12 May 2010: Motives of confidence in prayer

Lack of confidence is among the chief causes why our prayers are ineffective despite strong motives: God, ourselves and our neighbor (when we pray for them).

On the part of God -- being almighty, he can grant all we ask. Omnipresent, he can hear us anywhere; and knows even our most secret desires. Our tender Father, he loves us more than we love ourselves.

Any doubt will surely be dispelled by these gracious words of Jesus -- “If you ask the Father anything in my name, he will give it to you.” (Jn 16:23) We believe these truths but we pray with so little confidence.

Are we anxious that our prayers will not be granted? Or imagine a great distance between God and ourselves, they will be lost before reaching him? Or we regard God only as a severe Judge alienated from us by our sins and infidelities? Often signs of distrust are so subtle they influence us without our perceiving it.

Our spiritual misery ought to inspire us with the greatest confidence. God requires our aiming at perfection. We desire it; but we are powerless without his help and the constant succor of grace. Jesus teaches: “Without Me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5) But he also says, “Ask and it shall be given you” (Mt 7:7).

Otherwise, God would require of us an impossibility. This would be absurd. We may draw a most consoling and encouraging conclusion from these considerations: the weaker we are, more unable to rise from our sins and conquer our bad habits, the more right we have to trust in the efficacy of our prayers. This is self-evident, but we often act otherwise.

Have we fallen into despair or discouragement after our falls? When tepidity or disgust for spiritual things overwhelm us, did we stop praying or lost confidence in our prayers, as though God would not hear them?

There are three powerful motives for confidence when we pray for others, especially sinners, or for anyone recommended to our prayers: 1) an act most pleasing to Almighty God; 2) we are fulfilling a duty; and 3) it is a selfless act of charity.

We can pray with more boldness for another person than for ourselves, and with more confidence in proportion to his need. The impiety and immorality around us, or the apparent futility of our efforts to convert others, or save the souls confided to our care, tempt us to look upon them as hopeless.

Are we then inclined to stop praying for them -- to abandon them to their fate?Banish this thought! It is contrary to charity, and an insult to God.

Ref: cf “Practical Meditations” by a Father of the Society of Jesus, 1964, pp261-3

` ` ` MAY DEVOTIONS ` ` `

Mary, Joseph and the Child Jesus flee to Egypt

“The mystery of Mary helps us to see that in order to approach God we must become little. As Christ said to his disciples: ‘Truly, unless you become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.’ (Mt 18:3)

“To become children, we must renounce our pride and self-sufficiency, recognizing we can do nothing by ourselves. We must realize that we need grace and the help of God our Father to find our way and keep to it.” (St Josemaria Escrivá, “Christ is passing by”, 143)

Let us offer our Mother: ‘A visit to a lonely person to share the joy of trusting in God alone.’

Ref: Fr Charles Belmonte and Fr James Socias (Eds), “Handbook of Prayers”, 1988, pp307-8

Invitation to pray the Rosary

The many reasons why we must pray the Rosary are based on four convincing and authoritative sources:

1. ‘Papal Documents’ -- In the last 225 years of Catholic Church history, eighty-six Papal Documents were on the Rosary and the Rosary Devotion alone; enough proof of the great importance of the Rosary Devotion.

2. ‘Second Vatican Council’ -- In the ‘Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy’ we read: ‘Popular devotions of the Christian people are to be highly commended, provided they accord with the laws and norms of the Church, above all when they are ordered by the Apostolic See.’

Chapter VIII of the ‘Constitution of the Church’, reads: “Mary, exalted above all angels and men ... is justly honored by a special cult in the Church.”

3. ‘USA Bishops’ Pastoral Letters’ -- In “Human Life in Our Day”, 1968: “We give top priority to whatever may produce a sound ‘family spirituality’: family prayer, above all that which derives its content and spirit from the liturgy and other devotions, particularly the Rosary.”

4. ‘Desire of Our Lady’ -- At Lourdes, Mary invited Bernadette to say the Rosary, and recited it with her: “Pray the Rosary in reparation for the sins of the world.”

At Fatima, in 1917, Mary told the three children, repeatedly: “I am the Lady of the Rosary, continue to pray the Rosary every day ... Pray the Rosary every day, in order to obtain peace in the world, and the end of the war ... Go to the Cova da Iria on the 13th of every month to continue praying the Rosary every day.”

Ref: Rev Joseph A Viano, SSP, “Two Months with Mary”, 1984, p44

· “The Rosary is an excellent means of professing our faith ... it provides the Christian with sustenance with which to nourish and strengthen his faith ... May the august mysteries of our faith penetrate souls more deeply by means of the Rosary, with the happy result that ‘we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise’.” -- Pope Leo XIII

· “The Rosary offers an easy way to inculcate the chief mysteries of the Christian religion and to impress them upon the mind.” (Encyclical, “Magnae Dei Matris” by Pope Leo XIII, 7 September 1892)

Ref: In Ibid, Op cit, p45

Our Lady of Virtues, at Aubervillers, near Paris. This image has wrought so many miracles in this church, that it is called 'Our Lady of Virtues', although it is dedicated to St Christopher. — Du Brenil, lib. iv. (“Catholic Gems or Treasures of the Church” Historical Calendar; http://www.bethlehemobserver.com)

Humility of Our Lady. (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm); (maryfest.htm / www.starharbor.com/santiago/m_feasts.html)

Our Lady of Power. Aubervillers, France. (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm); (www.iskandar.com/ourlady/ourladyfeasts.html)

Our Lady of the Abandoned (‘Desamparados’). Image was brought by priests of the Franciscan Order after being touched to the original in Valencia, Spain. (Nicanor G Tiongson, “Filipino Heritage”, 1977, VII:1733) Parish Church at Sta. Ana, Manila.(Established 1578. “The 2002 Catholic Directory of the Philippines”, p161)