Jun 16 Tue
Should I keep on insisting in my prayer of petition?
We must consider Jesus' final recommendation to his disciples when he left them. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name. Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
We need to pray, lifting our hearts to God. He is watching us from heaven. We should ask him for everything we need. The Lord is infinite wisdom; He knows exactly what we need to become saints and apostles.
But God wants to be requested. He wants to be coerced. He wants to be won over by a certain persistent begging ... Be diligent, therefore, in prayer. Be constant in petition, and never cease asking.
“Our Lord knows perfectly well what our needs are, yet He wants us to ask with the same persistence as the people in the Gospel: Lord, if you will, you can make me clean; Lord, that I may see.
Ask the same way they did: they asked him for everything. I won't say that man's life should be spent in nothing but asking, for there are times when one sees the need to abandon oneself and one ceases to ask, but later on one comes back to it."
“I am moved by seeing how trustingly the people closest to our Lord treated him. Do you remember that Gospel passage? Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, Jesus said, and Martha and Mary couldn't forgive him for delaying. They said: Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
How confidently, how affectionately they talk to him! Prayer leads to that sort of familiarity!"
It is not enough to ask. We must be persevering in our petition, so that the constancy of our petitions obtains what our merits alone cannot. This was the case of the man in the parable who went to a neighbor's house to ask him for bread, with a poor sense of timing but with dogged persistence. Jesus Christ says: Because of his importunity, he will rise and give him whatever he needs.
“Ask, seek, and call out. Prayer, prayer, prayer! That is the way...
“Everything good comes from our Lord God, whose most loving Providence banks on our asking him time and again, with perseverance, for what we need. Besides, as we pray, we acknowledge how small and insufficient we are: alone, we can't do anything! … We have to pray a lot and abandon ourselves to the arms of our Father God. We have to ask stubbornly and persistently!"
St John Chrysostom writes: If somebody tells me that he has requested once, twice, three times, ten times, twenty times, and still has not received anything, I will answer: do not stop, my brother, until you have received it. Petition ends with the reception of the gift. Stop when you have received it. Rather, do not stop even then, but continue still. And once you have received it, give thanks for it.