Deacon Larry

Thursday of the 11th  Week in Ordinary Time

Sir 48: 1-14; Mt 6: 7-15

Dc. Larry Brockman

 

The Power of Prayer is an awesome thing, because prayer brings us the spirit of God.  And when we are filled with the Spirit of God, we can do incredible things.   

 

Elijah and Elisha are good examples.  The spirit that Elisha had a twofold measure of was the spirit that inspired Elijah.  And that spirit was none other than the spirit of God.  Both men could do great things because the center of their lives was the Lord.  They prayed fervently, and followed the Lord in all they did, and so, the Spirit of the Lord was with them.   

 

The Gospel tells us about how Jesus says we should pray.  Some key things we can learn from the Lord’s Prayer come from the order and the tone of the prayer.  First and foremost, Jesus asks us to recognize that God is almighty and that we should praise Him.  Next, we should ask that God’s will be done above all.  Only after praising God and recognizing that we are all subject to His will, is it appropriate for us to ask for something.  And even then, we need to ask for forgiveness for our offenses and forgive others as we expect God to forgive us. 

 

I think that the tone of Jesus prayer is clear.  It is a humble attitude in which we recognize our Lord and savior first, and in a spirit of obedience, ask for the help we need to do His will, and to do it well.

   

Now I could not help but notice how timely these scriptures are.  Because today our parish, our diocese, and our nation, embark on the Fortnight for Freedom- a 14 day period of intense prayer.  It is certainly fitting that all of us be reminded right at the beginning of our efforts, of exactly what kind of prayer we should adopt.  God is not looking for eloquence- long winded, rambling, and detailed prayers that call attention to the process and the ministers.  Rather, our prayers need to be humble, sincere, fervent, persistent, and directed. 

We have a wonderful opportunity to do that as a community over the next 14 days.  And the fact is that if we can do that- especially as a group of committed believers- then imagine the power of the spirit of tens, and maybe even hundreds, of Elijah’s and Elisha’s working together to call upon God for help at this time of our nation’s need to rid our country of the threats to our religious liberty. 

 

So come and join our Fortnight, and pray together as a people.  And together, we shall overcome. 

Tags: Fortnight for Freedom, Power of POrayer

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 21st, 2012 at 4:38 pm and is filed under Holy Family Weekday Homilies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.