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Pray Without Ceasing!
This morning for Mass we had the surprise (to me) of having a deacon assisting the priest. In this case, it was a previous graduate of Bruté, who came back to visit, and was present for Mass. Due to the visit of our associate vocation director (Fr. Daren Zehnle), the fact that I'm postponing working on essays, and other reasons, I don't have time to write up about the homily (sorry...). but, he also gave the intercessions for the prayer of the faithful. He had the usual: "For the pope, the bishops, and priests..., for the end of abortion, and respect for life..., etc.", but he also included a quick one about the North Korean dilemma. I don't remember the exact words, but I found that the more important thing that it reminded me of was that we need to constantly pray to God.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."
Here is the problem: we only take spiritual things to God. We beg God to make us more fervent, or more charitable, or more contrite for our sins, or to have a deeper relationship with Him, or thank Him for the sacraments, or praise Him for the Paschal mystery. Well, all those things are wonderful, fantastic, just great. But God wants us to surrender everything to Him. To pray to Him for help in every moment of life, to praise Him for everything around us, to thank Him for everything, etc. There isn't some part of life that we shouldn't pray about, and I (maybe you too) just don't do that.
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| "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." - Matt 26:39 |
For me at least, I found myself talking about and looking into whether North Korea had the weapons capable to nuke us (or anybody for that matter), if we had the weapons to stop it, if Kim Jong Un is crazy enough to launch them, etc. And I never put the issue into God's hands... This one petition really stopped me in my tracks and reminded me of an important part of being a Christian: surrendering to God, giving my life totally, completely, utterly to Christ. It's hard to do, hard to think about, and hard to comprehend, but everyone is called to give their lives to Christ. Not just priests, not just nuns, not just the super holy, religious, pious, or whoever.
Mark 8:34: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it."
Yep, it's hard, but remember to read the rest of the passage from Thessalonians:
"rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."
Be joyful in following Christ's will for you! We find the perfect example of this total submission to God in prayer in Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (see picture), and remember how that turned out... Happy Easter!
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