Is Petitionary Prayer Childish?

A very dear friend of mine – and one much older and wiser than myself – once told me that she had been praying to God to help her find a used car.  She had something very particular in mind, and she had found exactly the right thing, except that it cost about $500 too much.  “But that’s my fault,” she said.  “I forgot to tell God my budget.  In prayer, you have to be very specific.”  At the time, I thought she was being silly and simplistic.  But in truth, Maria was light years ahead of me in prayer.  Maria is what you might call a friend of God.  I should be sitting at her feet, saying as the disciples did to Jesus, “Teach me to pray.”

Many of us feel that it is naïve and unsophisticated to ask God for specific things.  He already knows what we want, so why waste the time and mental energy?  Isn’t our time better spent in adoration or contemplation?  And if we’re really being honest, aren’t we afraid that we will doubt or resent God if we ask for “specifics” and then don’t get them?  Petitionary prayer, it seems, can lead us into an intellectual quagmire of questions, objections and spiritual pitfalls.

That’s why Maria and those like her have so much to teach me.  As much as I may have wondered at Maria’s “brand” of faith, I deeply admired her.  The simplicity of her prayer was not born of simplicity of mind.  Maria was clever, uncommonly clever.  Rather, the simplicity of Maria’s prayer came from the simplicity of her heart, a heart that was focused like a laser on one thing:  God’s magnificent providence.  The way Maria saw things, God was both utterly transcendent and entirely involved in her life.  He was the One Seated on the Throne and the one who was right beside her.  He was the One in whom we live and move and have our being, and he was the one who would help her purchase just the right used car. 

Maria did not waste her time with intellectual questions about petitionary prayer.  Instead, she followed the command of Christ and asked God for every little thing (Mt. 7:7-11).  And how did God respond to Maria?  Not by answering each prayer with a miracle (though he did do amazing things for her!).  But he responded by being her lifelong companion, her constant friend.  He responded by giving her a peace that was the natural reward for her trust. 

When I looked into Maria’s eyes, I saw an ocean of calm and a confidence that took me aback.  It was prayer that did this.  Childlike?  Perhaps.  And to such as these belongs the Kingdom of God.

I Believe in Dinosaurs

Indulge me for a moment in a strange memory.  I was standing in the Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., in the dinosaur exhibit, in front of one of those huge reconstructed dinosaur skeletons (a brontosaurus, I think).  I looked at it for awhile, not really thinking much about it one way or another.  Then I looked down and saw a replica of a baby dinosaur, curled up at the big dinosaur’s feet.  It was very small and sleeping, and it was very close to where I was standing.  Something about the replica held my gaze and for several long moments – I was totally transfixed, totally focused on the baby brontosaurus. 

Suddenly I had a strange and profound realization:  Dinosaurs actually existed! 

But I knew that already! 

Didn’t I?

I don’t know what amazed me more – my newfound belief in dinosaurs or the discovery that I had apparently not really believed in dinosaurs for my whole life!  Like everyone else, I had learned about dinosaurs since childhood.  I never got especially excited about them, but I certainly had no reason to doubt their existence.  And yet in that moment at the museum, I realized that I had never really allowed myself to believe – to imagine, to grasp, to fall into – a reality where these fantastic creatures actually lived and breathed and mated and ate each other, long before human beings existed – in my world – in Texas for goodness’ sakes!  Looking at that baby dino, I suddenly “got it” – the truth broke in, and I imagined and believed in a world of dinosaurs, a time before humans, something incredible but true.

This experience in the museum happened to me as an adult.  And when I realized that I hadn’t actually believed in dinosaurs even though I thought I did, I wondered about all the other things I think I believe.  I wondered about God and Jesus, forgiveness and Eucharist.  I wondered about heaven and hell, death and forever.  I wondered about the little doubts that nag at me sometimes and the big things I take for granted.  I realized there are things I never really let myself imagine and things I want to imagine but can’t. 

It seems that part of being human is not fully knowing our own minds.  I thought I believed in dinosaurs, but in reality, I was only coming to believe in them.  And so it is with the truths of our faith.  Do we believe in them?  Yes we do.  And we don’t.  And we might.  And we will. 

For now, we can add to our daily prayer the honest words of the father of a convulsing boy, who pleaded with Jesus:  “I believe!  Help my unbelief!” (Mk. 9:24)

My Salvation

Those who have met me in recent years may be surprised to know that I was a somewhat melancholic teen.  For years I saw the world as very black and white; I saw good and bad.  I wanted everything to be good, and I was unhappy that some things were bad.  Despite my own happy childhood I looked around at the world and saw what I considered to be a negative place.  I couldn’t figure out how I fit into it or how it could ever feel “right.” 

I remember a conversation I had with the man who mentored me through those teen years and many years beyond – a parish priest who put up with my melancholy and who succeeded in the careful balancing act of loving me just as I was while simultaneously bringing about a substantial change in me.  One day I told him just how bad this life is, just how miserable.  I was armed with a quote from St. Teresa of Avila that I thought captured the whole awful mess of life.  “Life,” I said, “is like a bad night in a bad inn.”

I was sure that God and all his angels and saints agreed with me.  But Fr. Tim didn’t.  He didn’t agree with me at all.  And his response shifted the entire worldview going on in my teenage brain.  It changed the way I saw everything including myself, him, God, suffering, my future.  It changed the way I saw my world and how I fit into it.  Fr. Tim told me life isn’t a bad night in a bad inn.  “Life,” he said, “is the moment of your salvation.”

I have never stopped believing that.  I have never stopped seeing my world and my life from this fuller perspective – one that recognizes life as a gracious moment, a time of encounters and relationships that bring me closer and closer to the heart of God if only I will allow it.  Sure, sometimes the inn feels run down or drafty or even dangerous.  Sometimes the other people in the inn rob, cheat and steal – or gossip or disappoint or annoy me.  Sometimes it is dark and the night in the inn feels long.  But the moment of my salvation is long, long enough for me to settle into the beauty of this inn and its people, long enough to learn how to live here with them and with myself, long enough to grow into my own salvation.  God has not left me here to flounder until morning comes.  He lives with me here, in this time and place.  This is the moment of my salvation.

"He Vanished"

The story of the appearance of the Risen Christ to the disciples on the road to Emmaus is well-known – perhaps too well-known!  It’s been used for so many meditations and lessons that you might actually think you’re tired of hearing about it.  But you knew eventually I would have to go there!

And the reason I have to “go there” is because this story is nothing short of completely and utterly remarkable.  It has so much to say to us as “modern Catholics” that I can’t even think of where to start.  (Well, obviously that isn’t really true because I’m about to write about it!)  If you haven’t read the story lately, you will find it at Luke 24:13-35.

Of course the most exciting part of the story comes when Jesus breaks bread with the disciples, and in the midst of that Eucharistic event, their eyes are opened and they finally recognize him.  It’s a big moment.  It’s beautiful!  But…then he vanished from their sight!  Just at the moment when they finally really saw him.  Just at the moment when his words about the Scriptures erupted into an experience of understanding.  Just at the moment when they discover he is risen!  Just at the moment when they recognize Jesus Christ, fully alive, human and divine, present on the road, present in the breaking of bread, present at their table – risen and present and close enough to reach out and touch!  Just at that moment, he vanishes from their sight.  (Stay tuned for next week’s topic:  “God, why do you have to be so mysterious?!”)

Friends, Jesus has vanished from my sight.  So many times.  More than I can count.  I too have been on the road or in Scripture or at table or at Eucharist and caught a glimpse of the Lord, only to have him slip very quickly from the grasp of my mind and heart.  I too have blinked and found him gone.  Does the presence of the Risen Lord permeate my life?  I pray that is so.  But am I always intimately connected with him, close enough to reach out and touch?  Do I live in a state of always seeing and recognizing him?  No, I do not.

And I am not dismayed by this.  In fact, as the years pass I grow ever more content with this natural rhythm of the spiritual life.  The disciples had beautiful moments with Jesus.  They also had times of unknowing and distance, times of slowness of heart or blurred vision.  This experience with the Risen Lord – yes, he vanished from their sight – but they did not fret over it or desperately try to call him back or spend much time suffering over the loss.  No, it seems they were quite filled by the experience – brief as it was.  They ran with joy to tell the others.  But of course you remember the story – their hearts were burning!

Lord, give me eyes to see you and a heart that burns long after you vanish from my sight!

"Supper at Emmaus" by Carl Heinrich Bloch (1834-1890)

A Texan's Tribute to the Long, Hard Winter

Every winter – usually sometime toward the end of February – I begin to ask myself how in the world I ended up in Connecticut.  I meander through my mind and the chain of events that brought me here, and I always come to the same conclusion:  this is where I belong.  But it doesn’t make winter any shorter.

As a native Texan, I doubt that the kind of winters I experience in the Northeast will ever be easy for me.  In fact, I’ve noticed they aren’t even easy for the people who have lived here all their lives.  Just about every year they say, “That was a tough winter!”  Even when tough is normal, it is still tough.

What I like most about winter is the way we all get through it together.  It’s rare to be out shoveling snow alone.  There’s always a neighbor or two out, suffering along with you.  You always have something to discuss with strangers at the store.  We ask each other, “Are we going to make it?” or we just call out across the street some quick word of commiseration as we dash to and from our cars (if you can “dash” across an icy driveway).  I’ll always remember a sweet moment after Mass one Sunday when I saw a priest lean down and encourage one of his elderly parishioners:  “You’ll only need that fleece for about one more week.”

Another thing I like about winter is that it ends.  When the warmth of spring hits, we all find our way outside – to the beach, to the park, or we hit a trail somewhere.  Here we find camaraderie too.  We got through it together.  We did our time, we endured, we never really lost hope that there would indeed come a day when we could leave the fleece jacket at home.  We feel we earned this beautiful day.

Perhaps it is simply my own determination to find some meaning in the personal challenge that winter poses for me, but I find winter to be a profound metaphor for the natural cycles of suffering that we endure in life, and for the Paschal Mystery itself.  Of course this isn’t an original idea – but now that I’ve actually lived through what I can honestly call a “hard winter” – now I really get it. 

I treasure three seasons in Connecticut, and I endure one.  The beauty of the other three seasons is only enhanced by my memories of winter, by the ways winter has influenced and changed me.  And in this I am reminded that the Risen Christ still bore – still bears – the wounds of crucifixion (Lk. 24:39; Jn. 20:25).  The victorious Lamb worshiped in the Book of Revelation is the Lamb who was slain (Rev. 5).  And this is as it should be.  Some wounds, forged in the toughest of times, should never be forgotten – especially those which bring forth new life.  No, we never forget about winter here in the Northeast.  Winter is part of who we are.  But we know and we believe that even the hardest winter leads to spring – always has, always will.