Yesterday, I was able to visit a number of the classrooms,
and I spoke about one of my favorite subjects and activities: prayer—different types
of prayer, different ways to pray, when we should pray, why we pray, and we
even talked about the five-finger method of prayer, how our fingers can remind
us for whom to pray.
We talked about the sort of prayer that asks God for help—help
for those closest to us, help for our teachers, help for those in charge, our
leaders, prayer for the week, the suffering and the sick, and prayer for
ourselves.
We talked about the sort of prayer which asks God for mercy
when we’ve sin. “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.”
We talked about the importance of offering prayers of
thanksgiving: thanking God for the gift of life, thanking God for the shelter,
food, and health, thanking God for the beauty of creation, thanking God for Jesus
dying on the cross for us and the gift of our salvation, and the church, and
the sacraments.
Lastly, we talked about the sort of prayer that most of us
probably don’t do enough—the sort of prayer that simply tells God, “I love you.”
“I love you, Lord”.
The more we love God, and express our love for God in our
words and actions, the happier we will be. The saints show us this over and
over. Their joy is great because their love for God is great.
Some people do not love God at all—they love money, and
fame, and pleasure, and power, but they do not love God—and deep down, they are
miserable for it. Some people love God only a little, and that’s a start—they know
about him a little, but God makes little difference in their life—and they go
from pursuit to pursuit, relationship to relationship, chasing happiness, but
never really finding it, because they don’t believe God is the source of happiness.
But Christians are taught by Jesus to love God with our whole heart mind soul
and strength. Love for God is to be the driving force of our lives, the motive
behind all our actions.
It is the reason I became a priest, it’s the reason I am
here right now.
And daily, many times a day, we need to reconnect with the love
of God, to call it to mind, to remind ourselves that love is to be the reason
for my decisions, my choice of words, how I treat people, what I do with my
time and my body.
As Jesus makes himself present at Mass today under the appearance
of bread and wine, express your love for Him. “Jesus, I love you. Lead me and
guide me.” For the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
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