Day 330: The Revelation of Prayer (2566-2573)

• It’s Day 330!!

• CHAPTER ONE: THE REVELATION OF PRAYER

• THE UNIVERSAL CALL TO PRAYER

• ARTICLE 1: IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

• CREATION-SOURCE OF PRAYER

• GOD’S PROMISE AND THE PRAYER OF FAITH

• For all of humanity, man has been in search of God

• That is the reality

• Every one of us searches for something transcendent

• We are made for worship and relationship with God

• We don’t know that without God’s Revelation

• God is the initiator and calls us first

• Paragraph 2567 says, “God calls man first. Man may forget his Creator or hide far from his face; he may run after idols or accuse the deity of having abandoned him; yet the living and true God tirelessly calls each person to that mysterious encounter known as prayer. In prayer, the faithful God’s initiative of love always comes first; our own first step is always a response. As God gradually reveals himself and reveals man to himself, prayer appears as a reciprocal call, a covenant drama. Through words and actions, this drama engages the heart. It unfolds throughout the whole history of salvation.”

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we praise you and give you glory. We know that you are the one who has led us to this day. We know that you are the one who has guided us to this place. You have brought us to this moment, and you are with us in this moment. You are with us in this place. Lord God, please help us to never forget you, our Creator. Help us to never forget you, our Redeemer and Sanctifier. Help us never to forget that you are good, and you tirelessly call each of us to live in relationship with you at every moment and in every place. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• This is going to be YOUR favorite section

• Paragraph 2566 says, “Man is in search of God. In the act of creation, God calls every being from nothingness into existence. ‘Crowned with glory and honor,’ man is, after the angels, capable of acknowledging ‘how majestic is the name of the Lord in all the earth.’ Even after losing through his sin his likeness to God, man remains an image of his Creator, and retains the desire for the one who calls him into existence. All religions bear witness to men’s essential search for God.”

• CREATION-SOURCE OF PRAYER

• Paragraph 2569 says, “Prayer is lived in the first place beginning with the realities of creation. The first nine chapters of Genesis describe this relationship with God as an offering of the first-born of Abel’s flock, as the invocation of the divine name at the time of Enosh, and as ‘walking with God.’ Noah’s offering is pleasing to God, who blesses him and through him all creation, because his heart was upright and undivided; Noah, like Enoch before him, ‘walks with God.’ This kind of prayer is lived by many righteous people in all religions. In his indefectible covenant with every living creature, God has always called people to prayer. But it is above all beginning with our father Abraham that prayer is revealed in the Old Testament.”

• Even if people are not part of the Covenant, they desire to walk with God

• God desires that all people walk with Him

• IN FACT…

• God desires that all men be saved

• We know this to be true

• Even if they have no knowledge of the Covenant that God made with the people of Israel, even if they have no knowledge of the ways in which God has restored us to relationship in Jesus Christ, many righteous people have this kind of prayer

• The reality is that God does call us first

• When God calls Abraham, He is gradually revealing Himself to man and man to Himself

• Paragraph 2567 says, “God calls man first. Man may forget his Creator or hide far from his face; he may run after idols or accuse the deity of having abandoned him; yet the living and true God tirelessly calls each person to that mysterious encounter known as prayer. In prayer, the faithful God’s initiative of love always comes first; our own first step is always a response. As God gradually reveals himself and reveals man to himself, prayer appears as a reciprocal call, a covenant drama. Through words and actions, this drama engages the heart. It unfolds throughout the whole history of salvation.”

• Paragraph 2570 says, “When God calls him, Abraham goes forth ‘as the Lord had told him’; Abraham’s heart is entirely submissive to the Word and so he obeys. Such attentiveness of the heart, whose decisions are made according to God’s will, is essential to prayer, while the words used count only in relation to it. Abraham’s prayer is expressed first by deeds: a man of silence, he constructs an altar to the Lord at each stage of his journey. Only later does Abraham’s first prayer in words appear: a veiled complaint reminding God of his promises which seem unfulfilled. Thus one aspect of the drama of prayer appears from the beginning: the test of faith in the fidelity of God.”

• Remember the reality of the heart

• The heart is the place of decision

• The heart is the place of encounter

• The heart is the place of the Covenant

• From the heart flow all those choices between life and death, between saying YES to God and saying NO to God

• Every one of us is going to experience what it is like to know that God is here and has revealed Himself as faithful

• He has revealed Himself as the God of the promise

• He has revealed Himself as the God who loves us and then we walk through this life and it seems to us like these promises haven’t come true

• We may not feel loved 

• We may experience struggles, trials, and tests

• This is all the test of faith in the fidelity of God

• “Can I still trust God when things don’t work out the way I thought they would work out?”

• Paragraph 2571 says, “Because Abraham believed in God and walked in his presence and in covenant with him, the patriarch is ready to welcome a mysterious Guest into his tent. Abraham’s remarkable hospitality at Mamre foreshadows the annunciation of the true Son of the promise. After that, once God had confided his plan, Abraham’s heart is attuned to his Lord’s compassion for men and he dares to intercede for them with bold confidence.”

• What happens?

• Let’s listen to Fr. Mike recap the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis Ch 18…

• The more and more we get to know the Lord, the more and more we are supposed to be like Him

• The more and more we can be like God and have that justice, love, and compassion, the more we can live that out in relation to God

• Paragraph 2572 says, “As a final stage in the purification of his faith, Abraham, ‘who had received the promises,’ is asked to sacrifice the son God had given him. Abraham’s faith does not weaken (‘God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering.’), for he ‘considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead.’ And so the father of believers is conformed to the likeness of the Father who will not spare his own Son but will deliver him up for us all. Prayer restores man to God’s likeness and enables him to share in the power of God’s love that saves the multitude.”

• This is a process of purification, of leaning more deeply into the Lord because you have to choose more deeply in trusting God or trusting other things

• This is what God is going to do for every one of us

• God has already started purifying your faith

• God has already started making your heart larger

• God has already started bringing you through things that give you the opportunity to trust Him in new and deeper ways

• Abraham was tested many times

• Abraham’s faith has been purified so many times

• The depths to which Abraham has been called to trust God has been deepened so many times

• When God tests, He is not testing whether we will love Him or run away

• God is purifying our hearts so that we can learn how to trust Him in new and deeper ways

• So that we can learn to love God in new and deeper circumstances

• So that we can give God access to our hearts in ways that we could not do if He had kept us in a safe place or if He had not brought us to a place of desperation

• God allows these things because He knows that He can do something remarkable in those moments

• There is prayer that every human being can enter into

• Even if we don’t know who God is, there is some sense of God making us to be in relationship with Him

• As God reveals Himself and Abraham gets to know God more and more, Abraham becomes more and more like God

• First, he is more compassionate

• Then he has the prayer of intercession

• Then he is restored in some unique way to God’s likeness

• THIS IS WHAT PRAYER DOES!!

• Paragraph 2573 says, “God renews his promise to Jacob, the ancestor of the twelve tribes of Israel. Before confronting his elder brother Esau, Jacob wrestles all night with a mysterious figure who refuses to reveal his name, but who blesses him before leaving him at dawn. From this account, the spiritual tradition of the Church has retained the symbol of prayer as a battle of faith and as the triumph of perseverance.”

• THE BATTLE OF PRAYER

• If it’s difficult for you to pray, maybe you are doing something right

• Because prayer is a battle of faith and a triumph of perseverance

• If you are in the battle, stay in the battle

• DON’T GIVE UP!!

• PERSEVERE!!

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. MIke and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT…