Prayer
Our Lady began appearing at Medjugorje on the 24th June 1981 and has continued
everyday since. Her message was strong and said that “there are
many Christians who no longer believe because they do not pray”.
So her first teaching to the visionaries was on prayer She asked them
to recite 7 Our Fathers, Hail Mary’s, Glory Be’s and the creed
and slowly she built them up to praying three hours before the Blessed
Sacrament. As a pilgrim visiting Medjugorje, Our Lady takes you under
her wing and begins to teach you how to pray the same way she taught the
children. So the first thing you discover about yourself is that you can’t
pray. You will follow other pilgrims to the hill side, to the mountain
of the Cross and into the Church and all the time you can’t pray.
As the day goes on you become more and more frustrated and angry. “How
can everyone else pray and I can’t”? You want to pack your
bag and get out of this crazy place.
But this is the first lesson of Medjugorje, Prayer is a GIFT.
The CCC 2559 tells us
that “Humility is the foundation of prayer, because we cannot do
it on our own”. In
Medjugorje Our Lady doesn’t deal with theory but the practical.
So the first day she
takes away the gift of prayer and asks you the close all books, prayer
books, Bible,
Rosary, Novenas, etc. When she has your attention then she can explain
to you what prayer
is really about. Prayer is the essence of “a vital and personal
relationship with the living
and true God” CCC2558
Prayer is not to gain things. We pray for God’s benefit.
When we pray, our goal is to
bring pleasure to God, not ourselves. Prayer is for God. You are as close
to God in
prayer as you choose to be. Prayer is not a part of your life - it is
your life. In Isaiah 29:13 God complains about prayer that it is half-headed
and hypocritical. “The people were offering stale prayers, insincere
praise, empty words and man-made rituals without even thinking about the
meaning”.
JESUS IS OUR MODEL IN PRAYER
The disciples realized that the purpose of being a disciple was
to imitate the Master by
doing what he did. They had to learn how to live like Him, to walk like
Him, to talk like
Him, to think like Him, to react like Him and to the best of their ability,
to pray like Him. Jesus made prayer the primary thing in His life, how
much more should we? We should hunger for prayer, because it is the food
of life.
How on many occasions do we see Jesus, going off by himself to pray? “Everybody is looking for you” (Mark 1:33-37). Simon and the other disciples were convinced that it was important for Jesus to visit and talk and work great healing miracles. But Jesus went off to a lonely place and He prayed. He realized that at that particular time, it was more important for Him to be engaged in prayer rather than for Him to be ministering, preaching or taking care of the ordinary things in His life. Because without the prayer He couldn’t function, He couldn’t minister to people.
Jesus taught us that the heart of prayer is surrender. To surrender
your life, your time and
your own needs for God. For many of us the idea of surrender, hurts us,
we don’t want to be
a loser, everyone wants to be a winner — only the winner gets to
be remembered. But Jesus
showed that in prayer, the more you surrender the more you become a winner.
Surrender may not be the best way to live it is the only way to live and
pray. Offering yourself to God
is what prayer is all about. God doesn’t want a part of your life.
As the book of Deuteronomy 6:4 tells us “God asks for all your heart,
all your soul, all your mind and
with all your strength”. Mary has shown by her life that God demands
nothing less than
everything.
PRAYER OBSTACLES
At Medjugorje the Mother of God shows us that one of the biggest obstacles
to prayer is the problem of control. We want to control our own lives,
we want to control our prayer life and we want to control God. We want
to pray and know God on our terms. As a result we experience three barriers
that block our surrendering ourselves to God, that block our openness
to God — Control/Pride, Fear and the unknown.
‘1. CONTROL / PRIDE: This is the first hindrance to prayer. We want to be in charge of our lives — to have complete control — we are still trying to give orders — to God, to our neighbor and to ourselves. We don’t accept our limitations—we don’t accept ourselves or we don’t love ourselves as God loves us - so we react with irritation, anger, resentment and bitterness. We don’t like how we look; we want to be taller, shorter, thinner, and fatter. God gives others better talents etc. than He gave me — so I respond with envy, jealousy and self pity.
2. FEAR: This is the second block to Prayer and to trusting God.
The only way to trust Him is if you know Him. We fear that our prayer
is never good enough, or that our prayer is never heard. God hears every
prayer, he might not answer us immediately or he may give us an answer
that we least expect. We need to refocus on what prayer is. Through prayer
you experience the living presence of God, and you experience His love.
The greater the experience of love, the greater you trust and overcome
your fear.
God says he loves you — Psalm: 149:9
You’re never out of His sight. Psalm 139:3
He cares about every detail of your life. Matthew 10:30 He has good plans
for your life. Jeremiah 29:11
He forgives you — Psalm 86:5
He is lovingly patient with you. Psalm 145:8
God loves you infinitely more than you can imagine — Ephesians 3:20
3. UNKNOWN: The third block of surrender to God. Will God ask me to do something or to go somewhere I don’t want to go? The Bible is full of people who we’re asked to trust God’s leading way without knowing where it would take them — or knowing when or how or why. We need to have confidence and trust in a loving God who knows what each of us is capable of
FORMS OF PRAYER
The Catholic Catechism describes many forms of prayer in the Church today.
It also gives us five basic elements that are essential for prayer namely:
1. BLESSING AND ADORATION: Through the Holy Spirit we ‘bless
God’ for having blessed us. We adore God exalting in the greatness
of the Lord who made us.
(CCC 2626 -28)
2. PETITION: Acknowledging and asking forgiveness for our sins, we humbly turn to God praying first for his kingdom to come and then for our own needs.(CCC 2629 —33)
3. INTERCESSION: We join with and participate in the intercessions of Jesus and the Holy Spirit for the needs of others, calling on the mercy of God.(CCC 2634—36)
4. THANKSGIVING: We thank God for his many blessings, past and present both to us personally and to all of God’s people (CCC 2637, 2638)
5. PRAISE: In praise God’s people give him glory not because of what He has done, or will do “but simply because HE is”. The Eucharist, above all is the ‘sacrifice of praise.” (CCC 2643)
LORD TEACH US TO PRAY
Our Lady taught the children of Medjugorje how to pray with the heart.
The one prayer that is very dear to the heart of Jesus and Mary is the
Our Father. So using the outline of the catechism we can break down the
prayer the Our Father into five steps;
1. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND PRAISE
“Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be they name” Matthew 6:9
You should always
begin your prayer by praising God. By praising Him, you are submitting
to him, He is the master and you are the servant. He is the glorious,
almighty, eternal, everlasting one and you are struggling, sinful creature
dependent upon Him for redemption and grace, faith and hope, salvation
and truth.
Some prayers of praising are as follows:
Revelation7:9-12 they said “Amen! Praise and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving and honor power and might to our God forever and ever Amen”.
“Lord God, you are the King of kings and the Lord of lords I adore you and worship you and bow down in homage before you”.
“Oh Lord God you are the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of my life. I praise you for who you are and what you call me to.” Psalm 111:1 —5
2. LISTENING AND REVELATION
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done...”
The easiest way to receive revelation to hear God is to use scriptures. Read scripture, the same passage a few times, ask God to show you the meaning of these words for your life. Keep praying on the verse until you know what it means for you — most times it will be a revelation about what you have to change in life, your attitude, character, life style, commitment, social life etc. Scripture is the living word of God, the inspired word of God. The Spirit breathed life into Scripture when it was being written, so the Spirit breathes life into the Scriptures as you receive it. When you read the revealed word of God and it becomes alive in you, God is speaking and so your Spirit responds. In scripture you don’t read words, you encounter the living God. Someone said that Scripture was a letter from God to you.
Some of our spiritual lives are like the dried bones in Ezekiel 37: 1-15 that now need to be renewed. The word made flesh; the word has to become flesh in you. It is very important to remember who needs to change during this appointment with God. It is not God who has to change — but us. So a crucial element in prayer is listening to God and hearing His word so that you can change. So we need to learn how to listen to God. Ask Him what you should do — and listen as He responds. He is going to act like the God of Scriptures, and He will call you to holiness like the God of the Scriptures. You know the Lord is speaking when you feel a tingle or tremble — a moment of grace. These moments should lead us to acts of repentance and commitment. How do you react to Scripture? With interest, fear, joy, boredom, loved, challenged, sadness etc.
3. REALISM & REPENTANCE
‘Forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against
us’.
God is not interested in dramatics, prayer is not a performance, some people think when someone says, “let us pray’ they should become a different person. God wants you to be real, and not take on a new way of speaking. You hypocrite — “Oh Lord God almighty I’ll die for you” — or — “there is nothing in me that doesn’t want to sacrifice all for you” — “Oh Lord, every moment of my life is centered on you”. So be yourself with God, be real don’t try to be someone else. If you are closed to the problems in your life, then you are closed to the solution. God asks us to stand back from our lives and look at them from a new angle.
God usually calls us to some form of repentance. Some people don’t like to admit their problem or their sin to God. — God knows everything — people think that they can hide their sins and have a great prayer time — but it doesn’t work. Repentance is much more than asking forgiveness for sins. It involves anything that turns our lives more towards God or deepens our commitment to be a faithful disciple.
4. PETITION AND INTERCESSION
“Give us this day, our daily bread”
Many of us don’t believe, or have enough confidence that
our prayers really make a difference. In Mathew 7: 7-8 “ask and
you shall receive
This may work for others but it doesn’t work for me. We need to
understand that we have a God who is close to us and who cares for our
every need. He will provide for us when we trust him and when we put our
faith totally in him and his provision for our lives. We may feel that
we are not getting answers to our prayers because we don’t really
believe God is personally involved with us. God knows every hair on your
head. But we have to remember that God’s ways are different from
ours, His priority in a person’s life is more important, like the
paralyzed man in Luke 5:17-25. For Jesus forgiveness of sins was more
important than healing. We look to physical healing with awe, but forgiveness
of sins is eternal life giving.
In Mark l0: 46-52 the story of the healing of the blind man Bartimaeus, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” Bartimaeus picked healing and not forgiveness for his sins, if he had chosen forgiveness everything else would have been healed.
The key Scripture for INTERCESSION is John 15:7 “if you live in me, and my words stay part of you, you may ask what you will and it will be done for you”. Jesus wants to convert the unrepentant, and bring back the lost sheep. He wants to bless, heal, establish and bring forth as a family to live forever with him. God has a plan and we need to find out what it is. He knows what He can do with people, and through people, but we block the work, the information and sometimes we block the actual graces and blessing. Sometimes we become a hindrance to the very people we are called to serve.
5. RESPONSE AND RESOLUTION
And you will be my witnesses Acts 1:8
You need to conclude your prayer with a commitment a resolution, if the Lord tells you to forgive Suzy’ — then forgive her. Do what the Lord tells you. If the Lord tells you to rearrange your priorities, resolve to follow his priorities. We have lost the sense of commitment to someone or something. God takes our commitment seriously. Our response to Gods word should be sincere. We should not take it lightly. We should respond with our whole heart and soul and strength to God and His commandments. (The baptism incident at Maryland) Schools here in the USA have put God outside them..
CONCLUSION
Through prayer God is shaping you for a life of service and ministry.
He uses all your abilities, experiences, talents, gifts and personality
to form you into the kind of messenger he wants you to be. In prayer Jesus
looks at your heart. Because your heart reveals the real you, what you
truly are. Your heart is your passion, your enthusiasm, the reason and
the depth of why you do something. If you have a WHY to live for, you
can live by any HOW.
QUESTIONS:
1. What did you do with My Son, Jesus Christ? Did you accept Him, His
Message, did you learn to love and trust Him?
2. What did you do with what I gave you? What did you do with your life,
your gifts, your talents, your opportunities.. Did you spend them on yourself
or did you use them for God?
3. How will you explain those times when projects or things were more
important to you than people?
4. Who do you need to start spending more time with?
5 What sacrifices do you need to make?
6. Your work won’t get you into the next life, but your relationship
with your family and God will.
READINGS Matthew l4: 22-33 Revelation7:9-