Sin in our lives ought to be an impetus for prayer, not a reason to walk away from Him
Prayer is an essential discipline in the life of a believer, but it’s difficult to be consistent in prayer. Some of the stumbling blocks for consistent prayer are monotony and questioning whether God even hears our voice.
Many of us practice some form of rote prayer. These are the prayers we know by heart. These familiar prayers allow us to pray together as a community, and even when we are individually praying, we believe we are not alone in our prayer. It also allows us to have words to speak in prayer when we really can’t conjure up the appropriate words at that moment. Some of the disadvantages of this type of prayer are that we’re not always aware of what we’re doing, making prayer routine and impersonal. If we are ever in a self-questioning mode, we might even begin to wonder if we believe what we’re praying.
The Gospel for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time reminds us that our attitude in prayer is as important, if not more important, than the words that we speak or think. Believing that we deserve God’s attention more than someone else is a major pitfall for those of us who profess to be religious people. We have a tendency to look down on others who don’t live their lives as we think they should. We might even begin to believe that our voice is heard by God while the voices of others are not. Nothing could be further from the truth. How many times must we hear from Scripture that the last shall be first and the first shall be last?
The vice of arrogance and the practice of prayer are not good partners. We who live a life of convenience can easily believe that our prayerful and religious practices make us more amenable to God. So many times throughout the life of Jesus, He reminded us that religious people often have the most difficulty hearing His voice and acting upon it. Could that be us, or are our hearts and minds humble enough to say what the tax collector said in the temple — “Oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner”?
Being a sinner should not keep us from being in community with others. In fact, when the Church gathers for prayer, the pews are filled with sinners. We may pretend to be something other than that, but the truth is we each carry our sins into that church. Why else would we begin Mass by admitting our sins and asking for forgiveness? When did we begin to believe that we had to be pure to be present to God?
God hears every one of our voices. If we have gotten out of the practice of prayer, we might use the phrase of the tax collector as a meditation phrase for entering into prayer. What better stance before God than that of humility and honesty? Sin in our lives ought to be an impetus for prayer, not a reason to walk away from Him. God wants to hear our voices, especially in times of trial and need. “Come to me all you who labor and our burdened, and I will give you rest.” Let’s follow the invitation to the one who loves us most and best.
