Luke 11:1-4 & 1 Kings 8:22-24
For those of you whose prayer life is warm and alive, I would like to invite you today, to dedicate a rosary to the sick, as we celebrate the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes. There are so many sick people in the world... from millions of poor children on the streets starved of love, nourishment, medicine and care, to people unwell in the mind and/or body, to elderly children of God who bear physical suffering to the point that their patience is truly tested. We pray for them, and we also pray for those who care for the sick, i.e people in the medical profession and missionaries dedicating their lives to communities desperate for such basic necessities as water. For anyone that needs healing of the soul, prayer will raise their spirits. "O my mother, in your heart I place all the anguish of my heart, and it is there that I gain strength & courage." St. Bernadette.
For those of you who do not know how to pray, but want to learn how, I ask you to read this excerpt from Our Lord's locutions to a Romanian nun who secretly adored Him in the Eucharist during the period of Communist repression in Romania. Jesus directs this message to every one of us:
'I, the Incarnate Word, say to you: God is Boundless Wealth sufficient unto Himself, while man is indigence and infinite penury. Man as a creature can enrich himself only in god, for it is from Him that he receives all goodness.
Entreating God in prayer is fundamental to man's life, and if the soul is to strive for Christian perfection, her union with Me in this prayer is absolutely necessary. God is Goodness and the Aim of all adoration. God is Love, Who gives Himself and grants all things, but He wants His creatures to approach Him in praer and so acknowledge their total dependence on the One Who is All and can do all things.
To be able to turn to God in prayer is a great privilege and joy for man, for he humbles himself before Infinite Perfection and desires to partake in it. Thus petitionary prayer is an expression of man's desire for perfection, an opening up of the soul to God's boundless richers: "Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you!" But man, tied as he is to the things of this world and his personal, fleeting interests, often has a false idea of petitionary prayer. He sees God as a provider of material goods or as a physician interested only in his physical and mental welfare. He sees prayer as a kind of check with which he pays off the amount awing his benefactor. That is why to the present age I repeat the words of the Gospel: "You do not know what you are asking!" You do not know how to pray. You treat God as a servant at your disposal who is to satisfy your desires and pleasures. And if your request is not answered, you become angry with God. Yes! People today have a commercial attitude even in prayer. Theirs is a mercenary piety. And so the most important thing you can ask of Me is what my apostles asked: "Lord, teach us to pray."
In my Eucharist I give you that same exemplary answer I gave them then: "When you pray, say: 'Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen'"
Every Eucharist I say the first part of the Our Father over again. I do so on behalf of the entire Mystical Body, and you, the Church - humankind - are to unite yourselves with Me in this divine prayer. The head and members form one heart praying for this same intention. In acknowledging God as Father and placing Him at the centre of adoration, at the centre of reference and prayer, I ask that He be known, honoured, worshipped by all, in their thoughts, their life, their words, and their deeds. The Father is the supreme and infinite Value, and I pray that all men may honour His Divine Reality and Majesty. Hallowed be thy name! God is the Father! He is the essence and source of life-the Lord of eternal life. I, the Son of the Father, begotten of the Father and made man; I, on behalf of all mankind, pray "May your Kingdom-your dominion in all souls and the lives of men-come through Me, the King of the Eucharist." I pray that the Church whom I founded, may pray with Me; that the Kingdom of truth and life, the Kingdom of holiness and grace, the Kingdom of justice, love and peace-that all this may come to be! The Kingdom of God-God's dominion in all souls throughout the world-will come only when man does the Father's Will, when everyone-as an individual, as a family, as a country and nation, as a human race, as God's great family-fulfills the Plan of the Father's Divine Providence. May all cooperate with God's plan as a Church and world by being a member of My Mystical Bod, so as to partake of My life in the Eucharist. That is why I ask the Father, Thy will be done!
Man is prone to do his own will. Wishing to be a lay unto himself, he usurps God and thus lives without faith or law. Too often-especially in this age-the spirit of Lucifer's dictum guides him, "I shall not serve!" That is why I pray that the Father's Will be done on earth even as it is done by the angels and saints in heaven, where all are eternally attuned to the Will of the Father, all serve God's glory and majesty, and all make the supreme decision: "We shall serve!" In this way, I fulfill in the Eucharist the petitionary prayer to the Father. At the centre of this prayer are God's affairs: that the eternal majesty of God, in whom all creation finds its happiness, be acknowledged, worshipped, and honoured in a spirit of obedience. In this way, man widens his horizons and broadens the road to his eternal destiny: God is the fulfillment of his life, the supreme goal to which he is to direct all his being and earthly life. (To be continued)'
Since this post is already very long, and is full of Wisdom from above, I will leave my own thoughts on Prayer for another time. God bless you!
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