Prayer of Petition

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. Everyone who asks receives; everyone who seeks finds; everyone who knocks will have the door opened.

“Is there any among you who would hand his son a stone when asked for bread? Or would hand him a snake when asked for a fish? If you then, evil as you are, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

“So always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that is the Law and the prophets” (Matt. 7:7-12).

Two ways of coming to know God are petition and thanksgiving. These are two ways of praying which please God, especially when we do so with rectitude of intention.

We spend a good part of our lives asking for things from people who have more than we have, or who have greater knowledge than ourselves. We ask because we are in need.

Often the act of asking is the only contact we have with some people. If we never asked for anything, we would end up in a sort of vacuum, in a kind of false, impoverished self-sufficiency.

The most important part of our life and of our being involves our asking and our giving. When we ask for things, we acknowledge that we are in need. When we give, we become aware of the limitless riches God has placed in our hearts.

The same thing happens in our relationship with God. A large part of our relationship with Him is shaped by our petition, the rest depending on our gratitude towards Him.

When we ask Him for things, we are admitting and confessing our radical insufficiency. Asking makes us humble; what's more, we give Our God the opportunity of showing us that He is Our Father. In this way we come to know of the love that God has for us.

St. Teresa of Ávila said that when we ask God for great things, it pleases Him greatly because it shows our confidence in Him.

We are told in this passage of the Gospel, “If someone asks for bread, will you give him a stone? ... How much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?” (cf. Matt. 7:9, 11). The emphasis there is on the word “more.”

“Our God cannot be outdone in generosity” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, Point 623).

There's a story of a mother who went to a retreat once. She was looking for some idea because she saw that certain things weren't as good as they could be in her family life.

Her children were complaining about the food; they were taking things for granted. She was looking for some idea that she could improve the quality of life, and there was a meditation on detachment and poverty.

She realized, “That's what my children need. They need a good dose of poverty. I'm going to go home and give them a good dose of poverty.” That was her main resolution from the retreat.

She planned specific ways in which to put this into practice. She decided she would focus on making the bread last. So, Tuesday's bread was to last until Wednesday, and to get a little bit out of it on Thursday, and she would try and squeeze something out of it also on Friday.

She implemented this and there was consternation in the home. The children decided that was the last time that Mother should go to one of those retreats. But they thought they wouldn't say anything yet, because maybe by next week she would have calmed down on her resolutions.

But the following week came and again Tuesday's bread lasted until Wednesday, till Thursday, and they squeezed a bit out of it on Friday.

Mother was a bit more determined in her resolutions than they bargained for. But they decided they'd give her one more week.

But again, the third week, the same thing began to happen. Tuesday's bread lasted until Wednesday, but at breakfast on Thursday morning the 10-year-old decided he'd had enough, and he was going to say something. He piped up at breakfast and said:

“Mum, this business of poverty is all very well but I think you're forgetting something else that Our Lord said in the Gospel...which is, ‘When your child asks you for a piece of bread, will you give him a stone?’” Lessons were learned.

We should not be motivated in our prayer of petition by selfishness, or pride, or avarice, or envy when we make our request. If, for example, we're asking for help in an examination, if what we want is a material favor, or the cure of an illness, we should examine in the presence of God the true motives behind our petition.

From the depths of our soul we will ask Him if what we are requesting will help us to love Him more and to carry out His will better.

If so, we may then realize how unimportant is the thing we are about to ask for, the desired boon that has seemed to us as a matter of life or death, and we will consider that what we have so set our heart on is possibly not so important at all.

We will know how to bring our will into line with God's will, and then we can be sure that our petition lies in the right direction.

We can of course ask God to cure us quickly of an illness. At the same time, we must ask that if this does not come about because He has different plans—plans which are mysterious and hidden from us, but which are those of a Father—He should give us the grace we need to bear that particular suffering patiently, mindful of those words, “How much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?” (Matt. 7:11).

We can ask for the wisdom to draw out from that illness fruits which would be for the good of our soul and for that of the whole Church.

In those sorts of difficult situations, we can become powerhouses of prayer, sending arterial blood to the Holy Father, to those that need it.

The first condition for any petition to be effective is that we conform our will to God's will. God sometimes wills or allows things and events to happen that we do not want and do not understand, but which in the end will be of great benefit to us and to others.

Each time we make that act of identification of our will with God's, we will have taken an important step forward in the virtue of humility.

There are countless good things that God wants us to ask Him for, so that He can give them to us, material and spiritual goods, all of them ordered to our salvation and that of our neighbor.

The Curé of Ars has said, “Won't you agree with me, that if we do not receive what we ask God for, it is because we do not pray with faith, with a sufficiently pure heart with enough trust, or because we do not persevere in prayer as we should?

“God has never denied and never will deny anything to those who ask for his graces in the right way” (Jean Vianney, Sermon on Prayer).

We should always endeavor to pray with the confidence of children. Then we will seek to identify our will with that of Our Father God.

Our Lord said in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). That's what we should add to each petition: ‘If this is your will, Lord, then, it's my will. If it's not your will, then, it's not my will either.’

So, humility and perseverance in our petitions, because we don't want to affirm and insist on going ahead with our own projects in life; rather do we want to carry out God's will above all.

The Gospels present many cases of this, cases of childlike, humble, and persevering prayer.

St. Matthew tells us about a woman's petition which can be an example for all of us. Our Lord came to the district of Tyre and Sidon, the land of the Gentiles.

He was looking for a place for His apostles to rest, because He couldn't find such a place in the desert region of Bethsaida. He wanted to spend a few days alone with them.

As they're on their journey, a woman comes up to them with an urgent petition. In spite of her perseverance in her request, Our Lord keeps silent. “But he did not answer her a word,” says the Evangelist.

The disciples ask Him to attend to her request so that she will go away. She's creating a nuisance with her insistence.

But Jesus is thinking differently. After a while He breaks His silence; filled with tenderness at seeing her humility, He gives ear to her plea. He explains God's plan of salvation to her: “I was sent,” He says, “only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15:21-24).

It has been God's plan for all eternity. With His life and death on the Cross, He will redeem all men, but the spreading of the Good News is to start in Israel. Each of the apostles down the ages are to carry it to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8), to all men.

But this Canaanite woman, who almost certainly had little understanding of the divine plan, is not discouraged by His reply.

“She came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’” She knows what she wants and she knows she can obtain it from Our Lord.

Our Lord explains again to her with a parable what He has just said: “‘It's not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.’”

The children were the people of Israel, and she did not belong to them. The hour of the Gentiles had not yet come.

But the woman does not give up in her determination. Her faith increases and overflows. She brings herself into the parable with great humility, like one more character in it: “‘Yes, Lord,’ she says, ‘yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table.’”

Such great faith, such humility, such constancy—all cause Our Lord to exclaim, “O woman, great is your faith!” And in a tone in which is mixed solemnity and condescension, He adds, “Be it done for you as you desire.”

The Evangelist is careful to note that “her daughter was healed instantly.” For this exceptional miracle, exceptional faith, humility, and constancy were necessary (Matt. 15:25-28).

Jesus always hears us, even when it seems that He keeps silent. Perhaps it's then that He listens to us most attentively.

Possibly He's urging us on—with this apparent silence—to make sure we have the right dispositions for the miracle to take place; so that we ask Him with trust, with faith, and without becoming discouraged.

When we feel we must have something, our prayer may often be the same as this good woman’s: “Lord, help me.” It's a great little prayer for so many needs, particularly those that have to do with the soul, which are so urgent for us.

But it's not enough just to ask. We have to persevere, like that woman, without giving up, so that our constancy may reach out much further than our merits.

“The prayer of the righteous man,” says St. James, “has great power in its effects” (James 5:16).

And in the Old Testament, it says, “The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds” (Sir. 35:17).

A little girl was saying her night prayers, kneeling beside her bed with her mum. And she was saying, “God bless mummy and daddy and my brother and my sister and my grandmother…” and going through all the family.

When she finally finished her litany, she said, shouting, “And for Christmas, I want a bicycle.”

The mother said to her, “You don't have to shout. God is not deaf!”

She replied, “No, but Grandma is!”

Little children know how to make themselves heard. Our Father God has foreseen all the graces and help that we need, but He's also foreseen our prayer. He wants us to ask.

“Ask, and it shall be given to you. Knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Matt. 7:7).

We can recall all our personal needs and those of the people who live close to us. God does not abandon us.

We know that He always listens to us. If on some occasion He has not granted us what we have trustingly asked for, it is because it would not have been good for us.

St. Augustine says, “Look well on him who does not give you, when you ask for it, what would not be in your best interests” (St. Augustine, Sermon 126).

A little girl once asked Santa Claus for Christmas. Her father was an atheist. She asked for a hundred dolls, but she got one. And her atheist father said to her, “Well, your God didn't listen to your prayer, did he?”

She said, “Yes, He did. He said, No. God is my Father, He always listens, just like you always listen. But sometimes He says No, just like you. But that doesn't mean He doesn't exist.”

God always listens. He is the one who does know what is good for us. The prayer we offered with such insistence would perhaps have benefited us in some other way, at some time when we needed it more. Our Father God will have used it well.

St. Teresa of Ávila said, “He always gives us more than we ask him for” (Teresa of Ávila, The Way of Perfection).

So that our petition is heard more promptly, we can ask other people close to God for their prayers.

That's what the centurion from Capernaum did. He sent some elders of the Jews to beg Our Lord to come and cure his servant.

These friends performed their task well. They went up to Jesus and asked Him with great earnestness and fervor to go down with them. “He is worthy,” they said, “for you to do this thing for him.” Our Lord listened to their pleas (Luke 7:1-10).

When we do ask for prayers, it would be useful for us to remember, as we are told in The Way, “Next to the prayer of priests and dedicated virgins, the prayer most pleasing to God is the prayer of children and that of the sick” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 98).

We will ask our guardian angel as well to intercede for us and present our petition before God, because, Origen of Alexandria in his Treatise on Prayer says, “The special angel of each person—even of the most insignificant within the Church—as he always contemplates the face of God who is in heaven and sees the divinity of our Creator, unites his prayer to ours and cooperates as much as he can to obtain what we request.”

We can ask Our Lord for the grace to grow in our prayer of petition, to have a list of items that we want to ask God for in a regular way. From time to time, we'll change that list, possibly placing first and foremost, the needs of others or the needs of the Church, the needs of the Prelature, the needs of people around us, before our own personal needs.

“And he said to them, ‘Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey and I have nothing to set before him”; and he will answer from within, “Do not bother me. The door is now shut and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything”?

“I tell you though, he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him whatever he needs” (Luke 11:5-13).

“What can we expect from God, especially when we recognize that He doesn't owe us anything and that we don't deserve His grace and favor?” (Don Schwager, The Parables of Jesus: The Bothersome Neighbor).

Our Lord uses this illustration of this late-night traveler to teach His listeners an important lesson about how God treats us in contrast to the kind of treatment we might expect from good neighbors.

The rule of hospitality in biblical times required the cooperation of the entire community in entertaining an unexpected or late-night guest. Whether the guest was hungry or not, a meal would be served. In a small village, it would be easy to know who had baked bread that day. Bread was essential for a meal because it served as a utensil for dipping and eating from the common dishes.

Asking for bread from one's neighbor was both a common occurrence and an expected favor. To refuse to give bread would bring shame because it was a sign of inhospitality.

If a neighbor can be imposed upon and coerced into giving bread in the middle of the night, how much more hospitable is God who, no matter what the circumstance, is generous and gracious to give us what we need?

At the end of this passage, Our Lord repeats that startling claim: “How much more will the heavenly Father give?”

The Lord is ever ready to give us not only what we need, but more than we can expect. He gives freely of His Holy Spirit, that we may share in His life and joy. We need to try to approach Our Heavenly Father with confidence in His mercy and kindness.

St. Josemaría says, “The only thing we can do is persevere. Ask, ask, ask. Can't you see what I do? I try to put this into practice.

“When I want something, I get all my children to pray and I tell them to offer their Communions, their Rosary, so many mortifications and aspirations, thousands of them.

“And if we persevere with a personal perseverance, God Our Lord will give us all the means we need to be more effective and to spread his kingdom in the world (cf. J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 372).

Prayer of petition grew in intensity, because one of those conditions of prayer is perseverance which in Spain, we're told, was called stubbornness. Things work out after praying for many years.

“Long before the foundation of the Work, when I had those inklings,” said St. Josemaría, “that God wanted something of me, though I did not know what it was, I prayed some aspirations with great insistence: Domine, ut videam! Domine, ut sit! “Lord that I may see. May whatever it is that you want, that I do not know, come into existence” (Antonio Aranda, “A vocation accepted and lived in fidelity to God’s will” in Romana magazine, January-June 2000).

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we're told, “When Jesus openly entrusts to his disciples the mystery of prayer to the Father, he reveals to them what their prayer and ours must be, once he has returned to the Father in his glorified humanity.

“What is new is to ‘ask in his name’ (John 14:13). Faith in the Son introduces the disciples into the knowledge of the Father., because Jesus is ‘the way, and the truth, and the life’ (John 14:6).

“Faith bears its fruit in love: it means keeping the word and the commandments of Jesus, it means abiding with him in the Father, who, in him, so loves us that he abides in us. In this new covenant the certitude that our petitions will be heard is founded on the prayer of Jesus” (Catechism, Point 2614).

“Pray constantly,” says St. Paul, “always and for everything, giving thanks in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father” (1 Thess. 5:17-18; Eph. 5:20).

He adds, “Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints (Eph. 6:18).

For “we have not been commanded to work, to keep watch, and to fast constantly, but it has been laid down that we are to pray without ceasing” (Evagrius Ponticus, Practicus 49).

“This tireless fervor can only come from love. Against our dullness and laziness, the battle of prayer is that of humble, trusting, and persevering love” (Catechism, Point 2742).

It's interesting to see how the Catechism talks about the battle for prayer. It's a struggle, it's an effort to do many things.

“This love opens our hearts,” it says, “to three enlightening and life-giving facts of faith about prayer” (Ibid.).

We can turn to Our Lady, very sure that she helps our prayer. She will take our petitions and place them before her Son. Through the mediation of Mary, the Mother of God and Our Mother, we know that our prayers will be heard.

We can turn to her now and at all times, saying, “Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary,”—St. Bernard composed this prayer—“that never was it known that anyone who fled your protection, implored your help, or searched your intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, we fly to you” (Bernard of Clairvaux, The Memorare).

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

GD