Does a creature have to look like a human to be one?
How can we know a human beng when we see one?
What, exactly, defines a human being?
Prayer is for the Pray-er Sunday, Dec 2 2007
Faith and General and Prayer Faith, Prayer 8:57 pm
It’s taken me a few years to understand prayer in the context of my spiritual life. For a long time whenever I prayed, I prayed because I was brought up to do so. Eventually I began to have difficulties, especially with prayers of petition. I asked myself, “Does God actually withhold his help in tough and tragic situations until someone with the right credentials thinks of prodding Him into action with a prayer?” The problem was with, “Ask and you shall receive . . .” [Luke 11:9-10]. I first got into trouble with this one when , many years ago, I prayed that my sister wouldn’t die of leukemia, that my mother wouldn’t die of pancreatic cancer, that my father wouldn’t die of cirrhosis of the liver, that I would find the ball point pen I lost in the back yard. They died, of course, all of them, from the specific diseases to which I so prayerfully called God’s attention, and I never did find the ball point pen.
The biggie was prayers of adoration. I think we can agree that God is one, entire, complete and omni-everything. He lacks nothing, thus needs nothing. This therefor must include, I concluded, my adoration.
Scripture and my Catholic faith, and my instincts emphasized the eternal importance prayer. So I searched my heart, of and on, but still didn’t get it. I felt that there had to be away to understand prayer that fully reconciled all these conflicting perceptions and allow me to adore my God without feeling that HE needed my adoration.
Well, not too long ago, the light dawned for me. I guess it was what is called an ‘epiphany’.
Praying, I’ve come to believe, is for the one who prays, an undertaking that is essential, vital, to the health and welfare of our spiritual existence, not in terms of ‘getting’ things, or of changing God’s mind or of filling God’s needs, or keeping Guardian Angels and the saints busy. The very act of praying is something of a supernatural nutrient. It enables us to accept God’s gifts of faith, hope and charity. It nourishes our ability to love and be loved, to know Jesus as man and God. In a curious way, prayer is a dialog between God and man, but a dialog that only One understands and the other can only intuit. In fine, could it be that prayer is, in some way, the language of paradise and bears no resemblence to the language of time and space?
