Prayer

[nmanica]

Hello,

I’m trying to grow in my faith but keep having some second thoughts about prayer. Some questions I have are: How can praying for other people help them if they have free will? How does God hear our prayers? How does God answer them? How is the Holy Spirit involved?

Thank you for your time and any response is greatly appreciated

 

[NightRider]

God hears our prayers, and other people are helped by our prayers because God is always listening and helping the others and us as we pray for one another. God works in mysterious ways! and I do not know how He does the things He does but I do know that He does do them! His handiwork is everywhere, all around me, all the time. He always answers my prayers in the ways He sees fit. They may not always be the answers I desire but they are His answers, and those answers are the best ones for me! God works through us and others regardless of free will. His Will is all-powerful and overrides our own free will quite often! We just may not see it that way at the time. It may not be clear to us at the time. Let’s say a person loses his job and to him it seems like a catastrophe at the time. He is not thinking of God’s Will when it happens. Later this person gets an even better job than the one he was fired from, which he never would have known about unless he had lost his previous job. What seems like a delay or a catastrophe may just be God working on His own time! This sort of thing has happened to me way too many times in my life for me to just believe they are coincidences. There is always a spiritual reason for things happening the way they happen, and for this Catholic, that spiritual reason is God’s Reason, His Will made known in ordinary things.

 

[nmanica]

Thank you very much for your comment as it has cleared some foggy details. I guess I’m having difficulty understanding God’s will over our when the CCC says we have free will in accordance to his grace. I also feel extremely selfish when I pray for any specific request when God sent his only son to be crucified. Who am I to question God’s authority and demand something be done for me when he is not only my creator but also my redeemer. I feel terrible about questioning God but again the CCC said the church welcomes people to question the faith sense we are men of reason only through reason can we come to know God. Please don’t take me the wrong way, I believe God exists and try to do his will and not my own but I feel this process of scrutiny is necessary for spiritual growth. And one last question, if God created everything, then what was his purpose behind HIV. I don’t know if it is a question of justice or not but i guess I really just need to pray more and have more faith, hope, and charity. Thanks for your reply again.

 

[Deacon_Tony560]

God does not will that anyone gets HIV. God does not will that young babies are slaughtered in the womb. What you say about free will is correct. All the bad things that happen are the result of sin. But as Fr. Corapi says, God allows evil because of the greater good that comes from it. God allows evil, he does not desire it. By praying for others in faith and hope, we are professing our belief that anything is possible with God. The beautiful Hymn “Amazing Grace” tells how a sinner experienced conversion. This same grace can cause those that you pray for to see a clear choice to conversion. This could happen soon or even as they take their last breath.

May God bless you for your faith,
Deacon Tony SFO

 

[FrmrTrad]

nmanica:

How can praying for other people help them if they have free will?

The Church has a treasury of graces to which the faithful contribute. When a person in the state of grace prays, those prayers are added to the treasury. Also, when we make sacrifices for the love of God, or in honor of the salvific actions of Our Lord, etc., those sacrifices also contribute to the treasury. The person praying can ask that graces be directed to a particular party. That person can be influenced by these graces, but must in fact respond to them. A person’s free will is not harmed by this fact: suppose someone gives you $50. You are free to take the gift, or to refuse it. The prayers are a gift to the intended recipient. People must respond favorably to the graces they receive in order for them to be efficacious. In my opinion, graces can be directed to people, and in some way felt by them even unawares, without their having any choice in the matter: it’s the response that makes the difference and that preserves free will. In much the same way, anyone is free to present any other person with a gift. One beautiful thing to consider is that a person might respond to those graces without even really understanding where they came from. My conversion to the Faith actually came out of the blue. I have no idea where the graces came from. Dead protestant relatives who were praying for me? Catholics praying for anyone, anywhere, to convert, perhaps catching me at just the right moment? Who knows?

How might graces be delivered to a person? Their angel might be empowered to shield them from harm… who knows. A good thing to do is to stay in the state of grace, and go to communion as much as possible, and get as many indulgences as you have time for, to add to the treasury of graces. You can get a plenary indulgence each day by receiving communion within 8 or so days of a confession, while in the state of grace, and either praying the rosary in common or having a lectio divina session by yourself. There are other ways too, but those are probably the most convenient. Then at the end of the day you can give your indulgence to the Blessed Mother. Check www.ourladyswarriors.org for up-to-date information about indulgences. Contributing to the treasury of graces is a really important thing to do, but I don’t think enough Catholics are actively aware of it. To some extent it is automatic, but to be aware of it is to do it more thoroughly, being more careful to remain in a state of grace, and to pursue more consistently the opportunity to contribute.

How does God hear our prayers? How does God answer them? How is the Holy Spirit involved?

Romans 8 might be helpful, e.g. v 26: Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings.

 

[nmanica]

I humbly thank you, FrmrTrad and Deacon Tony560 for your words. They have truly answered many questions I’ve pondered about the faith. I also will definitely seek more information on indulgences. Thanks again both of you.

May God bless you,

Nick Manica

 

[FrmrTrad]

Hello again! I was reading some of the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours today and found a paragraph that might interest you.

nmanica:

How is the Holy Spirit involved?

Here is paragraph 8, The Action of the Holy Spirit:

The unity of the Church at prayer is brought about by the Holy Spirit, who is the same in Christ [see Luke 10:21], in the whole Church, and in every baptized person. It is this Spirit who “helps us in our weakness” and “intercedes for us with longings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). As the Spirit of the Son, he gives us “the spirit of adopted sonship, by which we cry out: Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15; see Galatians 4:6; 1 Corinthians 12:3; Ephesians 5:18; Jude 20). There can be no Christian prayer without the action of the Holy Spirit who unites the whole Church and leads it through the Son to the Father.

That details how the Holy Spirit is involved in prayer.

 

[PaulDupre]

nmanica:

Hello,

I’m trying to grow in my faith but keep having some second thoughts about prayer. Some questions I have are: How can praying for other people help them if they have free will? How does God hear our prayers? How does God answer them? How is the Holy Spirit involved?

Thank you for your time and any response is greatly appreciated

Of course we have free will, and it is absolute. But when we pray for others, it elicits grace from God that can put miraculous influences in their lives that can help them to direct their free will properly.

As a personal example: I had fallen away from the Catholic Church in my teens, become a Mormon, discovered that Mormonism is a scam, and become an angry and hardened atheist.

While I was a Mormon missionary in Taiwan, my parents had begun praying the rosary for me every day. Almost immediately, wonderful Catholic people (including my wife) kept dropping into my life and crossing my path. Over the years I was led to understand the faith I had ignorantly left behind, due to all of the wonderful Catholics and Catholic experiences that were placed squarely in my path. As my heart softened toward the Catholic faith, I recognized my sore need for a savior and for the Eucharist.

I firmly believe that it was my parents’ prayers that elicited the tremendous graces I received.

Don’t give up. Keep praying. When I told my dad that I had come back to the Catholic Church, he told me that he and my mom had been praying the rosary for me. I asked him when they started that. He said “While you were on your mission.” I said “But dad, that was 22 years ago!” He said “Yeah, we knew it might take some time.”

Now that’s faith!
God bless you,
Paul