray for others, too. 🙂

As far as finding your way around the Catholic Answer Forum itself, if you look right above your bolded forum topic at the very top of the page, you will see some small links that are in gray, and that are also underlined in gray. There is one that says “Forums.” If you click on that, you will be taken to a page that lists all of the forums/sub-forums, if you will.

You can click on any of those, to read them and see what they are about.

There are several different forums to choose from, that people post under here.

Have fun looking around. Welcome! 🙂
 
Jesus says you should pray for yourself and your needs, and not be afraid. Even sinful human fathers aren’t going to give their son a stone instead of bread, or a snake instead of a fish, or a scorpion instead of an egg. “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him?”

This is in the same chapter of Luke instructing us in the Lord’s Prayer, and to pray and keep praying, like the guy waking up his neighbor in the middle of the night to get bread.

It also includes: “And I say to you, Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asks, receives; and he that seeks, finds; and to him that knocks, it shall be opened.”

Luke 11. Pray for what you need. There’s no harm in asking.

Now, if you were always asking God to give you a million dollars and a supermodel girlfriend/boyfriend (depending on whether you’re male or female), that would count as selfish.

And yes, it’s nice to pray for things like virtues and spiritual gifts.

But the one guy I knew who refused to pray for anything for himself wound up an atheist, so there’s such a thing as going too far.
 
katpants said:
I grew up fundamentalist - lite as we’d call it, and it was thought of rather selfish to pray for yourself at all. You should always pray for others more.

Is this the same in the Catholic religion? I feel that praying to the Saints is so personal that it’s fine to pray for yourself (and of course others too).

Also, is there a forum for ex fundamentalist protestants here? I"m bad at navigating the board 🙂 lol.

Thanks a bunch!

Katrina
Click to expand...
Katrina,
It is “necessary” to pray for yourself, for your desires. If you do not turn to “the Father of lights” from whom “every good gift and every perfect gift” comes (James 1), then you will spend your time being “lured and enticed by your desires” (also James 1) instead of persevering at turning to God for all your need. In his hour of trial, Jesus prayed for himself, “Father, if possible, take this cup from me… nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done”, so pray for yourself with a similar tone - always tell him you want his will done as the goal of your heart.

Paul wrote in Philippians 4, “Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God”.
 
katpants said:
I grew up fundamentalist - lite as we’d call it, and it was thought of rather selfish to pray for yourself at all. You should always pray for others more.

Is this the same in the Catholic religion? I feel that praying to the Saints is so personal that it’s fine to pray for yourself (and of course others too).

Also, is there a forum for ex fundamentalist protestants here? I"m bad at navigating the board 🙂 lol.

Thanks a bunch!

Katrina
Click to expand...
If you reread the New Testament, you will see that on several occasions, Christ RECOMMENDED they pray for themselves

One time he recommended this was after the last supper. He recommended that they all pray they not be put to the test.

At the crucifixion, it was weeping, (rather than prayer), but Christ said they should weep for themselves and for their children.

He didn’t say not to pray for oneself or to weep for oneself. It was very much to the contrary, that we were to recognize our own needs.

In the “Our Father”, Christ also said to pray for ourselves. He said to say “…give US our daily bread”. He didn’t say to pray, “give THEM **their **daily bread”. We were to include ourselves in the pray, and Christ did not consider this selfishness, rather humility, in admitting our own neediness and weaknesses before others and God.

It’s an act of pridefulness to think we, ourselves, don’t need help.
 
katpants said:
I grew up fundamentalist - lite as we’d call it, and it was thought of rather selfish to pray for yourself at all. You should always pray for others more.

Is this the same in the Catholic religion? I feel that praying to the Saints is so personal that it’s fine to pray for yourself (and of course others too).

Also, is there a forum for ex fundamentalist protestants here? I"m bad at navigating the board 🙂 lol.

Thanks a bunch!

Katrina
Click to expand...
Not to worry, Catholics are supposed to pray for themselves and for others. God bless you.
 
katpants said:
I grew up fundamentalist - lite as we’d call it, and it was thought of rather selfish to pray for yourself at all. You should always pray for others more.

Is this the same in the Catholic religion? I feel that praying to the Saints is so personal that it’s fine to pray for yourself (and of course others too).

Also, is there a forum for ex fundamentalist protestants here? I"m bad at navigating the board 🙂 lol.

Thanks a bunch!

Katrina
Click to expand...
According to St Thomas Aquinas, 4 things must be present in order for a prayer to be guaranteed to be efficacious:
  1. You must be praying for yourself
  2. You must be praying in some way that is for your salvation (according to St Augustine, when we do not pray in some way towards our salvation, then we are not asking it ‘in his (Jesus’) name, and so the prayer will not be answered. Jesus says “Ask anything in my name, and it will be given to you”)
  3. It must be given in faith.
  4. It must be given in perseverance.
Our prayers are not absolutely efficacious when we pray on behalf of others, because we cannot merit the salvation of others. According to St Basil, we may (and should, and must) pray for others, but when we pray for the conversion of others, the prayer is only efficacious if there are no obstacles from the person ‘unto death’ barring the way for the prayer to be answered. In other words, the person must not be mortally defiant to their conversion. If the person is otherwise not defiant and yet remains unconverted because of circumstance, then the prayer will be answered. All souls that are in purgatory are not defiant (otherwise they would not be in purgatory), and so when we pray for them, our prayers are always efficacious.

Even if a prayer that you give for sinners turns out not to be efficacious, because of their defiance, it still remains pleasing to God. If it was not efficacious, it was because of the person being prayed for, and not the one praying.

It is not possible for a prayer towards yourself, that is used towards your salvation, to be selfish, because when we pray for our salvation, we are by default praying for the salvation of all. We are a light and a soldier in this world, and the stronger we become, the stronger the Church becomes. A fleet of ships cannot acquire victory if none of them are being maintained or repaired. God has seen fit to purposely give us inadequate power to combat our enemies by ourselves, in order that we can use His power - through prayer - to be given what we require, and to rely upon him rather than to vainly rely on ourselves.
 
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