Welcome, everyone, on this Second Sunday of Lent. Our focus here at St. Gabriel’s during this season is prayer. Of course, prayer comes up all throughout the year, not just during Lent, but this season especially is a time when we pay extra attention to our prayer life. This topic is one that is easy to find somewhat intimidating. We know we are supposed to pray, we know that it is a part of discipleship, but what if we don’t know how? What if we find it difficult? That is a natural, common feeling, and nothing to be ashamed of. We all have to learn how to pray, ever since Adam and Eve lost that easy communion with God that is described in the book of Genesis, and part of our mission as a parish is to teach and guide us in fostering a growing prayer life. Today, on this second Sunday of Lent, the Church reflects on Jesus’ Transfiguration. This is a story we’ve probably heard before: Jesus takes his closest disciples up the mountain with him, and is transfigured. His face shines like the sun, and he speaks with Moses and Elijah. Peter babbles on about building three tents, and then the voice of the Father interrupts him: “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” The reaction of the apostles is understandable. Imagine being one of the apostles, becoming familiar with Jesus and following him wherever he went, and then suddenly seeing him transfigured before your eyes, chatting with two of the greatest figures in Jewish history, both of whom have been dead for centuries. 1
Peter didn’t know what to say. He asked Jesus if he should make three booths for them. Booths in the Jewish world were portable shrines that denoted the presence of God, and this is what many scholars think Peter was thinking. James and John, on the other hand, were dumbstruck. And after God spoke to them, they fell to the ground in fear. These apostles who were closest to Jesus didn’t know what to do when they were confronted with the fact that they were in the presence of the Lord. This was a new experience for them, and they were clearly not comfortable with what was going on. This is not unlike the experience we might have when we first begin to develop a life of prayer. We may kneel down in the chapel or in our room, and feel uncomfortable, not knowing what we’re supposed to do. So maybe we just start talking without really thinking about what we’re saying. Or maybe we don’t say anything and we count the minutes until we feel we’ve been there long enough. Those are very understandable reactions when we are first learning how to pray. In these times, God gives us the same command that he gave the apostles two thousand years ago on that mountain, “This is my beloved son, on whom my favor rests: Listen to him.” When we kneel before the Lord, we can simply say to him, “Here I am Lord. I’m listening.” That’s not to say we then have to empty our mind, clear our thoughts and just concentrate on listening. We simply be still, and
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allow the Lord to move our heart where he wants it to go. If and when we catch ourselves being distracted, we say it again, “Here I am Lord. I’m listening.” The Lord will speak to us…eventually. One of the hardest things about sustaining a good prayer life is enduring those times when we feel like we’ve just wasted our time because we couldn’t feel the Lord’s presence. If you’ve ever felt this, don’t worry, everyone has felt this, it is a normal, natural stage in our prayer life. The most common reason for this is because our hearts are still divided. If we are in the habit of only coming to prayer when we need something from God, treating Him like a last resort, then our hearts are not ready to hear Him. Our next step, then is to practice other forms of prayer; for example, thanksgiving. “Lord, I am not here because I need something from you, I am here to thank you. Thank you for my life, thank you for my gifts, thank you for my family and friends, thank you for my faith. Thank you for every good thing that I have. You have given them all to me, more than I could ever ask for, and I thank you.” Or we go to Him in adoration. “Lord, you are the Creator of the universe. You are the Author of life. And yet you suffered on the cross to free me from my sins. You are so good, and so loving, and so merciful. I adore you and I worship you.” We do this not because God needs to hear these things; He doesn’t. But we need to say them in order to tune our hearts to hear His voice, to put ourselves in a place
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where we recognize to whom we are speaking, and so be able then to listen. We need to come to the place where we do not need to receive something when we pray, we do not need to feel something in order to think that we didn’t just waste our time by spending it in prayer. When we are compelled to pray because we feel the need to thank and praise God, and understand that it was right for us to do that regardless of what we received, then we are ready to hear the Lord’s voice. Taking this step can be a difficult thing to do. We are pulled in so many different directions, and it is so easy to fill our days without hardly a thought to spending time thanking God or praising Him in prayer. Or it may occur to us at an inopportune time, when we are in the middle of some task. We can even start to think that prayer is a luxury that we can’t afford. These are temptations we must overcome. Even ten minutes a day spent in prayer to God can radically open our hearts to Him. Finding those ten minutes, slowing down our lives and listening to Christ, is really the purpose of what we do during Lent. We cut something out of our lives, something that we have grown attached to, something that we like to do, in order to remind ourselves that God should come first. We celebrate the stations of the cross to remind ourselves of what Christ was willing to do to show his love for us. All of this so that we can slow down and give ourselves a chance to spend time alone with God and orient our lives towards Him. 4
As I mentioned last week, we offer a number of ministries here at the parish that are designed specifically to help you develop a habit of prayer, and I want you to have the opportunity to learn more about them and perhaps give them a try. Next weekend is the anniversary of our adoration chapel here at St. Gabriel’s, and so we’re going to use that occasion to celebrate these ministries with our first Prayer Fair. After all the Masses, they will be present in the Social Hall/Community Room so you can ask questions and discern if God is inviting you to grow closer to Him through these ministries. You’re also going to receive a pledge card in the mail, and be invited to put down in writing what step you’re going to take in developing your life of prayer. You’ll be invited to bring those cards back and put them in the offertory, and we’ll place them at the foot of the altar and make them part of the offering of the Eucharist. Don’t let this opportunity to develop your prayer life slip by. Let us all, as a parish, take our next step, and deepen the relationship that we have with our loving God.
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