11/5/21 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott

Photo Caption: The Annual Halloween Parade!

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family:

“I’ll keep you in my prayers.” “My thoughts and prayers are with you on your recent loss.” “Pray for me, will you?” “Our Lady of Peace, pray for us.”

If my life is in any way similar to yours I sometimes spend more time promising to pray for someone or asking another to pray for me than I get to actually pray. Even working in a Catholic school where I get the opportunity to pray daily with students and staff there are times, I have to admit, that while I am leading everyone in the Our Father I find my mind drifting to what I must remember to do once the day gets started.

When I engage in individual prayer I sometimes find myself being selfish and presenting God with a list of favors I would like Him to bestow on me or my family. As my memory clouds, especially at the end of a long day, I often forget the people for whom I have promised to pray.

As Christians we are, or should be, a people of prayer. In our Catholic schools we get to pray every day openly and as a community. Our athletic teams pray before competition begins. In those athletic moments, although we don’t like to admit it, part of our prayer asks that our child and team does well. Implicit in that is that we wouldn’t mind if God threw a victory our way. I wonder what side He takes when Watterson play DeSales?

There have been hundred of thousands of essays and books written about prayer from people far more knowledgeable than I am. It seems to me though, that for most of us our prayers are prayers, more frequently than not, is not a conversation with God or even an opportunity to listen to what He might have to say to us in the silence of our hearts, but more often either a rote recital of a prayer that we know, or a laundry list of requests, negotiation, and pleading with God about things important to us.

Asking that someone who is sick gets better. Asking that we do well on a test. Praying for patience and guidance and wisdom in our workplace or home. How many times have we turned to God for real assistance with real and pressing matters? And are our prayers, that is, our requests, answered in the way that we had hoped? If God truly listens to our wants and needs and we are good people who try to do His will then shouldn’t that sick relative get better or that promotion at work come through?

We know, of course, that God is not Aladdin’s Genie who grants us wishes because we happened to rub his magic lamp. So…if He isn’t going to do as we ask what’s the point?

I figure that the same God who created the universe and who populated our planet with millions of living species of plants and animals and who created people in His image and likeness does have a plan for each and every one of us. We don’t always know what that plan is and, if you’re like me, you frequently don’t understand it. I also think you can sabotage it with that pesky free will that God gave us. So, for me, when I am not totally consumed with my wish list, I concentrate on the word in the prayer that Jesus Christ taught us: ‘Thy will be done.” Because I really think that God has a plan for all of us and for me specifically. If I “Let Go, Let God.”

If I am really praying and not going through the motions, I take courage and confidence in the fact that God loves me and will ultimately take care of me, not so much with favors in this world but true union with Him and the Communion of Saints in the next. I feel confident that many of my loved ones who have passed are in that community of Saints. And so when I pray for others it is not as important to pray for a specific person and his needs but to ask God to allow that person to feel abiding love and support from God, no matter the temporal difficulties.

The other key phrase I zero in on with the Our Father is “Thy kingdom come.” At the end of the day that is what we should pray for. The assurance that this will happen for us and others should sustain us and be the real answer to our prayers.

Who wins the football game? The team that scores the most. A strong defense helps! Who wins in life? All of us who know and accept God’s presence in our lives.

Jim Silcott