Communication with God. But while we believe that prayer comes from our intentions…what it actually arises from is grace, gift of God that we accept or reject..
Prayer is grace
God, we receive Your grace to pray as unmerited gift. We know or interpret You through human concepts; however, by humbly yielding our selves and our logic to faith, we allow You freedom of utterance in us. Even so, we may only experience Your presence and word in silence as we invite You to speak and move within us as we actively and prayerfully live the gospel.
If in our disappointment at Your silence, we experience wavering faith, with courage we pray, “Speak Yourself and live Your life in me, my God. Make thanksgiving, and glorify Yourself continually in me, in all my supposed strengths, as in my sinfulness and inability. Find Yourself to me. Find me to Your truth. Unknowing, uncomprehending though I am, please let me be drawn into the infinite possibilities of Your life and love. Not my will, but Your will be done!”
**Prayer as God’s family **
Our God, when we pray, we implicitly offer the image and love of God in those for whom we pray. The innate prayer of Your image in us gained immense value in the incarnation and sacrifice of Jesus. Through communion in Jesus’ life, we also share in the tremendous reservoir of grace of His Mystical Body. Each person in the Mystical Body has unique complementary gifts that increase the sanctity and interaction of the whole Body.
The prayer, penance, and service of each member of the Mystical Body throughout time contribute to the vitality and grace of the whole.
Because we are created with free will, we can remain spiritually separate from You and our fellow-beings, thus impeding the flow of grace to others, whose salvation may partly depend upon our intercession or witness. By unrepented failure to share ourselves lovingly with others, we may condemn ourselves to eternal separation from You our Creator, and from the heavenly family who longingly await us.
We are blessed in those who serve others in charitable deeds. We are blessed in all who accept suffering as their apostolate in unity with Jesus, to atone for humankind’s sins and to intercede for salvation of souls. We are blessed in all who devote their lives in prayer, for this apostolate swells Your grace within the Church with tremendous but concealed power.
**Your prayer within each of Your people is a tiny stream that flows into the ocean of Yourself. If we refuse to participate in Your cooperative plan of salvation then we dry up as stagnant pools in the desert of separation. The tragedy of this separation is individual, but its mourning belongs to all. If we truly understood this, how fervently we would intercede for each other! **
You intend that we offer prayer in each thought, word, and act of our lives. Whether we pray deeply or grope in confusion for Your will, or we confidently proclaim private desires, or pray sorrowfully—we must always seek to pray. In doing so, we must acknowledge with Jesus, that, “Not my will, but Your divine will be done.”
Confusion occurs because we are motivated by self-will. We may choose to abandon hope, or to compromise, or to reaffirm our faith in You despite lack of consolation or of apparent response. If we do not trust in Your mercy and promises, our faith and hope weaken. We may even abandon You, temporarily or permanently, believing You to be faithless, uncaring, or non-existent. Save us from such despair.
Your best kindness may be in refusing a wish that might endanger one’s own or another’s development or salvation. Therefore, in apparently unanswered prayers there is astonishing hope! If we accept Your apparent silence and inaction patiently, then faith deepens. When we allow Your own prayer and design in us to unfold, in time (or in eternity) we will discover that Your answers in our lives and in others’ for whom we pray, are far beyond what we could dream to ask!
**If we allow You to make the fullness of Your prayer in us, You will gradually transform us. In Your sight **if not in our own or any others’, we will become the pure precious persons whom You desire each to become. We then are in harmony with Your creative purpose, faithfully serving Your divine plan of salvation within the Mystical Body. Grant that, in praise, humility and trust, we may so allow You.
Thank You, God, for the prayer You place in our hearts as You call us to gospel service throughout our lives.
