THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER

SABBATH

Sometimes people ask me why we should bother with praying because it is not as if God needs our prayers. This is precisely true but it misses one point — that prayer is primarily for us. We pray for our own sake, not for God’s sake; it is we who need the prayers. Prayer also reminds us as to what our life’s focus should be. The further reason for praying is that if we want a relationship with God, then there is no other way to maintain that relationship than by spending time talking to Him in prayer. When our loved ones are far from us, we take the time to write them, email them, call them or use any of the Internet communication networks such as Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch with them. We do this to fulfill our felt need to communicate with them. The same is true in our relationship with God — it needs to be attended to if we want it to flourish. Any relationship needs sufficient attention if it is going to survive in our busy world. One of the great dangers to any relationship is that it gets crowded out by the many other things that we have in our lives. This is why we have to constantly make choices and prioritize what we do with our time. When someone talks to me about his spiritual life, one of the first questions I often ask is what priority he gives to prayer. If little priority is given to prayer, there is very little point in the person seeking spiritual direction. I will just tell them the same thing every time, “Prioritize prayer in your life and then it will be possible for you to grow closer to God!” It is amazing how a great number of people say they want to grow closer to God but are not willing to prioritize prayer in their lives. It is like saying that you are hungry but you cannot be bothered taking time out to eat. Anyone can see that this just does not make any sense at all.  Fr. Steve Tynan, MGL Reflection Question: What priority do I give to prayer in my life? Should I be concerned about this aspect of my life or is it wellbalanced? Holy Spirit, help me to put order to my life so that I could give appropriate time to prayer and other spiritual activities to improve my relationship with God. St. Genesius, pray for us.