All Girls

Praying in order to change ourselves rather than change God

02/26/2017

Matthew 6:24-34 

           Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? So do not worry and say, 'What are we to eat?' or 'What are we to drink?'or 'What are we to wear?' All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil."

          I have a confession to make, and to be honest, it’s a little embarrassing to admit it, especially since I am a priest. (Now you’re really curious, what does a priest confess?!) Believe it or not, I have trouble praying. My struggle with prayer does not stem from the usual culprits everyone else complains about: I do not feel bored when I pray, I do not worry that God won’t answer my prayer, or that God does not hear me, or that he does not care. My problem is quite the opposite. I know that God’s love for me is so deep, and his wisdom is so vast, and his power is so formidable, that God already knows what I need better than I do, and he desires my happiness even more than I do. You see, I’m not concerned that I’ll ask for too much that God can’t handle it, but that I won’t ask for enough.

          C. S. Lewis, in his celebrated essay, “The Weight of Glory,” explained this predicament perfectly. He wrote: “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” I find it hard to pray because I’m too easily pleased with my mud pies; not because I ask too much in prayer but because I’m afraid I always ask for too little.

          I recently heard of a little girl who also struggled to pray properly. At night she would ask God to bless every family member, every friend, and every animal (current and past, of course). For several weeks at the end of the prayer, she would say, “All girls.” This eventually became part of her nightly routine, to include this closing. So one day her father’s curiosity got the better of him and he asked why she always added the part about “all girls.” She answered, “Because everybody always finished their prayers by saying, “All men.” So, it’s not easy to pray well, for little girls, or for little priests.

          In the gospel today, Jesus teaches his disciples to look at prayer in a new light, that is, not as a way to change God’s thinking but rather as a way to change their own thinking. Jesus says in his sublime Sermon on the Mount: “So, do not worry and say ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.” In other words, just like Lewis said, stop being satisfied with the “mud pies” of “drink and sex and ambition,” but open your hearts to the infinitely better gift of “a holiday at the sea,” namely, the Kingdom of God. You see, the purpose and point of prayer is not to shrink God down so he fits in our tiny boxes of happiness. But rather, prayer should change us – by dilating our desires, by stretching our sensibilities – so our hearts can handle the huge happiness God wants to give us, that is, HIMSELF.

          The French philosopher, Blaise Pascal, put the matter this way. He wrote: “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him…though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and unchangeable object, in other words, by God himself” (Pensees, 10.148). The reason we pray is to widen our wants till we are satisfied with nothing short of God himself. And that’s why it’s so hard for me to pray: I keep asking for more mud pies instead of the holiday at the sea. I pray as a half-hearted creature, because my heart is not big enough for God.

          Today, I’m here to promote Trinity Junior High and to ask your support in the second collection. That is, I’m here to help you widen your wants for God, and also to ask you to widen your wallets for Trinity! There are so many great things I could say about Trinity regarding our academics or our extracurricular activities or our fabulous faculty and so on. But the biggest blessing at Trinity is the spiritual side of our education. We form and educate the whole child, including each student’s immortal soul, something other schools cannot touch, or even mention. In particular, Trinity students learn to pray, especially at Mass every Tuesday. And what have they learned about prayer? They’re learning the same thing I have. Prayer’s purpose is not to change God to do our will; prayer is supposed to change us so we do God’s will. Prayer teaches Trinity students to lift their eyes from the “mud pies” of earth, to the “holiday at the sea” of heaven, and really to desire God himself. Prayer makes our students’ hearts the size of heaven. One of my favorite mottos for Catholic schools is “we prepare our students not only for Harvard but also for Heaven.” That’s what your child will learn if he or she attends Trinity Junior High.

          Folks, prayer is never easy for anyone, and it is practiced in as many ways as there are people who pray. Some end their prayers with “All men” while others end their prayers with “All girls.” But the ultimate end of prayer is so that something begins to change inside each of us. That is, God’s grace touches us so we will desire “first the kingdom of God, and then all these other things will be given besides.” Amen. I mean “All Girls.”

          Praised be Jesus Christ!