29th Sunday Ordinary Time Year C

Am I a good prayerful person?

What do we mean when we say that we pray? Is it about our asking God for a litany of things that may include next week’s lottery numbers – and when these things don’t happen or come to pass – then it just goes to show that there is no God or at least that He is not a listening or caring God. Does this sound true to any of us? Is this how we view prayer?

But again, it comes down to what we are interpreting as prayer. If it is a bewildering list of wants and wishes then maybe we are not getting results because we have misunderstood what prayer is all about.

Prayer is about the conversations that we have with God that reflect our relationship with Him. Prayers are the words that we use to express our love, our thanks, our sorrow and yes, our wants and wishes and our needs. But these are the wants and wishes that will be good for us to have: that will increase and improve our relationship with God and with His people through caring, sharing, loving, giving and forgiving interchanges.

When we consider the poor widow from today’s Gospel, we have an ideal example of how we should pray. We should be clear and focused on what we need, on what we need. We should then be persistent and consistent in our prayerful approach, asking God to come to our aid in whatever shape, or form, He deems best suited for us. And this may mean that we are then graced with more patience, with greater fortitude, with greater clarity or with a greater, wider and more creative way of viewing our situation that allows and enables us to deal with it, to tackle it, in a different way. But, like the widow, we should not give up kin our prayer and entreaty.

God does not always grant us exactly what we want, when we want it and in the way that we may have specified.

Our conversations with God are not one-way-lists of demands. A conversation is a two-way piece of communication. There needs to be times for listening as well as those time of talking. We need to create and allow time for God to answer us and to remember that it may be in the soft sound of the whispering breeze that we hear Him rather than waiting for the mighty thunderclap!

Your servant is listening Lord. You have the message of eternal life. But we need to be able to hear it and to understand it. We need to be persistent and consistent in our praying but a major part of that praying process is the listening. We need the silence. We need the time. We need the dedication and determination and discipline to allow God’s message to reach us and for us to be able to see it, hear it and feel it within our very souls.

This weekend, we are enrolling twenty-plus students in their program for Confirmation, Prayer is a strange concept for them and they are trying to get to grips with the whole idea. I would ask that you pray that they are able to speak to God as their Father in heaven, with clarity, with honesty and with humility and express their thanks, their sorrow, their joy and their needs. And pray that they are able to turn off and tune out the noise of this world and listen carefully for God’s response to them and for them. God does respond but maybe not through a set of headphones or through a mobile phone. Tune in to Him. Tune out all the other noises.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things that I can and wisdom to know the difference. Here I am Lord. I come to do your will. Guide me, O thou great Redeemer to open my heart, my mind, my spirit and my ears so that I might listen twice as much and as hard as I speak.

Bidding Prayers

1.      We pray that all our students for Confirmation are blessed and guided by the Holy Spirit to open their hearts, minds and souls to God’s will. Lord in your mercy

2.      That our students who will be making their First Holy Communion next week are granted the grace to see the benefit of regular visits to the Holy Eucharist. Lord in your mercy

3.      That we can all open our minds and souls to prayerful, simple and meaningful conversations with God our heavenly Father. Lord in your mercy

4.      That Church and world leaders come together to look after the people in their care with love, generosity and humility. Lord in your mercy

5.      That those people who are unwell, housebound, in Care Homes or Hospices receive the care and treatment they need. Lord in your mercy

6.      That those who have dies recently find eternal rest with their heavenly Father. Lord in your mercy

7.      That Mary joins her prayers with ours as we nor say together – Hai, Mary, full of grace