A Thought

“The Spirit also helps in our weaknesses.  For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”  Romans 8:26

We know how easy it is to offer intercessory prayers for those whom we love and we know how easy it is to ask for things for ourselves, but to enter into prayer for its own sake is hard.  We don’t always know what to say or even what we think we should say.  It is common for us to enter into a time of prayer and do all the talking, but it is not so common to enter into a time of prayer with intentions only to listen.  Even the moments of silence during the time of worship are not fully appreciated but are rather more often used as transition to move from one item on the bulletin to the next.  Praying for its own sake, quite simply, can be very challenging.

This can surely be called a time of “weakness”, the moment St. Paul refers to.  We do know of those times when we feel so overwhelmed with pain or grief or despair that finding words for prayer is difficult, but those times when we simply do not have something to say are harder still.  These moments can also be called periods of “weakness” because we, by faith, find ourselves in the presence of the Almighty in prayer … and we can think of nothing to say apart from “I want” or “I need”?? 

It’s ok, though.  Jesus promises that our Holy Father knows what we need – NEED – even before we do, so to enter into a time of prayer is to ask to simply be in the Divine Presence of the One who chose to come to us in Christ to teach us, to heal us, to free us, to bless us, and to show us the way Home.  And since we are not yet “Home”, perhaps our time devoted to prayer would be better spent just listening because everything we do is incidental to this Journey.

We do enough talking in our daily living, our worship, and even in our prayers.  It is time to give ourselves a break from this need to talk, and let the Holy Spirit of our Lord talk through us and to us.  This we truly need above all things.

Blessings,

Michael