Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Question for you this afternoon/morning: if you’re married, when was the last time you spoke to your spouse? If you have kids who live with you at home, when was the last time you spoke to them? If you’re in high school or college, when was the last time you texted your friends? Now, when was the last time you prayed to God?
If you are married and you haven’t spoken to your spouse today, then I might be seeing you later this week in my office for marriage counseling. If you have kids who live at home and you haven’t spoken to them yet today, you’re probably not going to win a parent of the year award. If you are in high school or college and you haven’t texted someone yet, you probably have been asleep until about 20 minutes ago. But when it comes to talking to God, when it comes to prayer, we tend to be ok with letting that go much longer.
Sometimes we can treat prayer as pretty complicated. We feel like it has to meet all these different criteria, and so, because it requires too much, we don’t do it. But prayer is not necessary complicated. Look at our first reading from the Book of Genesis. Abraham speaks with God, after God reveals His plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of their grave sins. Abraham is simply walking with God, and starts bargaining. Abraham simply talks to God.
At the same time, when it comes to our formal prayer, we do have specialized ways of speaking to God. In our Gospel today, Jesus teaches us the Our Father. Today we heard St. Luke’s version. We say the version that St. Matthew reported, but at its heart, it’s the same prayer. Sometimes, especially when we are at a loss for words, formal prayers are nice because we don’t have to spend the time thinking of what we want to say. We can enter into the words that Jesus or the Church gave us, and pray the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Memorare, or the Glory Be.
We are also in the midst of the Church’s great prayer: the Mass. We began our prayer with the sign of the cross, and we will end it with the dismissal after the blessing with the sign of the cross. Now, as the official prayer of the Church, we have a different way of addressing God. How often do you say, “bestow in abundance” or “these most sacred mysteries” or even “grant, we pray”? Probably never. And yet, in this formal prayer of the Church, we elevate our language to remind us that we are not simply in a brick and mortar building. We are not in an earthly place when we celebrate Mass (at least not the way we are when we go to the mall, or a bank, or a restaurant). When we are at Mass, we are in a foretaste of heaven, the halfway point between heaven and earth. And so, just as we are invited to lift up our hearts, so we also lift up our language and grammar to reflect the greatness, the solemnity, of the event we are entering: the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ.
Some people like formal; some like informal. Some people like memorized words; others like extemporaneous. There is a place for both in the Catholic life. If our only prayer is formal prayer and the Mass, then we are missing out on the more emotional parts of our faith that come from our daily devotions and times of speaking to God in our own words. If our only prayer is our daily devotions and speaking to God in our own words, then we’re missing out on the font that is supposed to give our devotions life (the Mass), and we can easily forget that God, while our loving Father, is also our King, and we are not His equal. Both are necessary for a healthy and balanced Catholic life.
God is both our Father and our King. He wants to hear what is going on in our life on a daily basis. At the same time, He is not our puppet, and we are still called to have wonder and awe in His presence. The best way for this to happen is to pray. Pray daily with all the things that are on your heart and mind. Use the devotions of the Church like the Rosary, Praise and Worship music, and prayers to favorite saints. At the same time, also join in more formal prayer. Come to Mass each Sunday and holyday. In these last weeks of summer vacation, come to daily Mass if you’re able. Worship God our Lord, who created the universe and holds us in being. Unite with the bread and the wine on the altar your cares, concerns, joys, and blessings. And then say, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof. But only say the word and my soul shall be healed” in humility, knowing that God does not owe us anything. Enter into communication with God. Share your love with Him, and be surrounded by His love for you.
