HOW SHOULD WE PRAY?

“Let your speech be yea or nay! And when you pray, obey the same commandment! Do not pray in order to hear your voice, but pray because your inner being demands it. Dare to pray only when your soul stirs, be it in joy or sorrow. But every prayer out of presumption or habit is sacrilege to God! Let His Name be too holy for you to have It on your lips on every occasion!”  This admonition was issued to mankind by Jesus when He tread this earth.

When we pray, instead of seeking our selfish interests first, let us give ourselves. Giving ourselves when we pray!  That sounds strange of course. But that is the template Christ gave us when He lovingly gave us the Lord’s Prayer. Unlike the usual begging we are used to, the Lord’s Prayer contains mainly promises man makes to his Creator! These sentences: “Our Father Who art in Heaven!”, “Hallowed be Thy Name”, “Thy Kingdom come”, “Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven” –are actual promises to the Almighty which we should take seriously as carelessness in this regard have dire consequences.

For example, when we say “Our Father, Who art in Heaven!” we are in effect promising the Almighty: “I am here, Lord, to listen to Thee and to obey Thee like a child!”

And when we say: “Hallowed be Thy Name”, we are giving assurances to our Maker that we do not misuse God’s Name through superficiality, because we regard the Name of God as being too holy to do so!

 

How many of us think about these when we rattle off the Lord’s Prayer?

 

The very first petition “Give us this day our daily bread!”  comes only after the vows.   And the Grail Message gave the true meaning of this petition thus:

 

“When I have fulfilled what I promised, let Thy Blessing rest upon my earthly work so that, in attending to my physical needs, I may always retain the time to live according to Thy Will!”

 

The Lord’s Prayer teaches us how to live in accordance with the Laws of God and how to ask and what to ask for with the guarantee of being heard from above.

 

What should be paramount in our prayers should be our yearning for spiritual ascent as exemplified by the thief crucified to the right-hand side of Jesus. Compare this attitude to the attitude of the one on the left who was seeking an earthly relief from his predicament which he brought upon himself.

 

In the end, the foolish thief got no visible advantage while the wise thief got a firm promise of a place in paradise! One can decide the path to follow. It is either the path of those who make self-serving earthly demands and expect arbitrary actions from the Creator, or the path of repentance that pleads humbly for God's forgiveness and strength for spiritual ascent.

 

May we have the strength to pray aright and always seek what is really of benefit to our spirit. Amen.