Today at Holy Mass we hear in the gospel of St Luke how Jesus when asked taught his disciples to pray…Its the only prayer Jesus gives us throughout the entire Scripture…..”Father, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test”…..Why should we pray?…Because prayer is the answer to everything but before we pray…Do we know what prayer is?…Is it a request we make before we go to bed asking for something?…Or is it a conversation?…….We speak to God in the silence of our heart and he speaks to us…..Do we make time for God to speak to us in silence?
"Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples”
The highest form of prayer is the Mass, where we enter into the passion of our Lord and consume his body in the form of a consecrated Host…In order to do that one must be Catholic and be in the state of grace…What does it mean to be in the state of grace?…We must not have committed any mortal sins…What are mortal sins?…..There are three components to a mortal sin….One, the sin is grave in nature….Two, you are aware the sin is grave in nature….And three, with full awareness you commit the sin anyway…..Before one can consume Our Lord in the Eucharist one must confess all mortal sins in a Sacramental Confession with a Priest. However, there is also a very efficacious prayer one can participate in even if one is living with a mortal sin and has not confessed it….Even if one is agnostic to God….Even if one is not Catholic…And I highly recommend it……..Making a small amount of time each week to sit in silence in-front of the exposed Blessed Sacrament………This prayer is easy…All you have to do is sit there!…Sit in silence in front of the exposed consecrated Host…That is it!…Its in the silence that the Lord will speak to your heart…He will communicate to you in a way that no one else can…Because he knows you like no else does…In that time you will feel peace…A tangible peace is felt in the room when the Blessed Sacrament is exposed on the altar…The “feeling” “in the air” of the chapel with the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the altar is “different” - Make no mistake about that!…….I will tell you this….If you commit to this practice for a small amount of time once a week…Your life will change…..Only God can heal us of our wounds that not even time can heal….Only God can break down the walls we put up to the world…..In the silence you will hear his voice…Make the time!
“Do you realize that Jesus is there in the Blessed Sacrament expressly for you, for you alone?”
In our gospel reading from Mass today…Jesus is asked by his friends to teach them to pray…Jesus was a simple man…As we say commonly today…Jesus was a regular guy!…..You don’t have to be a scholar to know how to pray…In fact, the more basic and simple our prayers are the better…….A contemplative nun who was a peer of Mother Teresa once told me….”Joe, Prayer is the answer to everything”…At the time she told me this I did not fully believe her…But I do now…In the silence of your heart…If you make the time…The Lord will speak to you in his ever small voice….In that silence…You will feel his peace….He will provide you with all the clarity you need…..But like all things in life that are good…We must make the time…..As the old saying goes…The Lord helps those who help themself….Prayer is not a vending machine where we put in our coin and something we want pops out…Prayer is a conversation…In the silence you will hear his voice and feel his peace…Everyone wants peace - Right?!?...Make the time!
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