Tại sao các môn đệ xin Chúa Giêsu dạy cho họ cách cầu nguyện ?. Có phải họ xin Chúa day họ cầu nguyện vì họ cũng giống rất nhiều người như chúng ta, những người giống như thánh Phaolô và Thánh Phêrô và Thánh Barnaba. Chúng ta tha thiết cầu nguyện và hành động nhưng hai việc này có thể làm trong sư mâu thuẫn!
Làm thế nào để chúng ta có thể biết và làm theo như thánh ý của Thiên Chúa?
Một số người cho rằng lời cầu nguyện mà không bao giờ thất bại là lời cầu xin cho "Ý Cha được thể hiện" như những lời cầu xin của chúng ta, trong khi thực hiện những ước muốn của chúng ta là để được hiểu biết Thiên Chúa, chúng ta nên luôn luôn tin tưởng và đạt niềm tin của chúng ta trong ý muốn và kế hoạch của Thiên Chúa. Trong lời cầu nguyện của chúng ta, chúng ta phải lắng nghe Thiên Chúa, dành nhiều thời gian trong sự hiện diện của Thiên Chúa. Điều mà chúng ta cần phải cầu nguyện trước tiên là chúng ta cầu xin cho chúng ta biết thay đổi. Để lời cầu nguyện được thành sự thật, chúng ta phải mang theo trong mình, những nhu cầu của chúng ta, kẻ thù của chúng tôi và nỗi sợ hãi của chúng ta với Thiên Chúa và lắng nghe những gì Thiên Chúa muốn nơi chúng ta để Thiên Chúa có thể ban cho chúng ta những gì chúng ta thực sự cần thiết.
Why did the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray? Even if these men were not particularly pious, they would have at least a rudimentary knowledge of Jewish prayers. They must have been to the synagogue or perhaps the temple in Jerusalem a time or two. They had to be interested in God or knowing and associating with Jesus would not have held much of an attraction for them. Perhaps they ask because they are so much like us who are like Paul and Cephas and Barnabas. We earnestly pray and act but can be at odds! How can we know and do God’s will?
Some say that the prayer that never fails is: “Thy will be done.” Our prayers, while making our desires known to God, should always submit to God’s will and plan. In our prayer we must listen to God, spend time in God’s presence for just as we cannot be outside during daylight and be unaffected by the radiation of the sun, so we cannot be unaffected when we come into God’s presence. The first thing prayer always changes is us.
In order to really pray we must bring ourselves, our needs, our enemies and our fears to God and listen to what God wants from us so that God can give us what we truly need.
May Your Kingdom come!
Great crowds were traveling with Jesus, and he turned and addressed them, “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:25–26
After this startling opening line from our Lord, Jesus concludes today’s Gospel by saying, “In the same way, everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.” Thus, at first read it appears that we are called to not only renounce all we possess but also to hate those within our own family. But is this truly what our Lord means? Let’s begin with the idea of “hating” those within our family and even our own life.
Obviously the word “hate” in this Gospel passage is not the same as the sin of hate and anger. In commenting on this passage, one Church Father explains that there are some cases when the best way to love another is through a form of hate. That is, if another were to act as an obstacle to God, working to deter us from the will of our Lord, then our “hatred” for the actions they do must be firmly expressed. But this is love. A refusal to turn from God, by rejecting another’s disordered actions, is a way of sharing the Gospel with them. Let’s take an extreme example.
Imagine that you lived at a time and circumstance where being a Christian was a crime. You were arrested and commanded to publicly renounce your faith. Instead, you renounced that command with every strength of your soul. In this case, you exercise a form of holy “hate” for the persecution the person is imposing upon you. But that is also an act of love toward them as you fully reject their action by renouncing their command.
Or consider also how you hate even your “own life.” Let’s say that you fall into serious sin, over and over. The appropriate response is not only to repent but also to have a form of holy hatred for the habit into which you have fallen. This is a true hatred for yourself in the sense that it is a hatred for that which you have become by your sin. But this holy hatred has the ultimate goal of passionately overcoming your sin and is therefore a true act of love for yourself.
The concluding line of today’s Gospel mentioned above calls us to renounce all of our possessions. In other words, we must renounce anything that we are attached to in a way that is contrary to the will of God. Of course, in God’s providence most people (except those who take a vow of poverty) are invited by God to have various possessions so as to meet the material needs of life. But even in this case, we must “renounce” all that we possess, meaning, we must not allow ourselves to become attached to anything other than God. But this is freedom in the truest sense. Even if you have many things, it must be understood that those things do not make you happy. Only God and His will can fulfill you. Nothing else. Thus, we must learn to live as if God and God alone suffices. And if it is God’s will that you obtain a house, car, computer, television and other modern conveniences, then so be it. But true “renunciation” of all of these possessions simply means that if at any time you were to lose them, then this would be fine. Therein is perfect detachment. The loss of something material would not deter you in any way from loving and serving God and His holy will.
Reflect, today, upon these radical words of Jesus. Try to hear them in the way our Lord meant them. Work to be detached from everything that is contrary to the will of God and everything that becomes an obstacle to God in your life. In the end, possessing God alone is more than you could ever hope for. And only if you fully possess our merciful God will you be able to love yourself and others with the pure heart and love of Jesus our Lord.
My demanding Lord, You call us all to a life of radical holiness. You desire that I come to love You above all with all my heart. Please give me the grace and wisdom I need to renounce all that is an obstacle to my love and service of You. May You and You alone be glorified in my life. Jesus, I trust in You.
Opening Prayer: As I enter this sacred time and space, I quiet my turbulent mind: You are all-powerful, Lord, and I can entrust to you all my worries and concerns as I seek simply to be with you and listen to your words of life. You know what I need, what I desire. I make mine the words of today’s psalm as I turn to you and praise and glorify you: “Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul” (Psalms 86:4).
Jesus Was Praying?: Of all the Gospel writers, St. Luke shows Jesus praying most often. Jesus was praying in a certain place, he tells us. And he mentions this multiple times throughout his Gospel. Imagine that. Jesus, the incarnate Second Person of the Holy Trinity, going off alone every day to pray. Why would God himself need to take time away from his pressing activities to pray? This simple fact reveals so much. First, it gives us a glimpse into the life of the Trinity. Remember, the Trinity is three Persons in one Nature. Three real Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with real relationships. Jesus went off to pray because he cared about those relationships, about nourishing them and being nourished by them. Second, in his human nature, our Lord entered into the limits of time and space. His Trinitarian relationships, in some mysterious way, needed to participate in that. We share that same human nature, and we have been made participants in the divine nature through baptism. So we too can expect that the development of our relationships with the Trinity will require time alone with God. It’s all well and good to say that we are “always praying,” and that is indeed our ideal. But if Jesus himself felt a need to go off to be alone with his Father and the Holy Spirit on a daily basis, why would we ever think that we could make our Christian journey without doing the same? The Catechism (2697) puts it eloquently: “Prayer is the life of the new heart. It ought to animate us at every moment. But we tend to forget him who is our life and our all… we cannot pray ‘at all times’ if we do not pray at specific times, consciously willing it. These are the special times of Christian prayer, both in intensity and duration.”
Opening Prayer: As I enter this sacred time and space, I quiet my turbulent mind: You are all-powerful, Lord, and I can entrust to you all my worries and concerns as I seek simply to be with you and listen to your words of life. You know what I need, what I desire. I make mine the words of today’s psalm as I turn to you and praise and glorify you: “Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul” (Psalms 86:4).
Jesus Was Praying?: Of all the Gospel writers, St. Luke shows Jesus praying most often. Jesus was praying in a certain place, he tells us. And he mentions this multiple times throughout his Gospel. Imagine that. Jesus, the incarnate Second Person of the Holy Trinity, going off alone every day to pray. Why would God himself need to take time away from his pressing activities to pray? This simple fact reveals so much. First, it gives us a glimpse into the life of the Trinity. Remember, the Trinity is three Persons in one Nature. Three real Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with real relationships. Jesus went off to pray because he cared about those relationships, about nourishing them and being nourished by them. Second, in his human nature, our Lord entered into the limits of time and space. His Trinitarian relationships, in some mysterious way, needed to participate in that. We share that same human nature, and we have been made participants in the divine nature through baptism. So we too can expect that the development of our relationships with the Trinity will require time alone with God. It’s all well and good to say that we are “always praying,” and that is indeed our ideal. But if Jesus himself felt a need to go off to be alone with his Father and the Holy Spirit on a daily basis, why would we ever think that we could make our Christian journey without doing the same? The Catechism (2697) puts it eloquently: “Prayer is the life of the new heart. It ought to animate us at every moment. But we tend to forget him who is our life and our all… we cannot pray ‘at all times’ if we do not pray at specific times, consciously willing it. These are the special times of Christian prayer, both in intensity and duration.”
No comments:
Post a Comment