When Novenas and Prayers Don't WORK

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Jaypeeto4

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According to St. James’s epistle,
the ONLY TIME you are supposed to NOT GET what you pray for,
is when you are asking in order to have it to spend on your own lusts.
Other than that, you have a God given RIGHT to expect to get the help
you need, IF you PERSEVERE in prayer.
You have that God given RIGHT, not because God inherently “owes” us
anything, no,
but because He has PROMISED to give us EVERYTHING we need
spiritual AND temporal, IF WE PERSIST IN PRAYER and if our motives
are to use it to live right, pay our just debts, and help to support the kingdom of
God and the less fortunate.
Prayers and novenas are SUPPOSED TO WORK, and 100% of the time.
IF we pray perseveringly and with good, needy motives.
 
I don’t know if Jaypeeto4 is feeling desperate and discouraged Lord.
We don’t always know why it is so hard, but please hear Jaypeeto4’s prayers.
 
Sorry, but that’s not true. If that were the case, every Christian cancer patient would be healed. I have known people who have prayed for their loved ones to be healed, and it was never answered. I have known people who have prayed for a solution to their legal and financial problems, and it was never answered. I know people who pray for an end to abortion, and till this day it has not been answered.

To claim that only prayers which are “not selfish” are answered is not only an insult to the aforementioned people I’ve spoken about, it also seems fairly contradictory to those stories where a prayer for a material need is answered. For example, quite recently, an atheist converted to Christianity after a mock prayer to God and winning the lottery: christianpost.com/news/atheist-converts-after-mock-prayer-to-win-1m-lottery-is-answered-50600/
Christians love to use stories such as this as an “Aha!” proof of God’s existence, but they find themselves in a sticky situation of using the story to prove God’s omnipotence, or whether they should remain reticent because it goes against Scripture. Admittedly, the odds are fairly slim, but it flies straight in the face of James 4:3: “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (James 4:3).

Best thing to do with any problem you’re facing is to seek a practical solution - seek certainties rather than miracles. No rosary, chaplet of divine mercy, novena or prayer will answer your problems. I’ve been there, done that, so I’m just saving you the despair and heartache. Fortunately, nothing is impossible with human ingenuity :).
 
Remember also that the prayer must conform to God’s will or to His will on condition of your prayer. For instance, Jesus prayed “Father if it be possible let this cup pass from me.” But Jesus’ request was not heard. If a prayer is not “answered” in accord with the way you asked, it may be good to remember Christ’s prayer and also Matthew’s teaching that a Father will not give you a snake if you ask for an egg. So if your prayer is not answered right away o at all, it is because God has something “better” for you as your Father, even if that includes you to endure more suffering, which we as Catholics believe is sanctifying for ourselves and extends to the salvation of other members of the Body of Christ. It is easier said than done to have such faith in the face of “unanswered” prayers, but that can help to know there is a greater plan in store.
 
Jaypeeto4 said:
According to St. James’s epistle,
the ONLY TIME you are supposed to NOT GET what you pray for,
is when you are asking in order to have it to spend on your own lusts.
Other than that, you have a God given RIGHT to expect to get the help
you need, IF you PERSEVERE in prayer.
You have that God given RIGHT, not because God inherently “owes” us
anything, no,
but because He has PROMISED to give us EVERYTHING we need
spiritual AND temporal, IF WE PERSIST IN PRAYER and if our motives
are to use it to live right, pay our just debts, and help to support the kingdom of
God and the less fortunate.
Prayers and novenas are SUPPOSED TO WORK, and 100% of the time.
IF we pray perseveringly and with good, needy motives.
Click to expand...
I know there are passages in the Bible the seem to promise direct guaranteed answers to prayer, but they can’t possibly mean what they seem to mean. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, we are confronted with the direct example of the holiest and most sinless of all petitioners praying directly to God “let this cup pass from me,” and not receiving what he prayed for. No one has a more sincere, prayer than that. No one deserved a more direct answer to prayer than that. And yet Our Lord’s prayer was not answered in the affirmative. I don’t see that any Christian who remembers Calvary could possibly expect a guaranteed affirmative to any petitionary prayer.

Nor is it wrong for a Christian to feel abandoned by God. Jesus did that too, and Chesterton in his book Orthodoxy called this a glorious moment for any rebel or sufferer forever. A moment when God himself looked on his unanswered prayer and his terrible suffering, as asked where was God? (My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?) For just an instant, God himself was abandoned by God and seemed to be an atheist.

Then came the Resurrection, which means that there is, as Fulton Sheen calls it, “Hope for a wounded world.” So I think we should continue to pray, for spiritual gifts as well as material, but also realize that prayer is not a matter of putting your dollar in the coke machine and getting your soda. God isn’t a soda machine. There is hope, though, in the Resurrection and (as the Pope says) in the Last Judgment (Spe Salvi). So, I agree we should continue to pray faithfully, and persevere in prayer, but also remember both Calvary and the Resurrection.
 
The phrase: “supposed to work” makes me think more of hocus pocus supersition rather than prayer.

Prayers always are heard; prayers always “work” - - - for God’s will, not necessarily our own.

It is very difficult to conform our will to that of God’s, yet that is what we are called to do.

God always hears our prayers. God always answers our prayers. We may not understand the way God chooses to answer them, but that is why He is God and we are not.

I pray for patience and peace and knowledge of God’s will for you in your situation.

God bless you.
 
Spiritual help is ALWAYS the best thing to pray for, of COURSE.
However,
spiritual help, ALONE, will not put food on your hungry family’s table
when you are unemployed, have no help, and have exhausted all means
of assistance and no job prospects are forthcoming.
As I am now re-employed (thank God, literally), I am being a little hypothetical
in that example.
Spiritual help, alone, won’t help keep the water from being turned off if you are out
of money.
I don’t know why God doesn’t cure all cancer or AIDS patients.
Perhaps it is their “time” to go to heaven???
As for our Lord Jesus and his terrible anguished prayer in the Garden,
despite that prayer, Jesus knew full well that he had to die and would be raised
in three days. He had been predicting this very thing, with CERTAINTY, for
three and a half years. His anguish in the Garden was no doubt severely hellish,
but deep down he KNEW that THAT prayer could not be answered without UNDOING
EVERYTHING that HE HIMSELF had been predicting. He also was filled with a fully Divine Level of PERFECT charity and unselfiishness (something for which I beg, as I am often, to my shame, a craven coward, God forgive and cleanse me of this).
His “trouble” was not going to bring lasting disaster on His family and friends and disciples, but rather, a great blessing, and he knew it. OUR troubles, if God doesn’t help us, could sometimes bring destruction on innocent people around us, and that’s not right.
Ridiculing the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy and saying place no hope in it for answers to desperate prayers, seems downright blasphemous to me, as JESUS HIMSELF attached many and VERY GREAT PROMISES to people regularly reciting that Chaplet, including very great Graces granted even to the MOST HARDENED sinners.
Newspapers and websites are FILLED TO OVERFLOWING with vivid testimonials of MIRACULOUS answers to prayer novenas made to Saint Jude Thaddeus, to Saint Anthony of Padua, to Holy Mary, to Saint Joseph, et al. Including desperate prayers for JOBS, for VAST SUMS of money to pay off horrific and unexpected debts, cures for Cancer, restoration of the use of lame limbs, healed vision, etc etc etc. I cannot believe that all these people are delusional or lying. Not to mention prayers to Saint Faustina to obtain the conversions of very religiously recalcitrant relatives and friends which are answered.
Yes, some people, if it is “their time,” and only God knows when one’s “time” to depart actually is, but yes, some people will not have their prayers for healing answered. It doesn’t mean, in those cases, that God doesn’t love them, either. We are all going to Go Home to God someday, when our “time” comes. It could be years from now, or five minutes from now, we could slip in the shower, hit our head, and meet our maker before the 11 o’clock news comes on. We just don’t know.
But Saint Jame’s infallible, inspired letter states
“You do not HAVE, because you DO NOT ASK.
You ask, but you DO NOT RECEIVE because you ASK WRONGLY,
in order to have it to SPEND ON YOUR OWN LUSTS.”
It is definitely, definitely, definitely WRONG to ask Saint Jude or ANY OTHER SAINT
to “please make me rich so that I can have fancy cars, a mansion, a thoroughly easy
and luxurious time of it, and in general live the Life of Riley, i.e,. live like a King.”
That is very, very, very materialistic. Such a person would, if their prayer were granted,
probably spend very little, if any, time in prayer, adoration, scripture study, or helping the poor. When super-rich people “give to charity” or “give to the poor,” they generally do it, not out of genuine concern, but as a means of tax write-offs. If they did it out of pure generosity, they would not itemize these donations as “deductions” to avoid paying more income tax. After all, they are very wealthy and can WELL AFFORD sacrificially helping charity WITHOUT deducting it from their income tax. For all my sins and faults, I gave lots of money to charities, Catholic causes, and help for the hungry and NEVER deducted these from my income taxes, not EVER. And I made less than $33,000 a year usually.
That’s not to brag, but if I could do that, then the wealthy can too. My friends, who made DOUBLE my income, castigated me for not deducting my donations from my taxes. But to me, if I had done so, then it would not have been SACRIFICIAL giving, because THEN I would kind of be receiving it BACK in the form of less income tax paid. I’m sorry, but I feel that I owe my income taxes, as I too benefit from what those taxes provide: law enforcement for protection from violent criminals, fire department and emergency services, national defense, and infrastructure, among other things.
I know I’m rambling, so I’ll stop now.
But unless you are asking wrongly, or unless it is your “time” to go,
your persevering prayers should be answered. God made promises about this
very thing, and God does not lie. He said he will not give you a snake if you
ask for a fish. I am taking Him at His word. What’s wrong with that?
Love,
Jaypeeto4
 
God is not a vending machine. Some think that if you just say the right prayers a certain number of times, your prayers will be answered. As other posters said above, sometimes prayers are never answered. But we need to trust that God always hears our prayers and if he doesn’t answer them, there are good reasons.

Having said that, I prayed for many years for a third child; and just when I accepted that that prayer probably wasn’t going to be answered, it was! My wife is due in November.
 
Jaypeeto4 said:
According to St. James’s epistle,
the ONLY TIME you are supposed to NOT GET what you pray for,
is when you are asking in order to have it to spend on your own lusts.
Other than that, you have a God given RIGHT to expect to get the help
you need, IF you PERSEVERE in prayer.
You have that God given RIGHT, not because God inherently “owes” us
anything, no,
but because He has PROMISED to give us EVERYTHING we need
spiritual AND temporal, IF WE PERSIST IN PRAYER and if our motives
are to use it to live right, pay our just debts, and help to support the kingdom of
God and the less fortunate.
Prayers and novenas are SUPPOSED TO WORK, and 100% of the time.
IF we pray perseveringly and with good, needy motives.
Click to expand...
Yes, but I think it is important to remember 1 John 5:14 “And we have this confidence in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” Sometimes what we think of as a “good” prayer that we are persevering in is NOT the will of the Father. If we are desperately praying that our child who has cancer is healed I don’t think that is something we are selfishly seeking to satisfy our lusts. Yet, God may not answer that prayer— at least not in the way we think. That child may indeed lose their life and we are left to think “God didn’t hear my prayer”. Yet, that isn’t it at all. God hears all our prayers, but He is only going to do for us what is right and good for us and for others. If our child died despite our desperate plea, then we can know that it was positively the best thing for that child (in terms of their salvation) or even for others.

In response to this post:
A moment when God himself looked on his unanswered prayer and his terrible suffering, as asked where was God? (My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?) For just an instant, God himself was abandoned by God and seemed to be an atheist.
Click to expand...
Jesus was not abandoned on the cross. God cannot abandon Himself. I will say that in His humanity and His deep suffering, Jesus may not have felt the presence of God, but He absolutely was not abandoned. That thinking undermines the truth of the Trinity and the nature of Jesus (fully man, fully God). No, Jesus wanted to bring attention to psalm 22 which begins with “My God, my God why have you abandoned me?”. Any Jew who was at the foot of the cross would have recognized the beginning of that psalm and would have automatically thought of the WHOLE psalm. In modern times, we don’t have the whole psalm memorized and can get caught up in just the words that Jesus spoke. But take a look at the whole psalm and you will see it ends in triumph as does Jesus. Particularly important is verse 25 where it says “For he has not spurned or disdained the misery of this poor wretch, Did not turn away from me,but heard me when I cried out.” I don’t want to hijack the thread, so this can be continued on another, but I feel I must point this out. But I agree with your general point, that sometimes we do feel abandoned by God…it’s just important to remember that we aren’t abandoned, despite how we feel.
 
virbots said:
God is not a vending machine. Some think that if you just say the right prayers a certain number of times, your prayers will be answered. As other posters said above, sometimes prayers are never answered. But we need to trust that God always hears our prayers and if he doesn’t answer them, there are good reasons.

Having said that, I prayed for many years for a third child; and just when I accepted that that prayer probably wasn’t going to be answered, it was! My wife is due in November.
Click to expand...
Big congrats on the upcoming delivery! Very exciting.

God is not a vending machine. We seem to think we can twist God’s arm in some way, and then when we don’t get our way, we get discouraged, maybe even abandon our faith. This is how a child acts when parents don’t give in to a request. Doesn’t that make you think of a child that threatens to run away from home when they are dissatisfied with life? To where would we go, Lord?

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you. How does that play out in our lives? When we suffer, do we offer these sufferings up for the salvation of souls, or ask to get out of them? Do we remember that Christ suffered, and thank Him for the privilege to walk in His footsteps? How mature are we in our walk with Christ? When we get up in the morning, are we conscious that we are going to gain merit for souls most in need of mercy today? The prayer *Jesus I trust in You *can change the world and who will praise God in heaven for all eternity. Can our focus be on that today?

For those feeling that they are out in the storm, yelling* Lord, save us!,* we offer our prayers for you today, knowing one day we can and will be in that storm when it’s our turn. May you know that God loves you today, and that you are precious to him! May you have confidence in that knowledge and persevere. There is a great reward waiting for you!
 
God promises us that he will not test us beyond what we can bear.
Well, let me tell you, he certainly seems to push the outside of the envelope really really really really REALLY FAR sometimes.
For nearly a year, He let me unintentionallly and unknowingly and unsuspectingly make a series of deadly, deadly, life-destroying mistakes over and over and over and over again, with no hint or suspicion on my part, and despite the fact that I was praying to Him for guidance EVERY DAY and for Him to always guide my feet on the Right Path and deliver me from ALL EVIL. I am beyond shocked and appalled by this.
Beyond shocked and appalled. It let me to believe that He had reprobated me, and I
TOTALLY LOST my faith. TOTALLY.
So I have redoubled my prayer efforts ---- prayers, novenas, chaplets, you name it, I’m doing it. And guess what? At least some of those prayers are being answered.
I now have a job again, for example, after 2 and a half years of unemployment. On that
ultra low-paying “Draw vs Commission” job, I have finally begun to make a live-able commission. Thank God, literally.
But there are other things I need (not want, but NEED, to save myself and others),
which can only be obtained by miracles. ONLY miracles can help, because the situation is so very, very, very very BAD.
No sane person regards God as a vending machine.
But I fully expect answers to my prayers. If they don’t come right away,
I will not “humbly accept” a “NO” from God. Know WHY I won’t???
Because JESUS SAID NOT TO, that’s WHY.
He said KEEP ON ASKING, KEEP ON SEEKING, KEEP ON KNOCKING.
He even told parables about the widow who drove the Judge BERSERK by banging on his door all hours of the night, REFUSING TO TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER, until the Judge GAVE HER WHAT SHE NEEDED. And JESUS, OUR GOD, ORDERED US
TO DO THAT VERY THING, that’s the VERY REASON WHY he told that parable.
In the Old Testament, in a Theophany,
Jacob wrestled — fought violently — with the Angel of the LORD. And Jacob brazenly told this angel, the preIncarnate Christ, that “I WILL NOT LET YOU GO UNLESS YOU BLESS ME!!!”. Same with me, folks, like it or not. I will not let go until God gives me the help I NEED. Now, that “Angel” knocked Jacob’s hip out of joint, but in the end,
He gave Jacob the blessing he was demanding.
So I will NOT give up or take “NO” for an answer, because I am asking for
NEEDS not mere wants, and Jesus said NOT to give up and stop asking. Even to the point of beating on the Judge’s door loudly at ALL HOURS OF THE NIGHT.
St. Faustina and Saint Jude Thaddeus, please pray for me.
IN the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,
AMEN.
Jaypeeto4
 
Jaypeeto4 said:
According to St. James’s epistle,
the ONLY TIME you are supposed to NOT GET what you pray for,
is when you are asking in order to have it to spend on your own lusts.
Other than that, you have a God given RIGHT to expect to get the help
you need, IF you PERSEVERE in prayer.
You have that God given RIGHT, not because God inherently “owes” us
anything, no,
but because He has PROMISED to give us EVERYTHING we need
spiritual AND temporal, IF WE PERSIST IN PRAYER and if our motives
are to use it to live right, pay our just debts, and help to support the kingdom of
God and the less fortunate.
Prayers and novenas are SUPPOSED TO WORK, and 100% of the time.
IF we pray perseveringly and with good, needy motives.
Click to expand...
I would not say that Novenas and Prayers don’t work. In my opinion the purpose each Novena and Prayer is to help a soul reach Heaven. Who knows the best way to lead a soul to Heaven? Jesus and Mary! That is why I would suggest that each Prayer and Novena end with the following thoughts in one’s heart - 'Not my will but Your Holy Will be done Jesus and Mary!" :gopray:
 
Just a couple of thoughts as I jump into this conversation…

First, it is true that God never allows us to be tempted beyond what we can bear, or gives us more than we can handle. If we’re going thru difficult times, that means God knows we can handle it. Do you know how incredible that is?

That the God of the Universe has enough faith in me to allow me to go thru something difficult, all for my own benefit? The God of all creation trusts me enough to know that I can handle it because He is my strength and my shield and He knows I will depend on Him.

I think it’s incredible just to realize that God has faith in me*.*
**
Second, God does answer all prayer. Sometimes he says “no”. “No” is an answer. It’s not the one we want, or the one we think we need, but it’s still His answer.

Third, there is a superstition in the Church concerning prayers to Saints and praying novenas. God is NOT a slot machine. We don’t throw some obligatory prayers His way, as some sort of flattery, and then get whatever we want. The Saints and Our Blessed Mother always bow to the will of God. We can pray nine novenas to nine different saints for nine months and not get what we want if it’s not the will of God.

I’m not saying don’t pray novenas, etc. I’m saying that we must remember that the Saints and Our Mother can only do the will of the Father. We are going to them for intercession, not because they had some magic pill that gets God to do what they want.

When I ask for Our Mother’s intercession, I think about it this way. Say I want/need a new car. I ask her for help and ask her to intercede on my behalf. I picture Our Mother going to Jesus in their house (I have a very active imagination, so stay with me here). I see Jesus sitting in the library, perhaps reading a book. She goes to Him and says, “My Son, Scout has asked for a new car. Is this something that would be good for her, or do you have something that would be better for her?”

Our Mother always has our best interested at heart, which means she always does what Jesus wants. The two are the same.

Anyway, that’s how I picture it.

Scout :tiphat:
 
No human being can know that a prayer or novena doesn’t work. Only God can know that.

It’s as if a 2 year old child keeps asking his mom to hand him a sharp hunting knife to play with. “I’ve asked and I’ve asked and I’ve asked, but my prayers are not working.” But only mom knows what’s truly the best.
 
**I’m not saying don’t pray novenas, etc. I’m saying that we must remember that the Saints and Our Mother can only do the will of the Father. We are going to them for intercession, not because they had some magic pill that gets God to do what they want. **

Of course the Saints do not have a magic pill to force God to do stuff.
On the other hand, scripture infallibly tells us that
“the persevering prayer of a righteous man availeth MUCH.”
That obviously means that such righteous saints can persuade God to
do and show mercies that he might otherwise NOT SHOW were it not for
the appointed “agency” of their foreseen meritorious prayers.
Let us remember that in all likelihood,
had Mary NOT come up to Jesus and interceded at the Wedding In Cana,
in all likelihood Jesus would NOT have made that wine.
He wasn’t making any movement at all in that direction
until Mary perseveringly interceded.
Upon her insistent intercession, he made hundreds of gallons
of delicious wine.
Intercessory prayer WORKS. It is not a fruitless endeavor
any more than is missionary endeavor or any other godly activity.
 
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