8/11/09

Fr. Jozo speaks on Prayer



Message of July 25, 2009
“Dear children! Let this time be a time of prayer for you.
Thank you for having responded to my call.”

Here we have a very short message of Our Lady, and maybe we are more intrigued by its shortness than by the call itself. But, if we get into it a bit more deeply, we will come to realise that this message contains all the messages that the Queen of Peace has given in these last 28 years.

It is obvious that even after so much time we have failed to understand the importance and purposefulness of prayer. So, for some people prayer has become a pattern recited by heart, which they rattle off without being aware of the importance and beauty of the words. For some people prayer has become an obligation, which they fulfil at a precisely set time, with a routine ritual. There are even those for whom prayer has become a burden, and they themselves have become a burden to others, because they do not live what they pray.

Our Lady speaks about the “time of prayer”. She calls us to make a time of prayer out of every hour, day, and moment of ours.

We cannot ponder over this call without first defining what prayer is?!

– Prayer is seeking of God.
– Prayer is a dialogue with God.
– Prayer is surrender to God.
– Prayer is consecration to God (of oneself and others)
– Prayer is friendship with God.
– Prayer is living together with God.
– Prayer is singing praises to God.
– Prayer is exaltation of God
– Prayer is “filling the empty water-pots” like at Cana, and Jesus does the miracle.
– Prayer is the “place and time” of transfiguration – Tabor

The call to let “this time be a time of prayer” is a call for us to live our time with God, immersed into Him, that by living the experience of the meeting with Him we become a blessing for others. A Christian is a happy man because he has got something to give away! We are called to refresh the tired, to comfort the sorrowful, to nurse the sick, to feed the hungry… In order to be able to respond to this call, we should pray, fill our time with God and with the blessings He bestows on us abundantly.
By imbuing our time with God, we bring God into the time and space of our generation, and in this way people are being blessed. By imbuing our time with God, we are being enlightened, becoming so the beacons showing the right Way.

Our intentions for this month:

Let us pray for the gift of a pure and open heart so that God could make His abode in it.
Let us pray for the necessary gifts of the Spirit so that we could live the Glad Tidings and imbue with joy the time we live.
Let us pray for the young gathered at the Festival in Međugorje. Let us pray that they may be Mary’s army of praying people and joyful Christ’s worshipers, and to bear out that in our time, too, one can be Jesus’ disciple and witness. August 10, 2009

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