- After the Ascension, the apostles went to the upper room and devoted
themselves to prayer.
Second Reading
- We will suffer at times for just being a Christian if we stand up for
God and his ways.
Gospel
- Eternal life is knowing God, knowing Jesus. We get to know God through a prayer life.
- As Jesus prays for us so we should pray
for each other.
The great commandment Jesus
tells us is to love God, love ourselves and love our neighbor. I would like to reflect today on how Jesus
showed love for his Father. One way he
showed his love for his Father was by being obedient to him, he followed his
Father’s will. Love has more to do with
decisions we make, following the will of God, than with feelings we feel. Jesus tells us we show we love God by making
a decision to follow God’s will in our lives.
That’s what he did. That is what
he is asking us to do.
Another way Jesus showed love
for his Father was by spending time with his Father in prayer. That’s what I want to focus on today, the
importance of a prayer life. If it was
important to Jesus, it should be important to us. The scriptures tell us Jesus was praying all
the time.
- It says Jesus was praying as John the Baptist baptized him.
- It tells us after being baptized, Jesus went into the desert for 40
days to fast and pray. His
encounter with the devil while in the
desert shows us that he knew the scriptures well. He
quoted them easily. If Jesus knew the scriptures well, so too
should we. We should spend
time with them during our prayer time.
- The scriptures tell us Jesus would get up early in the morning to pray
or stay up all night in
prayer.
When is it best for us to pray - morning, evening? Set a specific time
period for
prayer.
I pray in the morning. What works
for you?
- The scriptures tells us Jesus would spend time in prayer before
important decisions or important events. Are we doing
this?
- The Gospel today comes from the 17th chapter of John. In the whole 17th chapter Jesus
prayer is divided into three
parts. First Jesus prays for himself,
then for his apostles, and finally for all who would come to believe in him.
- The main point today is simply to
point out the prayerfulness of Jesus.
Prayer played an
important role in his life. If it was important to him, it should be
important to us. It was also important to his
apostles. We heard in the first reading
after the Ascension, the
apostles went to the upper room and
devoted themselves to prayer.
- Prayer should be important to us
since it was important to Jesus and it was important to his apostles.
Prayer is also the only way we
will truly get to know God. The Gospel
tells us eternal life is knowing God, knowing Jesus. How do we get to know God? Through a prayer life. Think of how do we as humans get to know each
other? We spend time talking with each
other, having dinner together and socializing with each other in order to get
to know one another. Its no different
with God. To get to know God we have to
spend time with him. We spend time with
God through our prayer life. It is the
only way we will truly get to know him - by spending time with him in
prayer.
This week we have been asking
people to pray the Novena to the Holy Spirit inviting the Spirit to come into
our lives in a more profound way. One of
the reasons we are doing this is because one of the gifts the Spirit gives us
is the gift of prayer. People then have
a greater hunger and thirst for developing a deeper prayer life. Another reason is for the spiritual renewal
of the parish. The spirit is the one who
renews us. So invite the Spirit in, open
up to him. Then we will begin to truly
know God and see him. We will have a
prayer to the Holy Spirit in the missals starting next weekend - Pentecost
Weekend. We plan on reciting this prayer
during the weekend Masses asking the Spirit to come down upon us so we receive
the gift of prayer and so we are renewed.
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