Last week, I spoke about the necessity for us as Christians to regularly spend time before the Blessed Sacrament, before Our Lord Jesus Christ present in the most unique and powerful way that He is present to us. This week, we are shown why we need to persist in praying before Our Lord and entering into prayer on a regular basis.
To truly be a follower of Christ, which is what it means to be a Christian, we need to emulate Our Lord and follow His command. Today’s Gospel reading opens with Jesus engaged in prayer, an action we see Our Lord performing repeatedly throughout the Gospels. Prayer is so important to Our Lord that He would regularly involve His disciples and even taught them how to pray.
If prayer is that important to Our Lord, it must be that important to us who claim to follow Him. Not only should we listen to what Jesus taught His disciples to say, but we should also look at how He prayed. In many places throughout the Gospels, Jesus would go to a secluded place and devote His whole attention to prayer. Note that no where does it say that he did some other activity, like fishing, while he prayed. Prayer was His sole focus at those times.
There must be times in our lives in which we focus only on praying to God. Prayer is an activity that must involve our whole attention to be effective. Now, it is very important and laudable to “pray always” by saying short exclamations of praise and thanksgiving to God throughout the day, but that must not be our only form of prayer. We must take time everyday to set aside everything in our lives for prayer.
To truly enter into prayer, there must be silence in our part. This silence is not merely a lack of speech, but also an active listening. Prayer is a conversation with God, not a monologue from us to Him, and requires listening on our part. If we want to have a good conversation with someone, we need to listen to them and focus our attention on what they have to say. Likewise, we have to focus our attention on God and listen to what He has to say if we want our prayer to be effective.
As I said last week, if we truly desire to get to know Our Lord, we need to spend time in His presence here in front of the tabernacle. By regularly and persistently coming before Him in prayer, focusing on Him, we will develop an openness: and openness to the Gifts of the Holy Spirit; an openness to the will of God; an openness to the salvation promised by Christ. It is this openness that will bring us into eternal life in Heaven. Just being a good person is not enough. We need to fully and consciously enter into prayer daily, and persist in prayer, now. Not next week, next month, or next year; now.
As Christians, we need to devote ourselves to prayer and follow Jesus’ example. Through dedication and persistence in prayer, we will be opened by God to His salvation.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
