Insist and persist in prayer

WHENEVER we find ourselves in some helpless situation due to a persistent weakness—like the weakness of the flesh—or to some challenges and trials that are increasingly getting heavier each day, or to some misfortune that we find impossible to bear, then we should just insist on praying and begging our Lord for help. 

 While it’s true that we should also be accepting of whatever fate would come our way, no matter how trying, we have no reason to think that we can and should stop bothering God for the relief that we need. 

 We should rather act like that Syrophoenician woman who displayed a persistent and humble faith while asking Christ to cast a demon out of her daughter. (cfr. Mk 7,24-30) Despite initial rebuffs based on her nationality, she won Christ’s admiration by arguing that “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs,” resulting in her daughter’s instant healing. 

 That is why it is important that we always think and act according to our faith, more than just our feelings or our own natural and human estimation of things. It is faith that gives us the global picture of things. It manages to give us the real and redemptive meaning to any situation in our life. 

 It is our faith that reassures us that we are never alone, that we are never left abandoned to fend for ourselves against anything that can take place in life. Like that sick man at the poolside of Bethesda, lying there for 38 years, waiting for his lucky turn, (cfr. Jn 5,1-15) we should remain hopeful that not everything is lost. 

 God will always intervene in our life. He is a good father to us, ever merciful and compassionate, slow to anger, quick to forgive. We might be a misbehaving child, but he always looks first at our being his child before he does something with our misdeeds. 

 It might be good to always relish this psalm that reassures us of the goodness of God in spite of our mistakes: “For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning.” (30,5) 

 Our problem is that we many times choose to be guided by our own feelings and private thoughts, detached from our faith. And so, we plunge into fear and shame, sadness and depression, and we suffer unnecessarily. Rather, let’s just be insistent and persevering in our prayer. 

And if God seems to ignore us, we have to realize that he is simply testing us for a number of reasons—to strengthen our faith, to purify our intentions, to grow in the other virtues, etc. But to be sure, God is never indifferent to our needs. He is always solicitous. He even knows more of our needs than we do, and makes provision for them. It’s rather us who do not notice what God is giving and doing for us most of the time. 

 Obviously, for our prayer to be insistent and persevering in spite of what may appear as God’s initial indifference to our requests, we need to spend some moments of special and serious conversation with him, like some period of mental prayer, meditating on God’s word, having recourse to the sacraments, etc. These are like the refueling process that helps us to continue going on with our spiritual life. 

 The important thing to remember is that we should never give up on our prayer. Rather, let us always sharpen our dispositions for prayer.

Despite the heavy drama of our life

WE should stick firmly to what Christ assured his disciples, and now us. Considering that our life here on earth is often referred to as a “vale of tears,” let’s avoid over-reacting to the heavy drama that we can expect in this life. 

 Let’s relish these words of our Lord: “In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16,33) Yes, our life here on earth is actually just transitory. It is a difficult journey toward our definitive destination. But there is always hope of reaching a better place, that is heaven, in the end. 

 We have to learn to have confidence in God’s loving providence over us by always strengthening our faith and referring everything in our life to him who knows how to derive good from evil.

 Our sense of confidence should spring from a faith that gives us the ultimate meaning and proper direction to all our human knowledge and endeavors. It is what gives the original perspective to all events, good or bad, in our life. Otherwise, we would end up confused and lost. 

 We also need to make our faith grow to cope with the multiplying infranatural consequences of our human condition that is weakened by sin. There’s no other way to manage and survive the consequences of sin, ours and those of others, personal as well as the collective and structural, than by relying first of all on our faith. Without faith, we will find no exit, no relief from this wounded status of ours. 

 That’s why St. Paul said: “Above all, take the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” (Eph 6,16) Faith holds pride of place in our armory to wage that lifelong battle with our wounded flesh, the temptations of the world, and the tricks of the devil. 

 Without faith, we would be easy prey to these enemies of our soul. Without it, we most likely would be filled with fear and anxiety, if not sadness and desperation. Faith unites us to the tremendous power of God over any kind of evil, self-inflicted or caused by others. 

 There’s no way we can achieve our ultimate goal without faith. With God, we have everything. As St. Teresa de Avila would put it: “Solo Dios basta!” (God alone is enough!) 

 And so, there’s really no reason to be too worried and anxious when we encounter some difficulty in our life. In fact, we have every reason to be confident and at peace, focused on what we are supposed to do. And that’s because we are always in God’s hands. 

 Whatever situation we may be in, we can be sure that God will always provide for what is truly needed by us, and it may not be what we want. We just have to trust him completely for he knows better than we do, and what we want may not be what we need. It may not even be what is good for us. 

 Yes, there will always be challenges, problems, difficulties that humanly speaking may be impossible for us to tackle. But as long as we have trust in God, we can sincerely echo St. Paul’s words: “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” (Phil 4,13) These words have been verified to be true in the lives of all the saints, especially the martyrs. 

 It’s important that we be confident and at peace always, because that would put us in the proper condition to do the things we are supposed to do. It will make us bold and courageous, fruitful and productive.

The significance of Our Lord’s Ascension

A NUMBER of very meaningful considerations can be drawn from the Ascension of Our Lord into heaven. One is that with it we are reminded that like Christ, who is the pattern of our humanity and the redeemer of our damaged humanity, we actually came from heaven and are meant to return there for our definitive state of life after “passing” the test God has given us if what he wants us to be is also what we ourselves would like to be. 

 With our Lord’s Ascension, we are told that heaven is now open to humanity after it has been closed due to the fall of our first parents. We have been alienated from our Father God and are now reconciled through the redemptive work of Christ. 

 Our Lord’s Ascension also brings home to us our true home which is heaven where there will be “no more tears, pain or death, (cfr. Rev 21,1-4) where “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, or the heart of man conceived,” (cfr. 1 Cor 2,9) It’s there where we become a new creation, achieve the perfection of our humanity, and where we enjoy endless peace and bliss. 

 We really need to develop a yearning for heaven, but doing so by being keenly aware of our duties here on earth. The latter are our daily ordinary pathways to heaven, aside from the sacred means Christ has given us. 

Yes, we have to always keep heaven in mind and live our earthly life with this goal in sight, using our daily duties and experiences as pathways to reach God. Yes, as we yearn for heaven, we should be keenly aware of our duties here on earth. We need to see the organic connection between our earthly life and duties and our heavenly yearning. We cannot have one without the other. 

 In this regard, we have to do a lot of apostolate which would require of us that we, first of all, should be driven with love for God. Otherwise, our apostolate, our love for the others would have no steam to run on. 

 We need to see to it that our love for God always grows everyday, so that our love for others would also correspondingly grow. In this, we have to realize, first of all, how much God loves us. Only then can we start loving him and loving the others. 

 That is why we have to pray and consider the truths of our faith that show us much more than what our senses can discover. We can say that a person who does not pray is a person who cannot fall in love properly. 

 That’s because a prayerless love is a love that is simply driven by earthly elements that cannot last for long and cannot cope with all the demands of true love. It’s love that would be completely at the mercy of earthly and temporal conditions. 

 With sincere prayer, we would manage to keep our mind and heart, our thoughts and desires to somehow start and end with heaven. Thus, we can fulfill what St. Paul once said: “Set your hearts on heavenly things, not the things that are on earth.” (Col 3,1) 

 We have to learn how to relate everything to heaven, and not get entangled with our merely earthly and temporal affairs. Everything is meant to start and end with God who is the Creator of everything and the very foundation of reality.