Prayer: Action Verb!

I have been focusing on prayer a lot these days.  I think it is because I don't know what else to do during these times of trouble, unrest and worry in the whole entire world.

Pray is the only thing I can "do" because some how we all feel like we must DO something. And we forget that praying IS doing something.

Prayer gets a bad wrap at times. We are mocked when we earnestly tell someone in the grocery line, "We'll pray for them."  I don't know about you, but I don't ever tell someone that lightly. If someone is having a bad day or has told me about something bad happening in their life, I only tell them I am going to pray for them if I really mean it.  I don't appreciate when comedians on television make fun of me for saying I will pray for you.  Because, I WILL pray.

Praying is an action, the word is a verb so to pray is doing something, performing an action. It is not a word that sits there and looks pretty.  Like any action hero, PRAY is supposed to take off and fly.  It requires concentration and intent.  No superhero goes off flying around wondering what he's going to do next. He has  plan and puts it into action.

It states in the Catholic Catechism (2740)  Jesus is our model for prayer.  The prayer of Jesus makes Christian prayer an efficacious petition.  He is its model, he prays in us and with us. Since the heart of the Son seeks only what pleases the Father, how could the prayer of the children of adoption be centered on the gifts rather than the Giver?   Efficacious petition means it is successful in producing a desired result.

So Jesus has taught us how to pray effectively by modeling it himself.  He even told us how to pray by teaching us the Our Father.

But for us to understand prayer correctly means it's not all about memorizing and saying by rote.  The Our Father and the Rosary are not made up of magic words.  The words are meant to remind us to think upon God.   The whole rosary is prayed to make us stop what we are worried about, thinking about and think about how Jesus prayed in his lifetime. The mysteries are set up for us to see and walk with Jesus in his life and journey to the Resurrection.  Prayer is meant to help us 'see' God in his way. It is not about us getting our answer or what we want. It is all about forming our will to wait, to be patient, and most of all to TRUST in God.

Ah….trust.  Another action word, another verb that we have to act with!  Trust is also not a static word or sitting still.  It is a super hero word of action again like prayer.  Prayer and Trust are like flying and diving to a super hero!  They are words that get us ready to live life, to fight evil and love God.

So when you say you are going to pray, even if you are kneeling at your bedside, sitting in your favorite rocker or sitting in the pew at church, you need to remember you are not settling down to pray.  You are setting up for action!  You are doing something no one else can do because we all pray in a different way each person's prayer is important for God to hear.    Think of how we could change the world into beautiful peace if each of us would treat the word PRAY as an action!  We could literally save the world like any super hero.