206. Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (B)

Meditations no. 568 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Jesus Christ gives us an example of prayer.

THE LORD had restored health to the people who came to him while he was in Capernaum. It had been a very tiring day. And yet we read in the Gospel that the next day, at dawn, when it was still very dark, he got up, went out and went to a lonely place, and there he prayed.

Jesus was praying in a secluded place, when it was not yet dawn, and Peter went out to look for him because many people were waiting for him (cf. Mk 1:36-37). What would the prayer of Jesus Christ be like, comments our Father. I am moved by this haste - at dawn, St. Mark notes - to dialogue with the Eternal Father and entrust to him the work of souls for a whole day that is beginning. St. Luke remembers something similar: he spent the whole night in prayer to God; and the next day he chose the Twelve Apostles. It was Christ’s prayer for the incipient Church.

In many places we see the Lord united to the heavenly Father in an intimate and trusting prayer. Jesus petitioned God and was heard. His friends knew this power of his prayer well, and they came to him. After Lazarus’ death, Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, but even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will grant it.” At the moment of Lazarus’ resurrection, Jesus, lifting up his eyes on high, said, “Father, I thank you that you have listened to me. I knew that you always listen to me.

He will pray for Peter before the Passion: Simon, Simon, he warns him, see that Satan has called you to breed you like wheat. But I have prayed for you so that your faith may not fail. And Peter was converted after his fall. He also prayed for the Apostles and for all the faithful, at the Last Supper: I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the Evil One (…). Sanctify them in the truth.

The Lord prayed for us, and we do not lack his grace. And after his Ascension into Heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father, he continues to pray for the members of his Mystical Body: he always lives to intercede for us. Jesus Christ always defends our cause before God the Father, and his prayer cannot be unanswered. “He is the Pontiff of our oblations and an advocate before the Father on our behalf: he prays for those who pray and supplicates for those who supplicate; however,” says an ancient Christian writer, “he will not intercede for those who assiduously do not pray through him, nor will he defend as his own thing before God those who do not put into practice his teaching that it is necessary to pray always without fainting.”

Let us listen again to our Father. It is very important - forgive my insistence - to observe the steps of the Messiah, because he has come to show us the path that leads to the Father. We will discover, with him, how we can give supernatural prominence to apparently smallest activities; we will learn to live each moment with the vibration of eternity, and we will understand more deeply that the creature needs those times of intimate conversation with God: to deal with him, to invoke him, to praise him, to break into thanksgiving, to listen to him or, simply, to be with him.

What our prayer should be like.

WHAT A JOY to think that Christ, who always lives, does not cease to intercede for us, and that we can unite our work and our prayers to his prayer! In this way, intimately united to those of Jesus, these works acquire supernatural value.

You and I want to attain holiness: that is why we have come to Opus Dei. And for this it is necessary that we identify ourselves with Christ, that we put on Christ: induimini Dominum Iesum Christum (Rom 13:14). We must all be ipse Christus, children of my soul: Christ himself; but each one has to see how he puts on that garment of which the Apostle speaks; each one, personally, has to dialogue with the Lord (…).

Therefore, what will you and I do (…)? To have a lot of contact with the Lord, to seek Him, like Peter, to have an intimate conversation with Him. Notice well that I say conversation: dialogue of two, face to face, without hiding in anonymity. We need that personal prayer, that intimacy, that direct contact with God Our Lord.

An ancient writer explains that “we would be more profitable if we understood what is the proper way of praying and put it into practice. He who tries to concentrate and puts all his effort into listening when praying, will end up hearing: here I am”. At times, however, our prayer lacks the humility, confidence, perseverance that it needs: let us ask the Lord to inspire us to pray as we should, according to the divine intentions; to make prayer spring from our hearts and present it to God the Father, so that we may be one with him for all eternity. Even more: that we make our whole life an offering intimately united to the Holy Mass, through the Virgin, as St. Josemaría did while holding the Holy Host in his hands: Holy Father, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you Jesus, Your beloved Son, and I offer myself in Him, through Him and with Him, to all His intentions, and in the name of all creatures.

The thought that Jesus Christ is waiting in the Tabernacle will prompt us to go there with confidence. Any person, no matter how small his dignity, demands that he be asked for an appointment before granting an audience. Then we must wait when we go to the appointment, make an anteroom, not lose our patience and come back another day. … And so on until that large or tiny personality, with whom we are trying to talk, appears. You will tell me that it is reasonable, and it is true, because each person has the right to have his work, the particular schedule of his life, respected. The fact is that you have to make an appointment and wait.

On the other hand-consider this, my son, and think about it many times throughout your life-when it comes to going to see God our Lord, to talk to Him intimately, it is so easy! … Jesus does not make us wait, we must not keep the anteroom: it is He who waits. It is enough for you to say: Lord, I want to pray, I want to deal with you!, and you are already in the presence of God, talking to Him. As if that were not enough, He does not cut your time: He leaves it to your liking. And this, not for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. No, hours, the whole day! And He is who He is: the Almighty, the Most Wise.

My children, if you turn these considerations around, you will see that your soul will be filled with joy. You can and must deal with God our Lord, who awaits you, who dedicates to you the time you desire, who will communicate his inspirations to you and who will also make use of your directors, when you have doubts, when you need to confirm some thought, some supernatural motion.

Prayer to carry out the apostolic mission.

Is not the life of man on earth a militia, and his days like those of a hired servant?

God expects much of us. “To raise the world to God and to transform it from within”, Pope John Paul II pointed out at the ceremony of canonization of our Father: “this is the ideal that the holy Founder points out to you. … He goes on to remind you of the need not to allow yourselves to be frightened by a materialistic culture that threatens to dissolve the most genuine identity of Christ’s disciples. He liked to reiterate forcefully that the Christian faith is opposed to conformism and interior inertia.”

There will be no lack of difficulties in the fulfilment of our apostolic mission. But we must not be intimidated or curbed by our desire for souls. The words of St. Paul at today’s Mass are valid for each one of us: if I evangelize, it is not a reason for glory, for it is a duty incumbent upon me. Woe to me if I do not evangelize! If I did it on my own initiative, I would be rewarded; but if I do it by command, I am fulfilling a mission entrusted to me.

How can we reach such a lofty goal? Following the advice that the Holy Father gave us on October 6, 2002: “To carry out such a demanding mission, however, one needs incessant interior growth nourished by prayer. St. Josemaría was a master in the practice of prayer, which he considered an extraordinary”weapon” to redeem the world. He always advised: First prayer; then, expiation; thirdly, very ‘thirdly’, action (The Way, no. 82)“.

There is no other remedy. Before each day that we begin to work together with Christ, to care for the souls who seek him, we have no other way than to go to the Lord: only in prayer will we learn to serve souls. This is how Peter and John, James and Andrew, and the other Apostles, and the disciples of the first hour, who had well assimilated the Master’s lesson, behaved. In the Acts of the Apostles, our Father writes, there is a scene that enchants me, because it contains a clear example, always current: they all persevered in the teaching of the Apostles, and in the communication of the breaking of bread, and in prayer (Acts 2:42). It is an insistent note in the account of the lives of the first followers of Christ: all, animated by the same spirit, persevered together in prayer (Acts 1:14). And when Peter is arrested for boldly preaching the truth, they decide to pray. The Church incessantly raised her petition for him (Acts 12:5).

Prayer was then, as today, the only weapon, the most powerful means to win in the battles of the inner struggle.

This is also the example of the Blessed Virgin. Ask Mary, Regina Apostolorum, to decide to share in those desires for sowing and fishing, which beat in the Heart of her Son. I assure you that, if you begin, you will see, like the fishermen of Galilee, the boat is full. And Christ on the shore, who awaits you. Because the fishing is his.