5th Sunday in Ordinary Time - B (February 5, 2012)
Prayer is
not a means for people to force a
reluctant god to do what he does not want to do, nor is it a time for
informing
God of what God does not know. Prayer is for the benefit of the one who
prays.
It is the tool that God uses to better inform us, better direct us,
better help
us to be conformed to God’s will. When we enter into prayer, we ought
to enter
with the desire that God will move us into His will, that He will unite
our
hearts in one purpose and demonstrate his power to do more than we ask
or
think.
We would do well to
follow Jesus’ example, for surely if the Son of God needed to take time
for
prayer and seeking God’s will, so do we. Prayer is spending time with
God. It
might involve asking for things, or thanking God for things. It might
also be
simply being with God.
Have you ever simply
spent time with someone, and you are both just quietly being together?
You may
be sitting with your spouse, or holding your child, or at the bedside
of your
sick parent. We need more of that quiet time spent with God. We will
rarely
find God in the hectic moments in our lives, but we will often find Him
in the
quiet moments. Just being still and resting in the simple presence of
the Lord
is good for our own soul, for our relationship with others, and for our
relationship with God.
Take a movie director
saying “Action” after a pause in filming. The word “Amen” at the end of
our
prayers should be like that. We often tend to treat the word “Amen” as
a
“Goodbye” and sort of hanging up the telephone on God, as if we are
disconnecting from Him, whereas prayer should be a constant thing, an
attitude
and a frame of mind that never ends.
St. Paul said in his
letter to the Thessalonians, “pray without ceasing.” Paul does not
suggest that
we live a life in the monastery, always being in the kind of solitary
place for
prayer that Jesus finds in today’s gospel reading. Paul is referring to
a
constant attitude about prayer. Never say “Amen” as a way of
disconnecting from
God. Rather, say “Amen” like the director saying, “Action.” The end of
prayer
is action.
There are times when you
should just do nothing, but sit there in quiet prayer. Then there are
other
times when you should say to yourself, “Don’t just sit there, do
something.” At
the end of the prayer, when you say “Amen”, that should be a word that
calls
you to action. That is what Jesus did.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus
sneaks off for prayer in a quiet solitary place. The disciples find him
and at
the end of the prayer time, Jesus gets up and gets on with life. Jesus
tells
his disciples, “Let us go somewhere else, to the nearby villages, so I
can
preach there also. That is why I have come.”
Our lives are so busy.
We need to stop from time to time and go to that solitary place for
prayer. And
then at the end of the prayer, get up and get busy with the things that
are
most important, the work of God.
