Read­ing Time: 3 minutes

Introduction

Dear read­er, how was your week? I hope you were able to handle the dis­trac­tions that came your way dur­ing the week? Gradu­ally, you will get rid of them all. Do not be afraid to fail as no one has suc­ceeded all the time. Suc­cess is the dir­ect off­spring of fail­ure. Moreover, the worst fail­ure is the fail­ure to make attempt. Hence, if a per­son fails and gets up, then, that per­son is on the way to suc­cess. The king­dom of God is the king­dom of justice and love. Pray­er without justice is a total waste of time and an offence to the immens­ity of God. Pray­er and justice means

Among the Gos­pel authors, Luke gives more atten­tion to Jesus’ teach­ings on pray­er. He also men­tions Jesus at pray­er more than the oth­ers. In the early verses of Luke Chapter 11, Luke presents the core of Jesus’ teach­ing on pray­er. It con­sists of Jesus guideline or teach­ing on how to pray to his dis­ciples, a par­able on the per­sist­ent neigh­bour, and assur­ances that God hears our prayers.

What is prayer?

The request of the dis­ciples has made it neces­sary to enquire the true sig­ni­fic­ance of pray­er. Accord­ing to the Cat­ech­ism of Pius X, Pray­er is an elev­a­tion of the mind to God to adore Him, to thank Him, and to ask Him for what we need. Pray­er could also be private or pub­lic. Con­cern­ing the things to be asked in pray­er, the same Cat­ech­ism says the chief things we should ask of God are His own glory, our etern­al sal­va­tion and the means of obtain­ing it.  On the ques­tion wheth­er we should ask God for tem­por­al goods, the same Cat­ech­ism answers yes, it is law­ful to ask God for tem­por­al goods, but always with the con­di­tion that these be in con­form­ity with His Holy will and not a hindrance to our sal­va­tion. On the con­di­tions to make our pray­ers effic­a­cious, the Cat­ech­ism responds that the first and best dis­pos­i­tion to render our pray­ers effic­a­cious is to be in the state of grace; or if we are not in that state, to desire to put ourselves in it. Fur­ther­more, to pray well, we need recol­lec­tion, humil­ity, con­fid­ence, per­sever­ance and resig­na­tion. For the Cat­ech­ism of the Cath­ol­ic Church, humil­ity should be the found­a­tion of pray­er (cf. CCC n. 2559). Pray­er is both a cov­en­ant and a com­mu­nion (cf. CCC nn. 2562–2565).

Conclusion

Pray­er is not a form­al activ­ity. While we pray to under­stand, we should also under­stand what pray­er is and pray accord­ingly. Pray­er does not con­sist in series of requests presen­ted to God. Accord­ing to Jesus’ teach­ing, pray­er con­sists in recog­niz­ing God’s holi­ness and His rule over cre­ation. I wish you ful­fil­ment and spir­itu­al sat­is­fac­tion as you inter­act with God con­cern­ing your life and daily needs. God is already doing mar­vel­lous things in our lives. Be just and right­eous always (cf. Jas 5:16). As you enjoy the last days of the month of July, I wish you God’s abund­ant bless­ings. Be just and right­eous and God will def­in­itely take care of you. May God answer your pray­ers this week and always. Ask with faith, seek with cer­tainty, and knock with stead­fast­ness. You are a child of God and I am sure God will nev­er aban­don you. Enjoy your week and smile because God loves you. If you have died and ris­en with Jesus, then, you should be free to call on him (cf. Second Read­ing). Be anaideia in your pray­ers. As you pray to God to give you each day your daily bread, make sure you are work­ing hard to pro­cure your daily bread. As you do this, God will surely bless your sin­cere effort. May the Lord provide you your daily bread this week and always. Ciao! Sha­lom!

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE:
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I‑II-III)!! The reflec­tion for the 17^th Sunday is found in The Word of Life, vol. III, pages 396–419. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo
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