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.

Let the Sun Do Its Work

Spring has finally come to Connecticut, which means a beautiful light through the trees and everyone gathering outside – fixing up the yard, starting the garden, or walking at the beach.  Remember that sunny day I told you about – the one that finally comes – when you know you can leave the fleece behind for good?  The one we earned with every miserably cold morning and every slip on the ice?  That day has arrived!

It’s that time of year when the sun block comes out and reclaims its spot near the back door.  But it usually takes a surprise or two before I take the sun block seriously.  On Sunday, after just an hour or two at the beach, my sons' faces were a shade or two darker, and my own arms had lost the “winter white.”  The sun had done its work without me realizing what was happening. 

The sun works on us with a silent, gradual, transforming power.  If I go to the beach and stare at my skin, I don’t see a change taking place.  It’s only later that evening when I look in the mirror that I see the change – the warm glow of color restored, the abiding result of happy times spent in warmth and light.

Below is a brief excerpt from Fr. Murray Bodo’s Landscape of Prayer.   Fr. Bodo shares a charming account of a fellow Franciscan who taught folks to pray before the Blessed Sacrament.  He wanted them to stop trying so hard.  He wanted them to stop stressing about “what to do.”  He wanted them to enjoy their time in this Eucharistic Presence in the same natural way that I enjoyed the warm sun at the beach with my kids.  He wanted them to “let the sun do its work.”  And then later – as they went about their lives or glanced in the mirror – later they might discover that they had been changed by this silent, transforming power:

“Brother Carlo used to expose the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance and ask those who would learn to pray to sit in silence for two hours before the Blessed Sacrament. Usually they were, to say the least, nonplussed. And he would then explain, ‘Imagine you are lying on the beach, thinking of nothing in particular, just letting the sun’s rays work gradually on your skin, a beautiful tan emerging day by day. The host in the monstrance is the sun. Just be in its presence, not worrying about so-called distractions or whether or not you are concentrating on the ‘sun.’ A change gradually takes place in you the way a suntan emerges on the skin. Relax, let the ‘sun’ do its work. Your work is to be there.’”

— Fr. Murray Bodo, OFM, Landscape of Prayer, St. Anthony Messenger Press

"God, why do you have to be so mysterious?"

While studying the account of Moses and the Burning Bush in her religious education textbook, my daughter got a little bit irritated with God.  She felt he was being intentionally difficult when it came to naming himself.  “Why not just give a name?  What’s with ‘I am who I am’?” (Ex. 3:14)

It’s a fair enough question.  I didn’t say much in response, but I did point out it would be a little disappointing if God said, “Hello, my name is Bob.”  Bob is a great name – but it isn’t the least bit mysterious.

Sometimes it may seem like God is being difficult on purpose.  But he’s probably just being himself.  He’s being mysterious.  He’s being “I am.”  I experience this Difficult Mystery when I teach Scripture.  Sometimes I feel like I’m entering a world where I don’t belong.  I start to understand it, and then I suddenly stop.  I come close to something and then it unravels into a hundred other things.  Why is it this way?  And how can I take other people to a place that is so far beyond me?

But that’s just the privilege of knowing God.  How boring would it be to have a God who can only take us places we’ve already been, or tell us things we already know?  No, I prefer a God whose name I don’t understand, whose Book changes every time I pick it up, whose ways are not my ways, who takes me places I’ve never been and who tells me things I never knew. 

Why does God have to be so mysterious?  Because he is!

"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)

Paschal Mysteries

“There have been times when, after long on my knees in a cold chancel, a stone has rolled from my mind, and I have looked in and seen the old questions lie folded and in a place by themselves, like the piled grave clothes of love’s risen body.”

 -- R.S. Thomas