Let Us Pray

The hunger to pray is old. His disciples thousands of years ago said to Jesus: "Teach us to pray" (Lk. 11:1). Even before then, people sought to communicate with the divine. Every religion is a concerted effort to pray, and religion is as old as humanity. Today, I want to pray. I want to pray for myself. I want God to remove insecurity from my heart. This is my biggest weakness: insecurity. I irrationally feel like the good things there are in my life aren't going to last. So very many bad things have happened to me in my life that when something good chances to happen, I subconsciously sneer at it. I subconsciously ask myself: Is it going to last? And so today I pray: Please, God, take the insecurity away from my heart. I know that many bad things have happened to me; but that does not mean that bad things will go on happening. Good things can and do in fact happen to people. Please, dear Lord, help me to realize this, and be open to the possibility of good things coming my way as they come the way of other people. Thank you, God.

Another thing I want to pray about is the sense of loss. I still feel sometimes that I have lost a lot: my dad, my mom; relationships I used to have, and the possibility of having a regular family life like most people do. Through the concept of sacrifices though I have been coming to terms with all of these, seeing these otherwise losses as sacrifices for a greater state. And so I pray today: Dear God, please help me to come to terms with all the things in my life I consider to be losses. Help me to realize that they are simply sacrifices I have made in order to follow you. You said that no one who has made sacrifices of wealth or relationships will be left unrewarded both in life and in eternity (Mark 10:29-30). God, see how I have sacrificed all these things for your sake, for the sake of the gift of vocation. Please, do not let me go empty handed. Fill me with your own divine consolation, so I may rejoice in you. Amen.

Still another thing I want to pray about is forgiveness. I sometimes feel hurt, betrayed, unwanted and unloved. I am a very sensitive person, and I suffer a lot emotionally. Today, I pray: Please God, I beg you to give me the grace to forgive anyone that might have hurt me. Help me to obey you who say, "If someone slaps you on the cheek, turn the other one that he might slap you there too" (Lk. 6:29). Please God, help me to "let go of the hope that what has already happened could be any different." Help me to always seek peace and reconciliation; to reach out and touch even if I might have been the one hurt; to approach the oppressor with an olive branch, and to speak words of love and conciliation. O God, do not let me carry grudges against anyone for any reason. Do not allow me to be hateful or resentful or angry with anyone at all. Help me to be positive in thought and word and deed, and seek peace among all peoples.

I also want to pray for my fears. I am afraid of the future. I do not know what will happen, and I worry. And so today I pray: Please God, help me to trust you. Help me not to worry. Teach me to relax in your divine providence; you who say: "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" (Matt. 6:26). Help me to realize that by worrying I "cannot add a single hour to my life" (Ibid.v27). Help me to realize that it is only in trusting in you, the omnipotent God, that I can be at peace with life. Thank you for showing me the way to do this. Thank you for reminding the person walking by the side of the sea that the single set of footprints he saw on the shore at the time when things were the roughest for him were yours and not his. Thank you for teaching us that even if father and mother forsake us you never will (Isa. 49:15). Thank you for etching us firmly in your thoughts. Thank you for the confidence you restore to us. Thank you because "you have not given us a spirit of fear, but only a sound mind" (2 Tim. 1:7).

I further want to pray for my success. Father, you have given me a vocation. Please God, help me to keep it. I want to be a priest for your people. I believe there are many people I can help: people of all dispositions. I can pray for and counsel with all of them in my calling as a minister. Please, help me O God to be successful in the seminary. Teach me wisdom and patience and understanding. Encourage me to seek you earnestly and to hang onto you when I have found you. Help me to follow the path you have marked out for me, not turning to either side, but keeping straight and focused on the narrow road to you. For indeed O God, "you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

In short O God, remove from my heart every iota of negativity. Help me to be positive and focused on you. Teach me to be resourceful, patient, wise and humble. Help me to forgive, and to love and to be a light in the dark for the many you have brought to the reach of my influence. Above all, help me to forgive myself. Remove from me every sense of guilt. Remove from me the trapping of self hatred. Remove from me the trapping of greed and ill will. Help me to love all people regardless of who or what they are. Let me never be envious or hateful. Let me never be proud or wayward. Teach me instead to look to you, who are the beginning and end of everything that is good, and always draw me to yourself, to the place where you live with your son and your holy spirit, in perpetual and everlasting unity. Amen.