Father Groeschel's "The Paradox of Prayer"

Father Groeschel’s “The Paradox of Prayer”
In pursuit of the truth – www.cinopsbegone.com – Wednesday, August 31, 2011

“Rejoice always, Pray constantly, Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the Will of God in Jesus Christ for You.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

In this book “Praying Constantly”, we will examine some advice given by St. Paul… His command in his first epistle to the Thessalonians is to “pray without ceasing”, (v. 5:17, NAB).

The Paradox of Prayer

Ultimately, prayer – like everything that is good – is a gift from God. It is grace… True prayer always finds its source in God and is really a response to God’s reaching out to us, to His grace extended to us. St. Paul speaks very clearly of this in his epistle to the Romans:

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God”. – Romans 8:26-7

Here, St. Paul shows us that although prayer is our turning to God, it depends totally on God’s prior calling to us. Abraham Joshua Heschel, the twentieth-century Jewish religious thinker who attended the Second Vatican Council as an observer, once wrote:

“There is something which is far greater than my desire to pray, namely, God’s desire that I pray. There is something which is far greater than my will to believe, namely, God’s will that I believe. How insignificant is the outpouring of my soul in the midst of this great universe! Unless it is the will of God that I pray, unless God desires our prayers, how ludicrous is all my praying…”

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we find this idea stated in a very beautiful way using imagery from St. John’s account of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.

The wonder of prayer is revealed beside the well where we come seeking water: there, Christ comes to meet every human being. It is he who first seeks us and asks us for a drink. Jesus thirsts; his asking arises from the depths of God’s desire for us. Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.

These are startling words if we really stop to think about them. Here, the Church tells us that our prayer, which we often dismiss as insignificant or even empty, is not empty at all. Before we have even uttered a word, our prayer is already full of “God’s thirst” for us, of His love for us, of His desire to be in constant, intimate relationship with us. The moment we truly realize this about prayer, we are well on our way to “praying constantly.”… Prayer is often forgotten: God calls us to turn to Him in prayer goes ignored or unheard… “Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10 … end to chatter…

George H. Kubeck