23rd Tuesday - Prayer

 

 In today’s Gospel, we read that Jesus went up to the mountain to pray, and spent all night in prayer to God. On the following day, He chose the twelve Apostles.

With His example, the Master taught us the need for prayer. He repeated over and over again that is necessary to pray and not lose heart. When we recollect ourselves for prayer, we place ourselves at the source of living waters. There we find peace and strength necessary to continue, with joy and optimism along our path of life.

We do much good for the Church and for the world by our prayer. It is has been said that those who truly pray are like columns of the world, the props and supports without which everything would collapse. St. John of the Cross taught, “…even if it seems that nothing is happening, a little of this pure love is more precious before God and the soul, and does greater good for the Church, than all other works put together.”

Precisely, because prayer makes us strong in the face of difficulties, it helps us to sanctify our work, to give good example in our deeds, and to deal cordially and appreciate those whom live and work with us.

In prayer, we discover the urgency that is all the more pressing the further from God many in the world have become. St. Teresa of Avila echoed the words of a very learned man, who said, “the souls who do not have a life of prayer are like a ‘paralyzed’ or crippled body, which although it has feet and hands, cannot use them.”

Prayer is necessary to love the Lord more and more, so as to never to be separated from Him, without it, the soul falls into lukewarmness, loses its joy and the strength to do good. St. John Vianney used to say that all the evils that oppress us on earth come precisely from not praying, or from not praying well.

Today, let us resolve to imitate the woman of prayer, the Blessed Virgin Mary. May we resolve to turn to God with love and trust through our mental prayer, through our vocal prayers, and through those brief aspirations that come to mind, and let us have the joy of living our life close to Jesus, truly present here in the tabernacle, and whom we adore in Adoration, who enjoys our every thought and our ever sigh to be with Him, who loves us so much!