134. Third Tuesday of Easter

Meditations no. 180 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The need for prayer of petition.

All you who fear God, both the great and the small, give praise to him! For his salvation and strength have come, the power of Christ. The Church continues to sing of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and, through the words of St Paul, she invites us to be filled with confidence. Because we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also come to life with him.

However, our Lord’s departure is now imminent. I came from the Father, and have come into the world. Again I am leaving the world and going to the Father. The time has come to think about Jesus’ final recommendation to his disciples when he left them. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name. Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

We need to pray, lifting our hearts up to God. He is watching us from heaven. We should ask him for everything we need. The Lord is infinite wisdom; he knows exactly what we require in order to become saints and apostles. Your heavenly Father knows that you need these things. But God wants to be besought, says St Gregory the Great. He wants to be coerced. He wants to be won over by a certain persistent begging … Be diligent therefore, in prayer. Be timely in supplication, and never cease asking.

Everything has its time. Our Lord knows perfectly well what our needs are, yet he wants us to ask with the same persistence as the people in the Gospel: Domine, si vis, potes me mundare (Lord, if you will, you can make me clean); Domine, ut videam (Lord, let me receive my sight). Ask the same way they did: they asked him for everything. I won’t say that man’s life should be spent in nothing but asking, for there are times when one sees the need to abandon oneself and one ceases to ask, but later on one comes back to it Nowadays, I ask a lot I keep on asking. After having abandoned myself in God’s hands for years, I now consider it better to ask.

I am moved by seeing how trustingly the people closest to our Lord treated him. Do you remember that Gospel passage? Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, Jesus said; and Martha and Mary couldn’t forgive him for delaying. They said: Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. My children, see what kind of greeting this is! How confidently, how affectionately they talk to him! Prayer leads to that sort of familiarity!

As we pray to God, we tell him that we trust in his infinite and omnipotent mercy. Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer, or removed his steadfast love from me; the Lord … bestows his riches upon all who call upon him.

Constancy in prayer of petition.

It is not enough to ask. We must be persevering in our petition, so that the constancy of our supplications obtains what our merits alone cannot. This was the case of the man in the parable who went to a neighbour’s house to ask him for bread, with a poor sense of timing but with dogged persistence. Jesus Christ says: I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him whatever he needs. Our Father comments: What more could you want? Heaven and earth will pass away before a single word said by Jesus Christ fails to be fulfilled!

Our Lord’s promise gives us fortitude. This is how he rewards us. Ask, seek and call out. Prayer, prayer, prayer! That is the way…

Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it shall be opened. The only method is perseverance. Ask, ask, ask. Don’t you see what I do? I try to practise this same spirit. When I want something, I get all my children to pray for it, and I ask them to offer their Communions, their rosary, very many mortifications, thousands of aspirations… If we each personally persevere, our Lord God will give us all the means we need in order to be effective in spreading his kingdom on earth.

If you, evil as you are, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the good Spirit to those who ask him!

Do you see how God treats those who persevere?

Knock, knock and it will be opened to you!

Our Father constantly encouraged us to persevere in prayer. Everything good comes from our Lord God, whose most loving Providence banks on our asking him time and again, with perseverance, for what we need. Besides, as we pray, we are acknowledging how small and insufficient we are: alone, we can’t do anything! That is why, in the Work, prayer has always been our only weapon: our atom bomb. We have to pray a lot and abandon ourselves into the arms of our Father God. We have to ask stubbornly and persistently!

St John Chrysostom writes: If somebody tells me that he has besought once, twice, three times, ten times, twenty times, and still has not received anything, I will answer: do not stop, my brother, until you have received it. Petition ends with the reception of the gift. Stop when you have received it. Rather, do not stop even then, but persevere still. If you do not receive it, ask to receive it. And once you have received it, give thanks for it.

Be confident: prayer is always fruitful.

Ours is a life of prayer. Our life of prayer is the only way for us to go forward.

Petitions are always effective. However unworthy the person, however imperfect the prayer turns out to be, if it is offered with humility and perseverance, God always hears it. If we persevere in prayer, although for some time it may appear that the fruits are slow in coming, in the end they will come in abundance. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects, St James teaches. Elijah was a man of like nature with ourselves, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth brought forth its fruit.

Like the man referred to in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, we have to rise early to seek the Lord who made us, and make supplication before the Most High. And as the Scripture goes on to say, we will open our mouth in prayer and make supplication for our sins; and if the great God is willing, we will be filled with the spirit of understanding. We will pour forth words of wisdom, and give thanks to the Lord in prayer. We will direct our minds and wills to meditate on God’s secrets; and we will make known the instruction of his teachings.

Prayer will make us God-like, humble and holy; and we will be able to work in all environments without danger. Da, quaesumus, omnipotens Deus: ut, quae divina sunt iugiter exsequentes, donis mereamur caelestibus propinquare. (Grant, we implore you, almighty God, that ever frequenting these divine mysteries, we may be able to attain the gifts of heaven. ) As a reward for our continued and persevering faithfulness to God’s mysteries, the Lord will generously shower on us the richness of his gifts. He will “divinize” us, in the good sense. Da nobis, quaesumus, Domine, perseverantem in tua voluntate famulatum; ut in diebus nostris, et merito et numero populus tibi serviens augeatur. (Grant us, we implore you, Lord, persevering attachment to your will, so that in our times the people serving you may increase in merit and number. )Let us persevere in God’s service, and we will see how this army of peace, this people dedicated to co-redemption will increase in number and holiness.

Let us turn to our Lady’s intercession. She is the teacher of prayer. See how she asks her Son at Cana. And how she insists, confidently, perseveringly… And how she succeeds. Learn from her.