teach us how to pray - 17th sunday C 2013 st. pedro poveda

As we gather this afternoon to commemorate the martyrdom of St. Pedro Poveda in this Eucharist, we reflect together on the importance and necessity of prayer – “prayer as the only strength.”  St. Pedro said that if any one of you places her trust in something other than prayer – “if our strength is rooted in talent, or in status or in something merely human - she does not know the work, she does not possess its spirit.”  And so today we make the prayer of the disciples in our gospel our own – Lord, teach us how to pray.  We ask the Lord to teach us how, to show us the way, to give us a sample, a pattern, perhaps; to discover what attitudes to bring in prayer, what words to use, what emotions to arouse, what values to keep in our hearts when we pray.

The disciples who asked the question were devout Jews, and as devout Jews they were formed already in the habit of prayer – they know why they should pray, they know what prayer is all about in our relationship with God, they know that the practice of prayer is something necessary for their lives.  Like the disciples we know what prayer is and we know why we pray, but many times what discourages us in our prayers, what prevents us from praying, what delays us from developing a life of prayer is because nobody is teaching us how.  Our gospel in a sense completes our theme  in this encounter for having known the necessity of prayer Jesus is coming to us to teach us how.  Thus with the disciples we approach the Lord and make their pleading our own, Lord, teach us how to pray.

And Jesus replied in a very practical way by giving them a sample and pattern for prayer, by giving them the approach and attitude in prayer and finally by giving them the starting point or the core of prayer.

First Jesus gives us a sample and a pattern.   He gave us the Our Father.  It is a very simple prayer actually.  After asking that we sanctify God’s name by what we do, and asking that we live the values of the kingdom even while we are here on earth, Jesus asked for the following – sustenance, daily bread; the blessing of a loving relationship (as we forgive those) and safety in body and soul (deliver us from evil).  And what are these?  It’s about the basics of life, it’s about the essentials of life.  Pray only for the essentials. 

Prayer should not be complex.  Many times prayer is expressed with a lot of clauses – main clause, followed by dependent clauses; dependent clauses supported by independent clauses; independent clauses followed up and justified by reasons and the possible consequences, and reasons and consequences which are further made up of compound and even complex sentences.  Prayer does not need to be complicated. 

Three days ago we read that episode in the gospel when the mother of James and John approached the Lord with a prayer asking Jesus to sit her sons one on his left and the other on his right in the kingdom.  It was an embarrassing prayer, it was one prayer that aroused bitterness among the disciples.  I think I should be bothered by that kind of prayer.  But you know what is more interesting in that gospel passage?  Jesus entertained the request.  Jesus listened to the mother and even took her seriously, which leads us to the second point - Jesus giving us the proper approach and attitude of prayer and what is that - “be honest”.  Like the man in the gospel confident of his neighbours hospitality, say what is in your heart.  Don’t pretend.  You don’t have to sound pious, you don’t have to be poetic and eloquent, you don’t have to come up with grand and eloquent words, you don’t have to force tears to make it dramatic and neither should you prevent it.  You just have to say what is in your heart and tell the Lord about the real you.  What is happening within me, what is disturbing me, what is unsettling, what is making me happy, what is keeping me from saying what needs to be said. The problem sometimes is we are not real before God.  And when we are not real before God we cannot pray. 

In the seminary we have the IC and the SD and sometimes seminarians would ask why do we have to go for a one on one talk with the prefect or counsellor, then go again for a one on one talk with our spiritual director?  Quiet simplistically I would explain saying, you go to the prefect or counsellor who will help you discover who you really are in all honesty, then you go to the spiritual director so that together you can discover God in your true and real self.  You cannot relate with God if you keep on pretending even to yourself, if you keep on believing what you are not.

All this because of a third factor, what we call the starting point of prayer, the core of prayer – trust.  We pray because we trust – and that’s how we pray.  We trust the Lord who loves us.  It comes from our own experience of loving, human though this loving is – when we love somebody we desire to give him or her the best of ourselves and only the good things, only the good things.  It is from this human experience of loving that we trust God who loves us.  Without this there is no prayer.

So how do you pray?  Stick to the simple and the essentials.  It doesn’t have to be complex.  All you have to do is to speak from the heart, to be honest and true to God because you trust that God will grant to you only the good.  These attitudes engender already so much good, they engender so much benevolence even before God can even answer them.  I believe this is why Pedro Poveda said that whenever people pray we become stronger and we can do a lot of positive good.