Give prayer another chance

We can get very busy in our lives, so busy that we push off to the side things that are really more important than the things that stay on our schedule.

Today’s readings remind us that we should focus on keeping time for prayer as a part of our daily lives.

In the first reading (Esther C:12, 14-16, 23-25), a beautiful Queen prays with her face on the floor:

Now help me,
who am alone and have no one but you,
O LORD, my God.

Her words were echoed by Pope Benedict in his recent encyclical Spe Salvi:

"When no one listens to me anymore, God still listens to me. When I can no longer talk to anyone or call upon anyone, I can always talk to God. When there is no longer anyone to help me deal with a need or expectation that goes beyond the human capacity for hope, he can help me. When I have been plunged into complete solitude ...; if I pray I am never totally alone."

And in the Gospel (Matthew 7:7-12), our Lord gives these promises:

Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives;
and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Which one of you would hand his son a stone
when he asked for a loaf of bread,
or a snake when he asked for a fish?
If you then, who are wicked,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your heavenly Father
give good things to those who ask him.

Note well that our Lord does not say that we will be given what we ask for, but that our heavenly Father will give good things to those who ask him (and who knows better what is good than our all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God?)

As we near the end of the first full week of Lent, we should remember that it is not too late to add a special Lenten devotion and begin the bait of taking at least one or two minutes out of the 1,440 minutes of our day to be alone with God in silent prayer.

Oremus pro invicem.