My homiletics professor in the seminary offered my class very good advice: “Never forget what your parishioners carry to Mass each week.” He wasn’t referring to a coat, umbrella or even an offering envelope. (Although these are useful!) We knew and you know what he meant. What have you carried in your heart to Mass today?
Perhaps there are those who can easily relate to the heart of Job whom we find in our first reading to be rather disturbed, depressed, and even despondent. I am sure that not a few people can “connect” with the feelings of St. Paul who was preoccupied, consumed, weighed down by the obligations of his ministry, anxious to win over others for Christ. Many can appreciate today’s Gospel passage—for in it we see Jesus who is pressured on every side…everyone looking and expecting something from him.
Don’t we deal with so many things…loneliness, anger, hurt, financial stresses, grief and guilt…but tremendous joy, hope, and gratitude. And so many things that happen to us are out of our control. We can only say “yes” to life as it comes to us. Where do we find the fortitude, the grace to face each day without going “bonkers?”
Our Lord gives us the answer in today’s Gospel: “He went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.” This is an aspect of our Lord’s life that we need to always remember. Our Lord lived in a quarrelsome, demanding and hostile world and yet he made the time to pray. It seems that we always find time for what we consider important. And don’t we waste time…excessive time in front of the TV, posting on Facebook, texting?
With some goodwill and determination, we can find time for prayer. Our prayer need not be complicated. We need only to bring ourselves to prayer in whatever state we are and offer it to God. So if we are hurt or angry; ill or worried, we might simply say, “Lord, my prayer today is coming from my broken heart, my prayer comes a resentful heart, from an anxious or worried heart.”
With Lent on the horizon, I would just like all of us to focus seriously on the time or the lack of time we devote to prayer. We might make the prayer of Fr. Henri Nouwen our own:
Dear Lord, Give me a growing desire to pray. It is so hard for me to give my time generously to you. I am still greedy for time— time to be useful, effective, successful, time to perform, excel, produce. But you, O Lord, ask nothing else than my simple presence, my humble recognition of my nakedness, my defenseless confession of my sins, so that you can let the rays of your love enter my heart and give me the knowledge that I can love because you have loved me first, that I can offer acceptance because you have accepted me first, and that I can do good because you have shown me your goodness first. What holds me back? What makes me so hesitant and stingy, so careful and calculating? Do I still doubt that I need nothing besides you? Do I still want to build up some kind of reserve in case you might not come through? Please, Lord, help me to give up these immature games and let me love you, freely, boldly, courageously, and generously. Amen
