In today’s gospel, the apostles ask Jesus to teach them to pray after they have observed him praying. I imagine they must have noticed something positive about Jesus when he prays. They desire that quality for themselves, and thus the request.
I ask myself what that quality may have been. It does not take long for me answer my own question using my own experience. When I am true to prayer, I tend to do a better job at keeping things in perspective . . . or maybe God does that for me. I tend to better remember that relationships and love are the things that count, not what I have or what others might think of me . . . or maybe God reminds me. In the best of my prayer, I seem to enter more deeply into relationship with God . . . what a gift from God!
How lucky can I be that simply by turning to prayer, I am connected to my God; the Creator of the entire universe, the King of all nations, the Lord of all people. So why am I not more true to prayer.
—David McNulty is the Provincial Assistant for Advancement, Chicago-Detroit Province Jesuits