To Pray - A Christian Battle - Part 4

Third Armor - Perseverance

Have you ever felt a time when praying seems useless since nothing is happening? Some people even claim that it is a total waste of time because God has a pre-ordained decision for us already. This is absolutely false.

The Lord spoke of a parable about perseverance in Luke 11:5-8.

"And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend to whom he goes at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have nothing to offer him, and he says in reply from within, 'Do not bother me; the door has already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything. I tell you, if he does not get up to give him the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence."

If a person has been ill for many years despite praying consistently, there will always come a time when discouragement is a strong option for him. If a wife, beaten black and blue by his drunkard husband for years, has been faithfully praying for his conversion for a long time to no avail, she can succumb to deep depression and withdrawal of faith and prayer life. If a pornographic addicted person prays from deliverance from his habitual sins and yet still failing at the wily ways of devil's temptation to sin, he is likely to give up his fight and repel any prodding by the Spirit to pray.

But praying consistently is more about the Giver than it is about the "gift" that we wanted. And if the "gift" ever comes, this only means it is in accordance to His will and in His appointed time where we will reap the full benefits of the gift.

According to the life-story of St. Augustine, he was, before his conversion, a lazy and dissolute young man who pursued worldly pleasure and even joined the heretical Manichaean sect. It was, by his account, only because of her mother, St. Monica's unceasing prayer life that has contributed greatly to his life's turn around. All throughout the nine years that St. Augustine preached heresies, her mother persisted in prayer and in inviting him back to the Catholic fold. Tradition has it that St. Monica prayed for him for 32 years. This is why she is now the patron saint of mothers with waywayrd children.

Imagine praying to relentlessly to God for 32 years and how St. Monica has matured and grown in her personal relationship with God through all those years of constant communication with Him. Imagine how deep is her faith in the Lord who, after seemingly ignoring her for so many years, has rewarded her persistence by making her heretic son one of the well-loved and known doctor of the Church.

So all of us must persevere in prayer as well.

Because in the end, praying is not about transforming God to what we expect of Him but more so transforming us to what God has intended us to be.

Have a prayerful Lenten season.

God bless.

To Pray - A Christian Battle - Part 3

Second Armor: Trust

Mark 4:5-6 says, "Other seed fell on rocky ground where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep. And when the sun rose, it was scorched and it withered for lack of roots."

Nena (not her real name) had a happy and fulfilled life. Her husband has a decent-paying job. They have young children who they can afford to send to good schools. They have their own house through mortage payments which they can afford. She has a good relationship with God as she always go to Sunday mass and pray to God.

And then there was an avalanche of events that shook her faith. Her husband suddenly died and with him goes their stable source of income. Their children, as a result, needed to stop going to their present school and opted to study in their province where the school is considerably cheaper. They lost their house and she found herself working as a house-help just to support her children who lives far away from her care.

She was hurt and felt abandoned by God. She was angry to God and so she turned cold towards Him. Since then, she has never set foot in any Church because she no longer trust God to take care of her and her family.

But did God really change from the time that her life is complete and now that her life has become difficult? Did He "abandon" her just for the sake of abandoning her without any divine purpose behind it all? And does her present situation really merits the complete distrust in God's loving, though mysterious (and sometimes painful) ways?

As Christians, we ought to be deeply grateful for the book of Job in the bible that gives us reason to trust God despite the intense sufferings we may have or presently experiencing.

Job, an Old Testament righteous character who literally lost everything, struggled and nearly his life to death, but did not lost sight of the single most important person in his life - his God. He wept, he mourned, he wailed, he cursed and cry out loud in anguish and pain but he never lost his relationship with His God. And that time when his heart was crushed into bits and tiny pieces, he let God pick up those tiny bits of pieces and mould it back to His image.

Fr. William Most, in analyzing the book of Job, has offered 3 basic theological reasons why people suffer.

1. To clean us - The Holiness of our Father wants His children clean enough to enter His house. Some sin so gravely as to even lose divine sonship. Others do not lose it,but become dirty children,who need a cleanup.

"The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him." - Romans 8:16-17

2. To discipline us - Just as a really good Father trains His children by discipline to make them grow up and be what they should be,so our Father in heaven,disciplines us for the same purpose.

"The discipline of the LORD, my son, disdain not; spurn not his reproof, For whom the LORD loves he reproves, and he chastises the son he favors." - Proverbs 3:11-12

3. To let us share in God's salvific works - If we really love our Father, we will want to see that He gets the pleasure of giving to all those whom He wants to be His children. But some of them have even forfeited that position, while others are somewhat soiled. In either case, in order that He may be able to give His favors to them, they need to be open. But many of them do little or nothing towards rebalancing the scales for their own sins. So that they may be put in the condition to receive,we can by taking on difficult things, make up for them.This is love for them - it is also love of the Father,for it gives Him the opening to give to them, while at the same time it gives them the openness they need to receive.

"Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church," - Colossians 1:24

When trials and tribulations around us are too powerful and strong to distract us from praying and being in union with God, let us always remember that trusting God is the only choice for us. Jesus asked His apostles if they want to leave Him after he declared that His body and blood to be the eaten to live forever (not one apostle or scholar or anybody understood His meaning at that time) if they also want to leave Him, St. Peter's declaration of trust "Master, to whom shall we go. You have the words of eternal life." This, too, should be our strongest belief when praying.

So when we pray, pray with complete trust in the Lord that He will bless us with what is best for our spiritual growth and our eventual salvation.

to be continued....Third Armor: Perseverance

To Pray - A Christian Battle - Part 2

First Armor: Humility

I woke up this morning and rush into the day

I have so much to accomplish that I did not have time to pray^{. 1}

I would ashamedly admit that this has been my unconscious attitude towards prayer these past days, or should I correctly say, the past weeks. You see, my friend and I have been working out a business partnership for the past months yet we are still very much active in the daily grinds and grits of being employed. This basically translates to more late night bedtime and earlier waking time just to be able to squeeze time to catch up with the high demands of setting up our own business. Slowly, yet surely, my mind started to be more pre-occupied about looking for our suppliers, which products to test and offer, how to organize files and samples, how to improve marketing, how the office should look like, amongst other things. These personal brainstorming ideas started to invade even my prayer time that I find myself murmuring words and reading prayers in plain lip-service. I realized that my heart has found a new love –to have a successful business- in-the-making.

However, as the bible revealed that no man can serve two masters for he will love one and despise the other (Matthew 6:24), so too are we going to ignore God when we pray with a distracted heart.

We (though at this very moment, I am more inclined to emphasize the “I”) can not pray to God when our heart is full of distractions – family matters, business matters, money matters , personal matters and even non-essential matters (It is not far-fetched that you know someone who won’t last a day without Facebooking and Tweeting but can hardly have a silent moment of prayer?). Because just as you can not hear the soft blowing of the wind when your Ipod is in full audio blast, God’s voice in prayer will be a mute experience for those who are distracted.

The answer to these obstacles is not to solve the distractions (for sure that option will draw you more far away) but to simply go back to where your heart must truly belong to, first and foremost, which is to our God. He is the same God who assured us that if we seek His kingdom first, everything else will follow. Humble vigilance to this truth is the key because it remains that where your heart lies, therein lies your choice of love and loyalty.

I woke up this early this morning and pause before entering the day

I have so much to accomplish that I have to take time to pray ²

Prayer starts with humility.

^{1 2} excerpts from an intro line of a song in Servant of All CD

to be continued......Second Armor: Trust

To Pray - A Christian Battle - Part 1

Please offer a minute of silent prayer for the souls of our brothers and sisters who perished in the recent earthquake and tsunami and the deteriorating nuclear situation in Japan and from those killed in the on-going Middle East and African conflicts.

May the Lord give comfort to their families and relatives and save them from further suffering. May the Lord touch a lot of people’s heart to help in anyway they can – prayer offering which is paramount.

It is the season of Lent and Lent has always been about prayer and conversion. It is the time to reflect and “re-arrange” our directions in life, back-tracking from the ways where we first made the detour away from God’s will and making resolute decision to follow the right path no matter how difficult and narrow it may be. It is the time to keep a silent and listening heart in order for us to recognize well God’s voice who is our only Good Shepherd who calls us by name towards Him.

Prayer is the basic life of a Christian and it is through prayer that we are able to establish a constant union with God which, when practiced in spiritual maturity, will eventually lead us to peace and united in love with God, with our neighbors and with ourselves.

But just like most Christians, one can experience the difficulties of prayer.

And so, the battle is set, a spiritual battle that is.

In the Cathechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 2726-2728), it is mentioned that the main objections to prayer are:

1. Erroneous Notions of Prayer

- It is a simple psychological activity.

- It is an effort of concentration to reach a mental void.

- It is a ritual of words and postures.

- It is an occupation that is incompatible with other things to be done.

2. Various current of thoughts

- Prayer is only true if it can be verified by reason and science.

- Production and profit is primary, thus prayer, being “unproductive” is useless.

- Sensuality and comfort are the criteria of the true , the good and the beautiful.

- Prayer is a flight away from the world instead of taking action.

3. Experiences of failure in prayer

- Discouragement during times of spiritual dryness

- Sadness that we have not given all to the Lord

- Disappointment over not being hear according to our own will

- Wounded pride

- Resistance to the idea that prayer is a free and unmerited gift.

The question in a any Christian’s mind who is struggling to pray has always been – What good does it do to pray?

But in order to win the battle to pray, we must first battle to gain humility, trust and perseverance.

God bless.

to be continued........First Armor : Humility

RSVP

What does it take to personally meet and shake the hands of the President of the United States of America?
Answer - either you own 8 boxing division title named Manny Pacquiao or win the NBA crown.

And what does it take to be invited to the upcoming fairy-tale royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middletown?

Answer - not one in a million chance, unless you are among the pre-selected ones to be invited. Not even a hunger strike in front of the British embassy will do as one Mexican teenager found out (or did she get her wish by now?)

What does it take for someone to come inside the hall of our Supreme Court and sit down to exchange ideas with the Chief Justice?

Answer – you must be one of the 15-member Supreme Court.

Undoubtedly, the worldly norm is that the higher the person and the office or symbol he/she represents, the more they are beyond the reach of a normal person. Gone are the days when ordinary folks can walk inside Malacanang to air their grievances and be actually listened to by the president himself (Pres. Magsaysay is mentioned in the history books to have done this Maybe very few.

And the saddest truth for some, is that even family members that are supposed to be closest to each another are seemingly the most difficult people to be even near to. Just ask the children and spouses of successful men and women but hardly spend a time with them and you will understand what I mean.

Let us rejoice. Because what the worldly norm dictates is the exact opposite when it comes to God’s kingdom, where everybody, especially the least ones, are very much welcome to come in and enjoy the incomparable bliss of love and peace. The invitation comes in many forms and ways, His unending gifts and blessings without any expiration during our lifetime. We are not required to accomplish or achieve anything by worldly standards because our qualifications are based on His heavenly standards – we are His children. Nothing else takes precedence over that fact. We only have to believe it, trust in it and live it. As Mother Teresa of Calcutta has offered as a tip for living - the purpose of life is not to be successful but to be faithful, so we all must live a life of faith in God.

On March 9, we Catholics, are going to celebrate Ash Wednesday to usher in the Lenten season. Let us all prepare ourselves for God’s invitation to remember and share His most empirical proof of His intense love for us – the incarnation of His only beloved son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Savior. Through Him, God’s invitation for us to come to His kingdom is finally established and any wall of sinfulness that previously separated us was brought down by His sacrifices and ultimate death on the cross.

God is inviting each one of us once again.

RSVP.
He lovingly waits.

(RSVP comes from French RSVP - répondez s'il vous plaît, meaning “reply please” or "please respond")