I am on retreat this weekend at St. Meinrad, my almost-heaven home on earth. It is a private retreat, structured only by praying with the monks and meals. My chosen topic for reflection is my prayer life.
During COVID, my prayer life was good—even those months when we couldn’t go to mass. Circumstances made it easy for me to give ample time and attention to prayer. Then, as we began to emerge from isolation, for a while there was a good balance of prayer and activity.
But the past year, most of my energy has gone into out-and-about activity. I haven’t meant for prayer to take a back seat, but it has. Bluntly, my prayer life needs a tune-up.
So here I am.
Interesting how God structures things. The readings this week are about prayer. Altogether, they create a good measure of prayer. I share the questions today’s Scriptures lead me to ask myself with you. Perhaps they will help us both.
Exodus 17:7-13
It is early in the 40 year trek in the desert. In Exodus 16, God responds to the cries of the people for food by giving them manna and quail. In the beginning of chapter 17, the people cry out for water, and Moses strikes the rock to get it for them. The verse just before today’s reading says, “Is the Lord in our midst or not?” The people are unsure.
The Israelites are BECOMING God’s people—issue by issue—much like a newly married couple become one family: by struggling and bonding and struggling some more. Now there is an external problem: another tribe, the Amalekites, wage war with the Israelites. It is hand to hand combat. In the fray, Moses stands in prayer for victory. But he grows tired holding his arms up. Aaron and Hur hold up Moses’ hands, and the Israelites have the victory.
Question: When I pray for others (intercessory prayer), how serious am I: one and done or real effort?
Question: When I pray for others, do I recognize God answering my prayer by giving me ideas of things I might do to help (hold up Moses arms)?
Responsorial Psalm, From Psalm 121
This is a psalm of instruction in how to pray. Read it and see if you believe it. These words especially speak to me.
The LORD is your guardian; the LORD is your shade;
he is beside you at your right hand.
The sun shall not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
R.Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Question: Do I see prayer as a way that God can be my guardian? Do I ask God what to do with enough trust that I follow his will or do I wait for God to do my will?
II Timothy 3:14-4:2
St. Paul continues his instruction to the young evangelist Timothy.
Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed,
because you know from whom you learned it,
and that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures,
which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation
through faith in Christ Jesus.
Question: Do I pray for and with “wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus,” that is, that God may answer my prayer by asking me to change?
All Scripture is inspired by God
and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction,
and for training in righteousness,
so that one who belongs to God may be competent,
equipped for every good work.
Question: Do I pray from Scripture—careful reading, lectio divina, or Ignatian contemplation—seeking what God has to say to me each day in the Bible?
proclaim the word;
be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient;
convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.
Question: Once I see what God is saying to me, do I proclaim it in the way I live?’
Luke 18:11-8
Still on the road to Jerusalem, Jesus talks to his disciples about prayer. He tells a parable about an unjust judge who does right because a widow keeps bothering him.
There seems to be two meanings here. On one hand, Jesus says, “How much more will God secure the rights of his chosen ones.” If even an unjust judge will respond to persistent prayer, how much more readily will God, who is good, respond?
On the other hand, this seems to also say to us, “Don’t restrict your prayer for others and the concerns of the world to those who are believers. Persistent prayer can have an effect on the unjust, too.”
Question: Do I keep on praying, even if God is silent or seems distant?
Question: Do I pray for justice—for what is right for my enemies or those who are different–as well as for myself and the concerns of my friends?
The final line of the Gospel makes me wonder if Jesus was looking at the faces of his disciples and discerning that perhaps they did not understand. He ends with, “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
I participate in many conversations these days with people who worry that faith is disappearing.
Question: Do I pray with faith that God hears and answers, even when he finds only grain of mustard seed levels of faith in me and in the culture around me?
Conclusion
I write this part way through my retreat. God has convinced me from this exercise that I need to look carefully at how I pray intercessory prayer. In other meditation, God instructs me about other aspects of my prayer.
Prayer is conversation with God that is best done with humility, gratitude, honesty, and trust. Sometimes prayer can go dry because of little things that get in the way. Sometimes obstacles are big. The obstacles mostly come from us.
Final Question: What change might I make that would make me more ready to persist in making conversation with God my most important conversation?
Prayer:
Thank You, Lord, for the great gift of prayer—that I can come to You any time and pour out my heart. Forgive me for when I accept this gift with distractions and less than full attention. Show me today what changes You want me to make in how I pray. Amen.
