Abbey-Roads2

Dictating to God 

Sometimes when we pray we are like James and John in this morning’s Gospel, “Lord, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”  How many times do we pray and ask others for prayers for a specific intention, or make a novena asking for some thing, and then we don’t get it?  (Immaculate Heart of Mary’s Hermitage blog has a nice poem on the subject.)  In answer to that question however, God does indeed hear our every prayer, and never fails to answer.  The answer may not come when we expect, and it may not be what we asked for specifically either.  But he answers.

Often in the spiritual life we are tempted to dictate to God what we want, to insist upon Him giving us what we think we need…right now.  We want God to do what we want.  It is analogous to people insisting that The Church allow gays to marry, or women to be priests.  If you notice, when Our Lord responded to James and John, he told them, “To sit at my right or my left is not mine to give…”  Thus it would seem, even for Our Lord, there are some things that may not and cannot be done.

Think of John Paul II when he said that it is not within his power to allow women to be ordained.  Or when the Church declares, it is not within Her power to allow same sex marriage or to sanction unnatural sexual relations.  Some desires and requests are illicit, outside of God’s providence and will, therefore they cannot be granted.

The will of God

Years ago, I would ask the Carmelites to pray for me for this or that specific intention, and often, Mother Paula would say, “Yes, the sisters will pray that God’s will may be done.”  To tell the truth, I used to get rather annoyed at the response.  I wanted to hear, “Oh yes Terry, we will storm heaven that God grants you this specific grace or favor, because that is the most important thing in your life and you should get whatever you want, especially if we ask him for it.”  (After all, it is all about “me”.)

Nevertheless, this isn’t how Our Lord taught us to pray.  Of course he said for those that love him, and pray in his name, he promised that whatever they asked for would be granted them.  So it isn’t wrong to pray for specific intentions, temporal or spiritual.  However it seems to me it is a question of how we ask, and deeper still, our intentions for asking.  Again, that surrender to God’s will, and trust in his loving providence seems to be called for in our prayer, along with a faith-full detachment.

As our Lord taught, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” Matthew 6:8  Our Lord did not mean by this that we shouldn’t ask, indeed, we must pray, asking for the graces we need, God requires that we do: “Ask, and you will receive, seek, and you will find, kncok and it will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7

The Holy Spirit

Yet what are the good things the Father wants to give us?  Jesus told us: “If you, with all of your sins, know how to give your children good things, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” Luke 11:13

The Russian Saint, Seraphim Sarovski taught that the goal of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit.  We who are Baptized and Confirmed in Christ have the Holy Spirit within us, we are his temple, his tabernacle.  Paul writes, “We ourselves have the Spirit as first fruits (of the redemption), groan inwardly while we await the redemption of our bodies.” Romans 8:23

Paul goes on to say, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groaning that cannot be expressed in speech.  He who searches hearts knows what the Spirit means, for the Spirit intercedes for the saints as God himself wills.” - Romans 8:26-27

Now, for me, this is a very liberating understanding of prayer.  It fires my heart, so to speak, with longing to recollect myself and enter into the Holy Spirit dwelling within my soul, into that relationship of the Blessed Trinity in the depths of my soul.  I think what St. Seraphim meant by the “acquisition of the Holy Spirit” is more akin to our openess and surrender to the Holy Spirit in prayer and recollection.

Thus, what more efficacious prayer is there but to pray “Thy will be done” confident in the Holy Spirit “whose power at work in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.” Ephesians 3:20  Yet that is not to say we may not ask for specific things, after all, Our Lord did not rebuke the disciples in today’s Gospel for their request.

St. Paul urges us to pray for everything we need, saying, “At every opportunity pray in the Spirit, using prayers and petitions of every sort.  Pray constantly and attentively…” Ephesians 6:18

Contemplatives and Charismatics seem to be pretty good at this.