Sunday Gospel Reflection for 17th Sunday of the Year, Sunday July 24th

By Brian Maher OMI

“Lord, teach us how to pray…..”

Imagine for a second sitting with Jesus and saying that to him. You would be close to him, at ease in his company, comfortable enough with him to ask that question. And then, equally at ease in your company, he would answer you…….

Just imagine! Jesus himself teaching you to pray.

Now, I know you will expect me to say, “But you can ask Jesus to teach you to pray. In your own prayer you can ask, and if you remain still enough he will answer.” To that I expect you will answer, “I know but listening in prayer is different!” and, of course, it is different. Two thousand years separate us from the Jesus who walked the trails of Palestine, two thousand years of history, culture, scientific achievement, technology, medical advances and so on… We know more, have a much broader understanding of the world, and we can simply ‘google’ anything we want to find out. Just now I googled, “Lord, teach us to pray….” And I got 41,100,000 hits on 0.8 seconds! Surely, Google, Siri, Alexa or their IT cousins could teach us to pray much more effectively and comprehensively!

And that would be true… if our question was, “Lord, teach us about prayer”. But our question is not about prayer: what words do I use? Do I kneel, stand, walk, lie down? How often do I pray? How do I start and finish? For how long should I pray? All of these things are the mechanics of prayer and while they may teach me ‘about prayer’, they will never teach me ‘to pray’.

“Lord, teach me to pray” is a profoundly personal question addressed to a person who is already known to be a person of prayer him/herself. Many times in the Gospels we witness Jesus praying. Usually he is alone, or seeks to be alone to pray, but not always; entering Jerusalem he prayed for the temple and its coming destruction and was moved to tears as he prayed. After his Baptism by John he withdrew to pray. Early in the mornings, long before daybreak, he got up to pray. In the garden of Gethsemane he prayed, on the Cross he prayed. In fact before he undertook any new task he took time to pray.

If we ask Jesus to “teach us to pray”, then, we know he will not tell us about prayer (Google can do that), but will share with us his own experience of prayer, enabling us to enter into the same relationship with the Father that he has.

St Teresa of Avilla, a 16^th Century mystic, spent her entire life asking Jesus to teach her how to pray.

What always astounds me about her words is the utter simplicity of what she says.

Prayer, she tells us, is: “Gazing in wonder at the one who gazes in wonder at us.” How simple is that? We don’t even need to say anything! Just gaze and allow ourselves to be gazed at. Simple…until you try it.

In another place St. Teresa offers us three steps to prayer that might help us:

Step one: “We must be searching for God.”

Have you ever had the experience of feeling you have ‘lost’ a child on a busy street or in a Shopping Mall, or, have you ever witnessed someone who has? If so, you will know what it is like to ‘search’ for someone. It is not a passive activity. The parent does not sit in an office waiting for the child to be found. No, the parent is out there, asking people, moving around, frantically looking in all directions, until the child is found.

We too, St Teresa says, must be searching for God. “If I sit back and close my eyes like I see the gurus do, God will speak to me.” Wrong! We must be actively searching for God….. asking people, reading, reflecting, knowing that we really do want to find God.

Step two: “We must be willing to be alone with God.”

That’s what Jesus did when he prayed: he withdrew to the desert, sought out lonely places, went away by himself. If we surround ourselves with noise – even nice noise! – we will never hear God properly.

‘Aloneness’ is difficult for all of us – some more than others. But in prayer we seek to be alone with God. It is something we must practice every day…..being alone (free of music, conversation, interruptions, television, etc), but not lonely because we are alone with God, in conversation with God, alone, but not lonely.

Step 3:  “We need to look upon the Lord as being PRESENT within us.”

We are created in God’s image and likeness. Within us, from the very beginning of creation, our loving God placed a shadow of his own nature – love. The Resurrection of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost confirmed and guaranteed that God would continue forever to live within us. Not just knowing this passively but increasingly living our lives with this conviction is, for St. Teresa the three steps to prayer.   

The little story attached after the Lord’s prayer about getting what you want through persistence always amuses me. I find myself asking, “is Jesus really saying that it is OK to keep on annoying someone until you get what you ask?”

The next time you say ‘no’ to your child having another biscuit or ice cream and he or she sets about whining and complaining until you finally give in for the sake of peace and let them have what they want, don’t get angry or frustrated. Take a deep breath, count to ten, smile and congratulate the little angel for following so closely what Jesus advocates in this story. You might even consider rewarding them with an extra biscuit or ice cream for attaining at such a young age the gift of persistence.

I understand that we must persist in prayer and not give up, but is God really saying that the person who makes the biggest nuisance of him/herself is the person most likely to have their prayer answered?

Somebody please tell me that I’m missing something here!

I seem to be precariously close to straying into heresy!

Much as I would love to reflect on the “ask, search, knock….” section of the Gospel, it is probably best that I check out my faith circuitry to ensure I haven’t been possessed by an evil spirit wishing to undermine God’s words!

If all checks out, I’ll be back next week. If not……then I stopped before any real damage was done.     

Many thanks,

Brian.

If you have any comments, questions or thoughts on this scripture reflection, please feel welcome to email me at b.maher@oblates.ie

How to pray