TWENTY-NINTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME 2022

Why should I pray?

Why does God delay (sometimes? most times?) in answering our prayers? We pray for what we want. Sometimes over and over and over, and all we ever hear back is … silence. Even when what we want appears to be an absolute good (world peace, food for the hungry, healing for a loved one), God certainly doesn’t act like an order taker in a fast-food restaurant who is out to deliver “freaky fast” (as Jimmy John’s sandwich shop slogan goes). We ask for what we think we may need, though rarely do we really know what we need. And even if we might know, we want what we need so we’re always asking for what we want. God always provides what we need. The two are not always the same.

How can God know what I really need? Since God created me and holds me in existence, only God knows me as I truly am. I think I know some things about myself but I certainly don’t know everything there is to know about me. I, like St. Paul who wrote about this in his letters, have done things even though I didn’t really want to and can’t really tell you why I did them. I can’t tell you why I am one way, and you are another. My sense of my own history is clouded by my limited ability to feel and to reason. And I certainly don’t know a thing about my future with any certainty at all. Think about that for a moment . . . what will it be like in this Church five minutes from now? I guess it will likely be pretty much like it is right now, IF nothing unforeseen happens in the meantime. When we speak about, and think about, and look toward the future, there is always that big IF — the unforeseen — and it is always our best guess no matter how much science and education we put upon that guess.

God can and does know what is in our future — be that future two minutes from now or two decades from now. God doesn’t guess. God knows. Assuming that is true, it brings up at least one big question: If God knows my future, is my future predetermined? Am I nothing more than a puppet in the hand of God, or fate, or the universe, or whatever? Do I have any real free will?

Absolutely we do. God has revealed to us that we do possess free will. According to the Catechism (CCC 1704-1705), “By free will, he (man) is capable of directing himself toward his true good. He finds his perfection ‘in seeking and loving what is true and good.’ By virtue of his soul and his spiritual powers of intellect and will, man is endowed with freedom, an ‘outstanding manifestation of the divine image.’” In other words, free will is a big part of what is meant by being made in the image and likeness of God, whose will is purely and absolutely free.

So, we have a free will. We can pretty much decide what we want to do and not do, love and not love. Again, if that’s true, then how can God know what we will do next week when we don’t even know what we will do next week. This game must be fixed, right?

Wrong, God knows what I will do next week simply because he can see me doing it right now . . . Huh? Which brings us to the idea of time.

What is time? Time is nothing more than a measure of change. A ‘length of time’ is a measure of how long it takes something or someone to accomplish a certain change. When I change my location from here to my home it tales about 7 minutes. If I don’t leave here it takes no time for my position to remain unchanged. Or, my heart beats. Sometimes it’s pushing blood out; sometimes its sucking blood in. It is in a constant state of change. We measure that change by taking our pulse. At rest, my pulse is around 70 beats per minute. When I run, my pulse may be 115 - a higher number because my heart is going through much more change. If my heart stops changing, my pulse drops to zero. get the idea. Time = change, No time = no change.

I am in a constant state of change and therefore live in and am bound by time. God is completely unchangeable and is, therefore, completely outside of time. Or, as we might say, eternal — beyond time. Because of this, to God, everything that ever happens is happening in his ever-present now. He “sees” all of history, past, present, future, right now. In this way, He knows what I will do next week even though I have no idea and will change my mind about next week a hundred times between now and then. God knows, not because he is causing me to do certain things next week, but because he is watching me do what I do all the time, in His ever-present now.

This explains why we say that God allows so much to happen without directly causing those things to happen. And it also explains why prayer, to get back to where we started, is so very, very important.

Prayer influences God, who then influences history.

God could control everything that ever happens, but if He did He would have to take away our free will and a big part of how we resemble Him, to the extent that we do. Instead, he wants us to be free to love, which means we must be free to choose — choose, in the end, either Him or our self. But this freedom gives us the chance to make bad choices and release evil in the world. Sounds bad. But, since God can see not only the bad choice but every bad thing that happens as a result, God then has the chance to influence the future, I said influence not force, in order to bring about His desired good ends.

All through history, God has done exactly this by sending prophets, and saints, inspirations, apparitions, and even a few miracles, to influence our choices and their outcomes. Ultimately, He sent us Jesus, who has been influencing our choices ever since. Our prayers make up some part of the reason for sending, prophets, and saints, and miracles, and all the many other forms of influence that God uses to bring about His good ends. That’s why we must pray — pray with perseverance, patience, and hope. Pray like an old widow. Pray like an old man who prays so long and so hard that his arms get so tired at being raised in prayer that he has to have his arms propped up on supports. Pray like our very futures depend on it — because they do.

Next time you find yourself praying and seemingly not getting any answer, remember, that God is likely using your prayer to influence your history. or even the history of the whole world.