VI — EFFECTIVE PRAYER

Fifth Sunday after Easter

Presence of God. — O Jesus, make me understand that my prayer is nothing if it does not rest on you; that my faith is vain if I do not translate it into works.

Meditation

1 — Through the Gospel of the Mass - taken today too from the discourse of the Last Supper - the Church continues to prepare us for Ascension and Pentecost. “I came forth from the Father and came into the world,” says Jesus; “again I leave the world and go to the Father”; here is the announcement of his coming Ascension to heaven; now arrived at the end of his ministry among men, Jesus presents it in synthesis as a great journey from the Father to the world and from the world to the Father. Thus returns the concept of “pilgrimage” that every Christian must apply to his life until he considers it as “one night passed in a bad inn” (T.J. Way 40, 9), with heart turned toward the radiant tomorrow of eternal life.

“The hour is coming when I shall no longer speak to you in parables, but shall speak to you openly of the Father.” Here is the announcement of Pentecost: Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, will illumine his Apostles, making them understand divine mysteries clearly, and the Father will no longer be unknown to them. All that we can study and know about the things of God is dead letter until the Holy Spirit gives us understanding of it. This is one more reason to understand how much we need Him and to desire his coming.

But besides this, today’s Gospel proposes another subject to us. Jesus, who more than once had instructed the Apostles on prayer and the way of praying, now teaches them the secret of effective prayer: “If you ask the Father anything in my name, He will give it you.” He is going away, but leaves them the sure means of finding access to the Father: to present themselves in his name, in the name of the God-Man who, having immolated himself for the Father’s glory and for our salvation, merits always to be heard “pro sua reverentia,” because of his piety (Heb. 5, 7).

2 — To pray “in Jesus’ name” means in practice to be convinced that our prayers, as moreover all our good works, none excepted, are worth nothing if they do not rest upon Jesus’ infinite merits. It means being convinced that, however much we do and pray, we are always “unprofitable servants” (Lk. 17, 10), that we have no sufficiency in ourselves, but that all our sufficiency comes to us from the Crucified One. The first condition, therefore, of prayer made “in Jesus’ name” is humility, an ever deeper and more realistic sense of our nothingness. But the second condition is unlimited confidence in Jesus’ infinite merits, which exceed all our indigence, misery, necessities, needs. We shall never ask too much in his name; we shall never be too bold in imploring the fullness of divine grace upon our souls, in aspiring to holiness - hidden, yes, but authentic - in view of what He has won for us. There are no infidelities and faults, evil tendencies and miseries sincerely detested, that Jesus’ Blood cannot wash, purify, forgive; there is no weakness He cannot heal, strengthen, transform. There is no creature of good will, however weak and small, that in Jesus’ name cannot aspire to holiness.

But a third condition is required for our prayer to be effective: that our life correspond to our prayer, that our faith be lived in good works. “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who beholds his natural face in a mirror and, after beholding himself, goes away and immediately forgets what manner of man he was” - this strong exhortation of St. James, reported in today’s Epistle, is an urgent call to the concreteness of Christian life. Prayer is vain, confidence in God is vain, if we do not accompany it with our generous efforts to fulfill all our duties, to live up to our vocation. We can and must hope for all things in Jesus’ name, but He asks of us continuous effort to be totally faithful to Him.

Colloquy

“Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, You who are kind, use mercy toward me, since what I could find most precious, devoutly I offered You; all that was given me to find dearest, supplicatingly I presented to You. Nothing has remained to me that I have not presented in holocaust to your majesty; nothing remains now for me to add, for to You I have sent my hope, I have sent my Advocate, that is your beloved Son. I sent your glorious offspring as mediator between You and me; I sent that Intercessor through whom I trust to obtain pardon. I sent that Word by You sent to repair my faults, and to You I set forth the Passion your most holy Son endured for me. This is the holy Victim I offer You to appease You and to have You favorable. Great indeed is my injustice; but far greater is my Savior’s justice. As much as God is superior to man, so much is my malice inferior to his goodness, both in quality and in quantity.

“What fault can man have committed that has not been expiated by the Son of God made man? What pride ever swelled so immeasurably that it cannot be cast down by so great humility? Truly, O my God, if one weighed in a balance the crimes of sinful man and Christ’s grace, one would find the difference not only like the distance from east to west, but like that which separates hell from the summit of heaven. Most excellent Creator of light, ah, forgive me my faults for the immense labors of your beloved Son! Grant, O Lord, that his piety may conquer my impiety; his modesty make satisfaction for my perversity; from his meekness may my irritability be tamed. His humility repair my pride; his patience my impatience; his kindness my hardness; his obedience my disobedience; his tranquility my restlessness; his sweetness my bitterness; his charity erase my cruelty” (St. Augustine).