Prayer is not a ‘sometimes’ (Part 1) – Retreat talk to the SVD seminarians in Pune
I would like to change our view of prayer especially for those of us in the religious life. For many of us prayer is a ‘duty’ and if we don’t believe it to be so we are sometimes made to feel it, especially in houses of formation. Prayer is a PRIVILEGE and not a duty. So I would like you to try to change your perspective on the way we approach prayer. If we see prayer as a duty then it most certainly will become a drudgery for us. The problem stems in the way we have conceptualized the understanding of prayer and perhaps the way we have presented prayer to others.
The role of prayer is not to produce guilt. There are many who are worried if they have prayed long enough and others who wonder if they have prayed fervently enough. It is not uncommon for a priest to be told by a penitent that they were ‘distracted’ in prayer. Prayer was given to us by God not to infuse guilt but to alleviate guilt. So in Luke 18:1-8 Jesus tells us a parable to help us to pray always and not to lose heart. (Please read Luke 18:1-8)
What we need to state clearly is that Jesus is making a contrast rather than a correspondence between God and the judge. So far from being an unjust judge who did not want to be bugged by the widow, God does not mind being ‘bugged with our petitions and prayers’. When the unjust judge does give justice, his reason for doing so is that the woman won’t come back to worry him.
Amen…..pray without ceasing.