Pray without ceasing!

 

Deacon Kevin Gingras

Oct 16, 2022

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101622.cfm

Pray without ceasing!  It would be hard to come up with a different point from today’s reading.  Pray without ceasing!

Moses demonstrates that prayer can be tiring and that sometimes it may require help from our friends.  Moses needed Aaron and Hur to hold up his hands to win the battle.  We fight a battle here and now, a battle against the unseen adversary, Satan. We need to make this a battle of prayer and sometimes it can be tiring. All the things we are praying for can be tiring. Know when to ask for help with what you are praying for, ask both your earthly and Heavenly friends!

The Gospel begins with:

Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.

The widow and the judge is the perfect example of praying without ceasing as she bothered the judge who ultimately gave her what she wanted simply so she would stop bugging him.

Our prayer life should be like the widow’s, we pray and pray until our prayers are answered.  God might not answer how we see fit but remember, God knows far better than we do, trust Him.  We can pray using personal prayers or we can pray using formal prayers.

I love personal prayer when it’s just you talking with God one to one like talking to a friend.  An example of how I use personal prayer is when I take out my kayak fishing for the day.  As I hit the water I pray to catch the biggest fish I’ve ever caught.  As the day moves on my prayer changes to asking to catch at least one decent size fish.  As I bring my kayak out of the water at the end of the excursion my prayer is simply “Lord, thank you for keeping me from flipping over during my time on the pond.”  I might not have got what I wanted, a giant fish, but I got what I needed, some relaxing time on the water and I stayed dry!

The Catechism defines prayer as:

 "raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God." But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or "out of the depths" of a humble and contrite heart? He who humbles himself will be exalted; humility is the foundation of prayer, Only when we humbly acknowledge that "we do not know how to pray as we ought," are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. "Man is a beggar before God."

It could also be more formal prayers like the Rosary, the Liturgy of the Hours, novenas, chaplets, or participating in the greatest prayer of all, the Mass.  Whatever way we pray, pray without ceasing, lifting our hearts toward God.

Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton believed in this:

We must pray without ceasing, in every occurrence and employment of our lives - that prayer which is rather a habit of lifting up the heart to God as in a constant communication with Him.